DOGE’s Musk, Ramaswamy try to sell Congress on huge spending cuts

WASHINGTON — Entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have an bold agenda to chop federal spending with the assistance of their exterior advisory council, the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE).

However on their first joint go to to Congress on Thursday, the pair additionally possible noticed a few of the limits of out of doors affect on the workings of the legislative department.

Crisscrossing Capitol Hill collectively on a marathon day of conferences with lawmakers, Musk and Ramaswamy obtained heat welcomes from Republicans.

Their total message was standard, too: A smaller federal authorities, looser laws and a personal sector method to the general public sector have lengthy been cornerstones of conservative governance.

However there was additionally an elephant within the rooms they visited: An unstated understanding that Musk’s acknowledged objective of slashing federal spending by $2 trillion is already DOA.

The rationale for this comes right down to math.

In fiscal 2023, for instance, the federal authorities spent a complete of $6.1 trillion, in accordance with the nonpartisan Congressional Price range Workplace.

Of that $6.1 trillion, about $3.8 trillion was already off limits for cuts on day one, legally obligated to go towards obligatory spending applications like Social Safety advantages for retired employees, Medicare protection and veterans advantages.

After that, roughly $650 billion was put aside to pay the curiosity on the nationwide debt.

This left $1.7 trillion for every little thing else, referred to as discretionary funding. $805 billion of this was spent on nationwide protection, a largely untouchable pot of cash. Lastly, the remainder was divided up among the many federal departments that carry out a lot of the seen, day by day work of presidency, businesses like FEMA, NASA, and Customs and Border Safety.

Whereas Musk and Ramaswamy went from assembly to assembly, Republicans near the federal government funding course of, like Home Appropriations Committee member Rep. Steve Womack, Ark., mentioned that whereas some cuts have been attainable, the $2 trillion that Musk talks about would possible be a bridge too far.

“If you are going to depart the social security web applications alone and never contact them, meaning you are going to attempt to lower a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} out of discretionary spending” if you wish to obtain huge, DOGE-style reductions, he informed CNBC in an interview.

“It could be very tough to do this with out chopping nationwide safety,” mentioned Womack.

Even proposing small cuts or modifications to obligatory applications like Social Safety, Medicare or Medicaid can show politically harmful for members of Congress who should run for reelection each few years.

Nonetheless, some Republicans are open to contemplating restricted reforms to those applications. Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise of Louisiana, for instance, mentioned he was open to exploring potential work necessities for Medicaid recipients, and requiring stricter verification for Social Safety advantages.

“These are the sorts of issues that we’re additionally going to be ,” Scalise informed reporters after his assembly with Musk and Ramaswamy.

Home Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., saved expectations low, saying Thursday’s conferences with Musk and Ramaswamy have been “brainstorming” classes, an opportunity to drift some concepts with no stress to succeed in a consensus.

Solely when Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes workplace in January, and Senate Republicans take management of their chamber, can plans actually start to maneuver forward.

Reducing spending won’t be simple. Johnson’s hair’s breadth of a vote margin means he’ll solely have the ability to afford a couple of defections from his convention on any given invoice, and nonetheless go it on a party-line vote.

Some Republicans have begun to coalesce round a distinct strategy to lower authorities prices: by requiring federal workers to come back again to the workplace in particular person 5 days per week. 

“One of many issues I am most enthusiastic about is requiring individuals to point out up for work,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, informed reporters. “And if they do not, then they will voluntarily depart and we will save some huge cash.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the Senate’s high appropriator, additionally embraced the concept of calling federal workers again into the workplace. “It is superb to stroll by way of some federal buildings,” she mentioned, “and it is simply empty places of work in every single place.”

“If the federal authorities’s actually going to alter the best way individuals work, then we have [to address the] extra buildings and area,” mentioned Collins.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who leads the newly created Senate DOGE Caucus, additionally highlighted the problem of underutilized federal workplace area as a result of worker telework in a new report she unveiled Thursday on the first Senate DOGE Caucus assembly.

“Over $81 million is being wasted yearly for the underutilized authorities workplace area alone,” the report discovered.

But findings like this additionally serve to underscore how restricted the impression of modifications to federal workplace area could be on the large spending cuts that Musk is searching for.

Nonetheless, the concept is gaining steam within the GOP. Federal return-to-work insurance policies have been probably the most continuously talked about instance of potential value chopping by Republicans who spoke with CNBC on Capitol Hill this week.

It isn’t clear but whether or not federal workers would stop en masse in the event that they have been pressured to come back again into the workplace 5 days per week, thereby releasing up their present salaries for different makes use of.

What is evident, nevertheless, is that unions representing a whole bunch of hundreds of federal employees nationwide are gearing as much as struggle any effort to alter their members’ working situations.

For the DOGE staff, these battles might current a complete new set of challenges.

Correction: This story has been up to date to appropriate the title of the U.S. Customs and Border Safety company.