Department of Government Efficiency

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, it looks like my timing is exquisite because I came down here to talk about something that I think has sort of fallen off the radar screen here in recent weeks, and that is the work of the Department of Government Efficiency, one of the most important developments that I think we have seen with the advent of President Trump's ascension to the Office of President.

It is amazing to me to listen to my Democratic colleagues talking like Chicken Little: ``The sky is falling.'' I heard the Senator from Rhode Island suggest that we are trying to privatize Social Security. There is no one--absolutely no one--suggesting that. This is what is called a straw man. You erect a phony argument, and you knock it down, and you claim victory.

The truth is, Mr. Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency should be applauded for their efforts to root out waste, fraud, and abuse. You would think taxpayers--the same taxpayers our colleagues represent in their States--would applaud this effort.

I can't think of a more difficult but important goal than helping the government find efficiencies and reduce spending, because if we reduce spending, two things happen: Either we reduce the taxes that are taken from the hard-working families and produce the revenue by which government operates or we eliminate or reduce the amount of debt that the Federal Government accrues, which right now is at an unsustainable level. To me, both of those things are positive: limiting the amount of money that comes from the taxpayer or--and maybe it is ``and''-- reducing the government debt.

The problem with runaway spending by the government, of course, is not a new one, but it has been getting increasingly worse, particularly during the last 4 years of the Biden administration. The truth is, it has taken us a long time to get to $37 trillion in debt, but it has now reached the point of unsustainability. We are spending more money on interest on the national debt than we are on defense in an increasingly dangerous world. That alone is unsustainable.

Ronald Reagan described our spending problem back in 1984, when he said these famous words, ``We could say they spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors,'' which just about sums it up.

For somebody like Elon Musk, who is reportedly one of the most wealthy--maybe, the most wealthy person--on the planet to spend his time and effort and to assemble a team like he has to work with the government and to start the Department of Government Efficiency is a huge public service. I am grateful to Elon Musk, who has volunteered his time, as well as recruiting others to help the U.S. Government deal with its spending addiction and to try to help it get clean--certainly, much worse than a drunken sailor.

This morning, I had a chance to meet with a gentleman, Joe Gebbia, who is the former CEO of Airbnb and who is volunteering his time because he sees this as an unprecedented opportunity to get at problems that the government historically has been unable to deal with, and that is the incredible rise and increase in government spending, the inefficiency, the waste of taxpayer funds, and the national debt.

So getting a team like this, with very accomplished entrepreneurs and people who have been very successful in the private sector, to come in and try to help us figure out how to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse strikes me as an act of patriotism and public service.

I know we have heard the saying that imitation is the highest form of flattery. Back home in Texas, Governor Abbott and the Texas Legislature have also followed dozens of other States in paying a high compliment to the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk by proposing a DOGE-like task force at the State level. I am sure that, even in a State as efficiently run and with as low taxes as Texas, you can find inefficiency that can be and should be rooted out.

Govenor Abbott recently signed the first bill of this year's legislative session into law to establish the Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office, modeled after DOGE.

While some States are more fiscally responsible than others, State governments, as I said, are not immune from spending taxpayer money on outdated or inefficient programs. Texas is one of the most efficient. That shouldn't surprise anyone. We have the fourth lowest State taxes in the country, and we have been ranked one of the lowest spending States in terms of State-spending per capita.

I look forward to seeing the great work being done down in Austin by the Texas DOGE and what they can do to try to help make State government more efficient. I know I join many of them in thanking Elon and his team at DOGE for the inspiration and what he has brought down to our State.

Of course, Elon's status within the Federal Government is that of what is called a special government employee. That means it is for a period of time--130 days, in this case. And with that date approaching soon, Mr. Musk indicates he plans to wrap up his work. But I must emphasize that the work of DOGE must go on. The task of improving government efficiency is one that will never be finished.

I believe that Elon Musk and his team at DOGE have made monumental progress in just a few short months. Let me give you a few examples.

The Department of the Treasury started its first automated payment verification system at the recommendation of DOGE. So far, more than $300 million has been identified in improper payment requests.

Over at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the government has launched a Fraud Detection Operations Center, and 1 week ago today, CMS announced they suspended suspected fraudulent payments to 33 different providers. One such fraudulent payment was for a patient that died two decades ago. It reminds me of some of the people on the Social Security rolls that DOGE has also found--some well in excess of 100 years old, if they exist at all.

Well, another example included billing more than $2 million in genetic testing for patients that never actually received the test. These are just a few examples of the gross fraud and inefficiencies that happened throughout the Federal Government.

I am sure it is just the tip of the iceberg, but these technical payment glitches are just scratching the surface. DOGE's findings and recommendations have also eliminated some of the most egregious examples of fraud.

The Department of Justice, in partnership with DOGE, discovered and charged an Iraqi man for illegally voting in a U.S. election. Now, we should know--I think everybody does know--that foreign nationals, noncitizens, are not eligible to vote in U.S. elections. That is a privilege reserved for citizens of the United States. Instances of foreign nationals voting in our elections threaten the bedrock of our democratic Republic. All of us should be thankful to the Department of Justice, Attorney General Bondi, FBI Director Patel, and DOGE that they identified and eliminated this violation of the sanctity of our elections process.

The Department of Labor and the Department of Agriculture are working to make sure that illegal immigrants are not receiving Federal benefits that they are not authorized to receive, such as unemployment insurance or SNAP benefits, otherwise known as food stamps. These programs were meant to protect vulnerable Americans, not to reward illegal immigrants for breaking our laws.

From eliminating improper payments to safeguarding our elections, I believe we owe Mr. Musk a debt of gratitude for helping to identify these problems--again, just the tip of the iceberg--and/or eliminating these wasteful uses of hard-earned tax dollars.

In order to consolidate the gains that DOGE has made, I support Congress and the administration working together to codify these cost- cutting measures through rescissions. That is the official process by which we actually save the money.

This will be important for a few different reasons. No. 1, it will allow us to use the savings that DOGE is identifying in order to offset the costs of the tax bill that we are currently considering, allowing us to send even more money back to the American people. Any money we can save from wasteful spending, obviously, can be sent back or kept by the people who earn it in the first place, which are hard-working American families.

So I am very happy to hear that the White House indicated that they plan on sending us a rescissions package very soon. I would recommend, personally, that they send a rescissions package on a monthly basis.

I am going to be very interested to see how our Democratic colleagues react to some of these sensible spending cuts or rescissions. So far, what they have done is they have been in complete opposition to anything and everything that the Trump administration has proposed, including the Department of Government Efficiency.

I don't think it helps their credibility when some of the most egregious expenditures and waste of taxpayer money are pointed out, and they complain about the person who is identifying it and made it possible maybe to save that money or to return it to the taxpayers from whom it came in the first place.

As officials at the Office of Management and Budget consider their options moving forward, I hope they know that I will be a willing and eager partner in their efforts.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source