By New York Post (Politics) | Created at 2024-11-25 22:21:24 | Updated at 2024-11-26 00:24:46
2 hours ago
She’s had enough with the Christmas-level spending sprees in Washington.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the top DOGE in the Senate, urged Department of Government Efficiency co-heads Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to channel their inner “Grinch” while unveiling her plan to slash government waste.
Her plan to “trim the fat from Washington’s budget” features about two dozen major recommendations including a suggestion to clamp down on the ritual government splurging before the fiscal year runs out.
“In Washington, Christmas comes in September when binge-buying bureaucrats go hog wild fulfilling their own wish lists,” she wrote in a letter to the pair obtained by The Post, noting the government’s “fiscal year expires at midnight on September 30.”
“In the rush to use it before they lose it, $53 billion was recently spent in a single week!” she added. “For the sake of taxpayers, DOGE needs to be the Grinch.”
Ernst, 54, cited glaring examples of how past September “spending sprees” included $4.6 million of lobster tail and crab, roughly $12,000 for a foosball table and $2.1 million for games and toys for employees at various federal agencies.
The Republican senator was recently announced as the head of the Senate DOGE Caucus which will collaborate with Musk and Ramaswamy on their eponymous endeavor.
After his election victory, President-elect Donald Trump announced Musk, 53, and Ramaswamy, 39, as the co-heads of DOGE, which despite its name, is not actually a government department, but rather an outside organization that will work with the White House and Office of Management and Budget.
During her bid for the Senate back in 2014, Ernst made a national name for herself with a spot reflecting on her upbringing “castrating hogs on an Iowa farm” and vowed that she’d take on the pork barrel spenders in Washington, DC, and “make ’em squeal.”
Since then, her office has been doling out the “Squeal Awards” to spotlight government bloat.
The Hawkeye State Republican huddled with President-elect Donald Trump, Musk and Ramaswamy in Mar-a-Lago over the weekend and discussed some of the findings her team has unearthed over the years.
In her blueprint to root out waste, Ernst ripped into the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, which shelled out more than $1 million in federal funds to former Vice President Mike Pence’s campaign and $380,000 to Green Party hopeful Jill Stein’s bid.
She also ripped into the $1.5 billion spent across federal agencies on so-called “swag,” the use of federal paid administrative leave in which hundreds get paid to do nothing — something that costs $31 million annually and $1 billion in benefits spending for workers who technically aren’t qualified for the Federal Employees Health Benefits program.
Another key target for Ernst is the Pentagon, which has failed an audit seven times in a row. She pointed to estimates from the Defense Department that it loses some $125 billion to inefficiency and bloat.
She also flagged how “nearly 15,000 millionaires collect $213.3 million in unemployment payments” annually.
Other targets Ernst suggested in her blueprint to Musk and Ramaswamy include vacant government office buildings, which she estimated cost $8 billion a year plus $7.7 billion in energy expenses; her push to stop minting pennies; frivolous research grants such as whether elephants can solve puzzles; funding for research in China; and more.
In tandem with Ernst’s efforts in the Senate, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) will helm a House subcommittee on DOGE to aid in the efforts to cut spending.
