Hill Repub­li­cans get to know DOGE — and the busi­ness titans run­ning it

Musk and Ramaswamy swept through the Capi­tol to share their vision for the so-called Depart­ment of Gov­ern­ment Effi­cien­cy, a com­mis­sion that will rec­om­mend cost-sav­ing mea­sures to Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump.

The pan­el is designed to give the White House a menu of actions it can take on its own, with­out inter­ven­tion by Con­gress. But uni­fied con­trol of Wash­ing­ton has prompt­ed Repub­li­cans to set up their own cau­cus­es that will help facil­i­tate the roll­back.

In the morn­ing, Ramaswamy met with the Sen­ate DOGE Cau­cus, billed as a “lis­ten­ing” ses­sion where Sen. Joni Ernst (R‑IA), the chair­woman, unveiled a report accus­ing “tele­work­ing bureau­crats” of receiv­ing more than their fair share of fed­er­al pay.

Sen. Mar­sha Black­burn (R‑TN) pub­licly announced leg­is­la­tion that would freeze fed­er­al hir­ing and move agency head­quar­ters out of Wash­ing­ton.

“It was a real­ly good meet­ing. Lots of good ideas. Vivek was lis­ten­ing, we offered a few sug­ges­tions,” said Sen. Tedd Budd (R‑NC), a mem­ber of the cau­cus.

In the after­noon, Musk and Ramaswamy con­vened Repub­li­cans in the House and Sen­ate to solic­it ideas on how to reduce the deficit, mak­ing only brief intro­duc­to­ry remarks before open­ing the floor to law­mak­ers.

“They were not there to lec­ture,” said Rep. Dusty John­son (R‑SD), the chair­man of the Repub­li­can Main Street Cau­cus. 

The flur­ry of activ­i­ty rep­re­sents an ear­ly oppor­tu­ni­ty for law­mak­ers to get to know two of the most pow­er­ful men in Trump’s orbit. Musk, the bil­lion­aire founder of Tes­la and SpaceX, has become a fix­ture at his side since help­ing him win elec­tion to a sec­ond term.

Ramaswamy is an out­spo­ken sur­ro­gate for Trump who made his for­tune in the biotech space.

Each has no ulti­mate say in what sort of cuts the White House makes, but they plan to work close­ly with Trump’s Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get to enact a sweep­ing dereg­u­la­to­ry agen­da.

Repub­li­can lead­er­ship wel­comed the vis­it by Musk and Ramaswamy, with House Speak­er Mike John­son (R‑LA) prais­ing them as dis­rup­tors who would bring about “a new day in Wash­ing­ton and a new day in Amer­i­ca.”

Through­out the day, they held meet­ings with John­son and oth­er key deci­sion-mak­ers that were described as gen­er­al in nature.

“We did not go through any kind of list of cuts or any­thing like that,” Sen. Susan Collins (R‑ME), the incom­ing chair­woman of the Sen­ate Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, said of her meet­ing with Musk.

Incom­ing Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader John Thune (R‑SD) also host­ed Musk, son in tow, in the morn­ing at his Sen­ate office.

Con­gress could be a part­ner that helps down­size the fed­er­al bud­get. Repub­li­cans are already con­sid­er­ing ways to claw back funds passed by Democ­rats over the last four years, includ­ing uncom­mit­ted mon­ey in the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act.

“We have a win­dow, and we have rec­on­cil­i­a­tion as a tool, and we need to uti­lize that,” said Rep. Jodey Arring­ton (R‑TX), the chair­man of the House Bud­get Com­mit­tee. “That’s why I’m excit­ed, and that’s why these guys are going to play a good role in that.”

But the pro­pos­als offered by Musk and Ramaswamy have also raised con­cerns that DOGE will end up on a col­li­sion course with Con­gress. The two pub­lished an op-ed the oth­er week teas­ing they could ignore the spend­ing lev­els set by appro­pri­a­tors to accom­plish a lean­er fed­er­al bud­get.

Collins is among the law­mak­ers opposed to that prospect, specif­i­cal­ly barred by the Impound­ment Con­trol Act of 1974.

“I remem­ber when Richard Nixon impound­ed funds that Con­gress appro­pri­at­ed, and to me, that vio­lates the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers,” she said.

Oth­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly Trump’s con­gres­sion­al allies, were open to the step if it helped the com­mis­sion be effec­tive.

“We have such a huge spend­ing prob­lem in Wash­ing­ton, we got to do some­thing out­side the box to fix it,” said Sen. Bill Hager­ty (R‑TN), a Sen­ate appro­pri­a­tor. “So, I’m going to be sup­port­ive of every­thing they do to try to address this issue.”

It remains to be seen whether Musk and Ramaswamy, “out­side advis­ers” to Trump with no for­mal pow­er of their own, will be able to enact real reforms. Past pres­i­dents have con­vened com­mis­sions only for their rec­om­men­da­tions to go ignored.

But Democ­rats see a con­flict of inter­est in Trump choos­ing Musk, whose com­pa­nies rely in part on fed­er­al dol­lars to oper­ate. On Wednes­day, Ramaswamy drew scruti­ny for denounc­ing a “last-minute spend­ing spree” by the Biden admin­is­tra­tion that includ­ed a $6.6 bil­lion loan to elec­tric vehi­cle mak­er Riv­ian.

Riv­ian is a rival to Musk’s auto­mo­tive com­pa­ny Tes­la.

“The bot­tom line is, Elon Musk is in a del­i­cate posi­tion here,” said Sen­ate Major­i­ty Whip Dick Durbin (D‑IL), who not­ed that Tes­la has accept­ed fed­er­al dol­lars.

Thursday’s meet­ings were lim­it­ed to Repub­li­cans, who will con­trol both cham­bers of Con­gress and the White House next year. But John­son and Musk have called for Demo­c­ra­t­ic involve­ment as con­ver­sa­tions progress.

So far, four Democ­rats have signed on to the DOGE Cau­cus in the House.

Part of the allure has been Musk’s stat­ed open­ness to cuts in Pen­ta­gon spend­ing, with Democ­rats gen­er­al­ly in favor of a slim­mer defense bud­get. In their op-ed, Musk and Ramaswamy not­ed that the Defense Depart­ment has failed sev­en straight audits.

Mean­while, defense hawks have not dis­missed his pro­pos­als out of hand.

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Collins pre­dict­ed that Con­gress could still raise defense spend­ing while iso­lat­ing “sav­ings” with­in the bud­get.

“I have said for some time that I think we need to take a hard look at defense pro­cure­ment. It’s encrust­ed with bureau­cra­cy,” she said.