Musk-led DOGE sparks ‘new day in America’ energy on Capitol Hill

President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency was all the buzz Thursday on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers got their first taste of how the Elon Musk-led cost-cutting committee plans to shake up Washington.

House Speaker Michael Johnson flashed his excitement by telling reporters that DOGE’s work marks a “new day in Washington and a new day in America.”

“This is an important day — it is the beginning of a journey,” the Louisiana Republican said after meeting with Mr. Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the Trump allies tasked with weeding out government waste. “Let me be frank about this: Government is too big, it does too many things, and it does almost nothing well.”

That deep-rooted sentiment among fiscal conservatives and small-government advocates feeds the excitement over DOGE’s potential to upend the big-spending consensus in Washington and usher in an era of accountability.

Mr. Musk, with his son Lil X in tow, and Mr. Ramaswamy were given rock star treatment as they made their way through the corridors of Congress, flocked by staff, reporters and security.

Social media was littered with Republican lawmakers posing for selfies with Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy, who met with the chairs of House and Senate committees, the heads of the newly formed bicameral DOGE caucuses, and a larger group of House and Senate Republicans.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican leading a DOGE subcommittee, said Mr. Musk delivered a crucial message.

“He said something extremely important: Every single payment that the federal government pays out, we need to be checking those payments to see if they are legitimate,” Ms. Greene told reporters. “That is something that hasn’t been done.”

She said Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy also floated the idea of a “naughty list” and a “nice list” for lawmakers based on their votes on federal spending.

Rep. Aaron Bean, Florida Republican, said Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy received a standing ovation at their closed-door meeting and that their “naughty list” idea could have legs.

“If we’re going to get out of the hole, we have to stop digging, yeah, and so we have to look at ourselves every time we pass a bill that’s not funded or paid for, we’re going the wrong way,” Mr. Bean said.

The DOGE commission’s social media account has been highlighting wasteful and head-scratching ways the government tosses around taxpayer funds.

Reports from conservative-leaning groups show that the National Institutes of Health spent $1.8 billion studying racism, including on “Promoting Color Brave Conversations in Families: A Public Health Strategy to Advance Racial Equity,” and more than $150 billion on illegal immigrants at the federal, state and local levels.

They have cited reports from the Government Accountability Office estimating that $100 billion in improper payments were made in the Medicare and Medicaid programs in fiscal year 2023 and the Congressional Budget Office showing Congress allocated $516 billion for programs that had expired under federal law.

One report said the Pentagon “can’t fully account for $824 Billion.”

The jubilance on Capitol Hill belies a tough road ahead to changing Washington’s spending culture.

Federal debt has topped $36 trillion and will soon reach the highest ratio of debt to gross domestic product in history. The previous record was set during World War II when the U.S. defeated two global adversaries and emerged with a strong economy and decreasing deficits.

The government is projected to run trillion-dollar deficits for the foreseeable future. The fiscal picture has generated fears that the longer deficits and debt go unaddressed, the more likely the nation will spiral into an economic crisis.

It is unclear what authority the new agency will have to implement cost-cutting recommendations. Mr. Musk has suggested that annual government spending cuts should equate to roughly $2 trillion.

Another question is how far DOGE will go in tackling the biggest drivers of national spending — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — or whether it will target the Department of Defense, which has failed multiple audits.

“They are looking at everything,” Mr. Bean said.

What is clear is that congressional Republicans and a few Democrats are eager to get involved with DOGE.

“There is a massive amount of waste, fraud and abuse that we have to tackle,” Ms. Greene said. “I’m looking forward to exposing every single unelected bureaucrat, every single agency that is wasting the American people’s money, and the big government departments that need to be exposed for how they are not serving the American people.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who recently launched the Senate DOGE caucus, got the conversation rolling Thursday by releasing an “Out of Office” report highlighting how some federal employees have abused telework policies and turned government buildings into relative ghost towns. Only 6% of the federal workforce goes to the office daily.

Ms. Ernst recommended returning federal employees to the workplace or eliminating the federal office buildings that are not being used by selling off properties or ending leases.

“Use it or lose it,” Ms. Ernst said on Fox News.