{"id":9696,"date":"2025-02-13T14:43:29","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T06:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=9696"},"modified":"2025-02-14T09:48:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T01:48:46","slug":"first-doge-committee-hearing-becomes-referendum-on-elon-musk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=9696","title":{"rendered":"First DOGE committee hearing becomes referendum on Elon Musk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The star of the first Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee hearing in the House Wednesday was an individual not in attendance: Elon Musk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrats on the panel took intense aim at Musk, who is heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative under President Trump, accusing him of breaking the law in his quest to eliminate spending he deems wasteful and analyze government payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile we\u2019re sitting here, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are recklessly and illegally dismantling the federal government, shuttering federal agencies, firing federal workers, withholding funds vital to the safety and well-being of our communities and hacking our sensitive data systems,\u201d ranking member Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) said. She repeatedly said Musk should testify under oath before the panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Republicans on the subcommittee, which is chaired by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), fiercely defended Musk\u2019s actions even in the wake of federal judges attempting to stop some of his actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greene said a ruling blocking DOGE from accessing the Treasury Department\u2019s payment systems was \u201cabsurd.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Greene issued a warning: \u201cWe will hold this judge and others who try to stop the will of the people and their elected leaders accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe whole D.C. swamp is freaking out that the unelected officials from DOGE were allowed access to these systems. That makes no sense,\u201d Greene said. \u201cFederal judges were not elected. The Treasury bureaucrats were not elected, and they have failed to fix the problem that is enabling American taxpayers to be robbed. So why not bring in skilled outside experts like private companies and private citizens who were successful in the real world to do everyday work that we need to get done here, like audits?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The topic of the hearing was related to that recent DOGE effort, aimed at \u201cstamping at the scourge of improper payments and fraud.\u201d And while Greene said \u201cthis is not a time for political theater and partisan attacks,\u201d the big personalities on the panel came through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) took a swipe at Musk by making reference to Greene previously showing censored intimate photos of Hunter Biden, former President Biden\u2019s son, in a hearing in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the last Congress, Chairwoman Greene literally showed a d\u2011\u2011\u2011 pic in an Oversight congressional hearing, so I thought I\u2019d bring one as well,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A staff member for Garcia then pulled out a poster board with a photo of the DOGE head. \u201cNow this, of course, we know, is President Elon Musk,\u201d the congressman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though some Democrats initially signaled openness to the idea of DOGE in the aftermath of the 2024 election, Musk and his effort have since become a major source of outrage and a symbol of everything they dislike about the Trump administration, leaving them little appetite for working with the GOP on much of anything in Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe should in no way be cooperating with House Republicans who want to shut down the Department of Education and destroy Medicare and Medicaid, and should not stand by as the richest man on the planet gives himself and his companies huge tax cuts, while the American people can [do] absolutely nothing,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) put the goal of Democrats simply: \u201cIt is time for us to do our job and rein in this rogue actor known as Elon Musk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hearing did get into some discussion of the technicalities of improper payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Witness Haywood Talcove, the CEO for Government at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, estimated that implementing front-end identity verification, eliminating self-certification and monitoring the back end of the programs could save $1 trillion annually across federal, state and local governments. That, he said, could take a fraud rating of around 20 percent to around 5 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe gravy train for a lot of these folks, it\u2019s been on biscuit wheels and it\u2019s about to run off the dadgum tracks,\u201d quipped Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But another witness dinged the Trump administration\u2019s actions for potentially hurting efforts to combat waste, fraud and abuse by firing inspectors general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt seems to me that if an administration were serious about wanting to root out waste, fraud and abuse, they would support and resource whistleblowers and inspectors general, they would not demonize them, and they would certainly not fire them en masse in an unlawful midnight purge,\u201d said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, director of government affairs at the Project on Government Oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greene promised that in the coming days the subcommittee would release a report with suggested legislative solutions to many of the problems identified in the hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Stansbury signaled that more big moments could be coming in future hearings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are going to have so much fun in this committee this Congress,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The star of the first Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee hearing in the House Wednesday was an individual not in attendance: Elon Musk. Democrats on the panel took intense aim at Musk, who is heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative under President Trump, accusing him of breaking the law in his quest to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":9697,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2872,1744,2603],"class_list":["post-9696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-doge","tag-federal","tag-musk"],"yoast_head":"\nFirst DOGE committee hearing becomes referendum on Elon Musk - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=9696\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"First DOGE committee hearing becomes referendum on Elon Musk - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The star of the first Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee hearing in the House Wednesday was an individual not in attendance: Elon Musk. 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