U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) met with billionaire Elon Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy on Capitol Hill on Thursday to discuss how the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will work to root out and cut unnecessary spending within the federal government.
Musk and Ramaswamy, who were both tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead DOGE and work to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” met with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill to discuss plans for the new department.
Prior to meeting with Musk and Ramaswamy, Blackburn announced that she had filed a package of bills called the DOGE Acts to assist the new department in making the “necessary cuts” to the federal government’s spending.
I will be introducing legislation that coincides with @DOGE’s plan to make the federal government more efficient.
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…
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) December 5, 2024
“I have gotten the DOGE Acts filed…What this will do is freeze federal salaries and federal hiring so we can begin to get our arms around this bloated federal government and begin to make the cuts that are necessary for us to be free, to be a sovereign nation for our kids and grandkids,” Blackburn said in a video statement on Thursday.
A spokesman for Blackburn’s office said the bills introduced by the senator will collectively “cut discretionary spending, move federal agencies out of the swamp, freeze federal hiring and salaries for one year, begin the process of a merit-based compensation structure for federal employees, and require agencies to get employees back in the office.”
According to data provided by the Treasury Department, the federal government spent just over $6.75 trillion in Fiscal Year 2024.
When Trump announced the creation of DOGE, he said the department’s work to cut federal spending would conclude “no later than July 4, 2026.”
“A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence,” Trump said at the time.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Marsha Blackburn” by Marsha Blackburn. Photo “Elon Musk” by The Royal Society. CC BY-SA 3.0. Photo “Vivek Ramaswamy” by Vivek Ramaswamy.
I seem to remember that when she tried these sort of shenanigans with Tennessee state government when she was a state Senator, the General Assembly workforce was off limits….