Department of Government Efficiency

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, DOGE--day by day, Americans are getting more alarmed by the slash-and-burn approach DOGE is taking to basic government programs. Americans certainly want a more efficient government, but what DOGE and Donald Trump are doing is not efficiency. Instead, it is chaos. Americans did not sign up for chaos, that is for sure.

Americans did not sign up for DOGE to take its chain saw, for instance, to aviation safety. There was another near miss, this time in Chicago, in the air. Thank God no one was hurt, but this shows you the immense importance of having a fully staffed FAA.

How on Earth is it efficiency to fire aviation safety assistance or maintenance mechanics or people who help with safety inspections and repairs? But that is just what DOGE did. I can't imagine any American thinks that is efficiency.

The only thing that is going to accomplish, of course, is making flying less safe. It is going to lead to delays and mixups at airports.

And not even the 9/11 families who lost loved ones or were hurt as they rushed to the towers right after 9/11, not even these folks were safe from the DOGE buzz saw.

DOGE tried to ax the workforce for the World Trade Center Health Program. I am glad we pushed Donald Trump and DOGE to reverse.

Later today, I will join Senator Gillibrand, Representatives Goldman and Garbarino to reintroduce the bipartisan 9/11 World Trade Center Health Program reintroduction, 2 months after Elon Musk killed this program when he tanked the bipartisan funding bill in December.

Mr. President, 9/11 families deserve to be treated with dignity, with respect, not with the contempt we see from DOGE. And no good business operator would take this slash-and-burn approach DOGE is taking.

People's Social Security benefits are also at risk. Their ability to see a doctor is at stake. Their ability to put kids in daycare is at stake. The longer DOGE is allowed to rain chaos on the American people, the stronger the backlash will become.

And let's not forget, even by their most optimistic projections--and they have had to reduce them--the amount of money that DOGE will cut is far less than the amount of the deficit created by the huge Republican tax cut. So all this talk that they need to do this for deficit reduction is belied by their clinging to a whopping deficit creation by the tax cut.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source