DOGE Leaders Met with Congress, as Republicans Discuss Telework Cuts and Agency Relocations

Billionaire Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy were up on Capitol Hill to talk to Congressional Republicans about their plans for the upcoming Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

The pair have been charged by President-elect Trump with gutting the government bureaucracy by proposing ideas eliminating redundancies and making the government more efficient. 

Republicans leaving the meetings were short on details about actual plans, although they were very enthusiastic about the potential. 

“I think it’s just getting to know you, and trying to understand the full scope of what they’re going to propose, how much would be done by executive action,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK).  

“We talked about how we could improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government to better serve the American people and to save taxpayer dollars,” said Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), in line to head the Senate Appropriations Committee. “We did not go through any list of cuts or anything like that. We didn’t get into that.”

Both before and after the meeting, throngs of lawmakers lined up to take photos with Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy. Most were later posted on X, the social media platform owned by Musk.

Still getting results will be no easy picnic, as Congress controls the power of the purse, and cutting spending has been near impossible, even with Republican majorities. 

Workforce is a Target

Nevertheless, the federal workforce is a major target, with lawmakers and the DOGE leaders looking to reign in telework and the size of the federal workforce. 

Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), who is leading the Senate DOGE caucus, released a report on telework, which recommends tying telework eligibility to performance and more closely monitoring where employees are logging into work. And it calls for relocating federal employees away from Washington, DC, and selling off underutilized office buildings.

However, GovExec notes that there are serious inaccuracies in Senator Ernst’s report, as the report claimed that 90 percent of federal employees telework. According to OPM data, only about 41 percent of federal employees do so, and only 46 percent of the federal workforce is eligible for telework.

There is also legislation pending in regard to DOGE and the workforce.

“My DOGE Act will freeze federal hiring, begin the process to relocate agencies out of the D.C. swamp, and establish a merit-based salary system for the federal workforce,” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) wrote of her bill, which has yet to be officially introduced.