DOGE Cost The Federal Government More Than It Actually Saved
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Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast. This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla, X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink. I'm your host, Will Walden. All right. Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Doge subcommittee. Notwithstanding the abject failure of the Doge enterprise inside the federal government and the epic breakup of Elon Musk and Donald Trump,

Here we are again, once again, in this committee. I'm grateful that the chairwoman showed, again, one of my favorite videos, which she showed on the first day of the subcommittee. I'm grateful because it highlights the work that we've been doing for decades to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, including work that I was intimately involved in as a budget examiner in the Office of Management and Budget, in which we actually eliminated waste, fraud, and abuse.

But unfortunately, as my friends across the aisle in the GOP and their Heritage Foundation witnesses are still trying to make DOGE happen yet again, the American people are over it. In fact, you don't have to take my word for it, a poll from just two weeks ago found that 67% of voters believe DOGE has done a bad job. That was just two weeks ago.

And in fact, when I told one of my friends that we were having another Doge subcommittee hearing, they asked, really, is that still happening? Because literally the American people are over it, except for that it's not funny because Doge has been used to wage a chaotic, destructive and ideological war against the American people and the vital programs that they depend on. But I'm going to turn to that in just a moment here.

Given everything that's happening in the world right now and with this administration, I don't think we can sit here and pretend like everything is normal because just four days ago, the president launched an unauthorized military attack in Iran without the consent of Congress, putting our troops and our bases in harm's way, as we saw just last night.

with the retaliatory bombing of one of our largest bases. And Madam Chair, I have actually been extremely grateful and wholeheartedly agree with your outspoken advocacy against this war. But like so many in this administration, so many days and weeks, this follows weeks of chaos here at home. As the president has deployed U.S. Marines and National Guard on our

own soil against our own people. His DHS secretary and federal officials shoved a U.S. senator to the ground. DOJ indicted a sitting congresswoman in this house for doing her job and tried to arrest a New York City official in a federal courthouse.

This is not only not normal, it is dangerous, it is anti-American, and it is anti-democratic. And so we're not going to sit here today and pretend like what this administration is doing is normal. And we're not going to sit here and pretend like DOGE is just some normal government program. It is a scam in service of a political agenda.

While we came to the table at the beginning of this whole process in good faith with real ideas, bipartisan ideas that folks have been working on for years and a desire to actually fix and modernize the federal government, what we've seen from DOGE is the exact opposite. It has so failed in its stated mission of saving money that even the president asked

if it was bullshit as Elon Musk was exiting the building. And if they want to talk about fiscal responsibility, while we're sitting here, they're still trying to pass a reconciliation bill across the aisle that would saddle taxpayers with $2.5 trillion in deficit spending.

And in the last few weeks, reports have revealed that DOGE may actually have cost the federal government more than it actually saved because of the mass firings, dismantled agencies, stolen data, lawsuits, agencies in chaos, agencies that are not able to do their basic operational duties. This is not efficiency. This is a scam. And that's not even to mention the completely reckless and needless suffering that DOGE has caused.

We're talking about millions of children and people across the planet who no longer will have access to food and medicine because of the very $9 billion rescission package that was just discussed. Thousands of veterans and public service servants here at home whose lives have been shattered and millions of Americans who've been impacted by the gutting of vital programs, including staffing, social security. And now they're here today to try to make the case for making it permanent.

Are you serious? Really, are you serious? I can't even believe my ears. So why are they actually trying to make DOGE permanent? Well, I think you have to look no further than the witnesses that they've called over the last several hearings, including today. We've got the Heritage Foundation and other authors and architects at Project 2025.

And so we have to be real about what this is actually about. It's not about efficiency. It's about a political agenda, an ideological agenda, about remaking the U.S. government, about remaking our economy and our society in line with a hyper-conservative worldview that is so

unpopular that even Donald Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 during the campaign. And now he's hired over 70 officials to try to enact it. And now they're trying to use this committee to make the case.

Now, they like to try to claim that they're taking on cancel culture and a woke agenda, but let's be clear, Doge and the folks who want to make it permanent are the actual cancel culture because they want to cancel anything that they don't like or they don't agree with, including your democratic rights and your freedoms, economic opportunity and education, LGBTQ plus rights, rolling back the clock on civil rights, canceling the history of black democracy.

Chicano and indigenous communities and stripping protections from our families and the healthcare, housing and food people depend on so that they can give more tax breaks to their friends.

But this is all part of a wider agenda that is now seeking to apply political purity tests to government programs and services, including both federal employment and, yes, veteran services. Let me repeat that again. Even veterans benefits. They want to apply political purity tests to your VA benefits.

Folks, this is not about efficiency. This is about eroding and privatizing our institutions, gutting programs that keep our people and our country safe. It's about rewriting history and remaking society to take us back decades, if not centuries. In short, it's about making this country less free, less democratic, less prosperous, and

and frankly, consolidating power under Trump and his allies who are becoming increasingly dangerous, ideological, and yes, autocratic.

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So we have to be clear-eyed about what is actually going on because this administration and its allies, if they are willing to arrest and indict elected officials who are just doing their jobs, including a U.S. senator and a U.S. congresswoman,

What will they do if we let them get away with it? We cannot and we will not remain silent. We have to continue to speak up, to speak out, and continue to stand together. I yield back.

Without objection.

And please take care of yourselves and each other. And I'll see you tomorrow.