On Monday, Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa sent a letter to Trump’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) c0-chairs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy which included numerous ideas on how to cut over $2 trillion in federal spending.
With Trump and his team dedicated to cutting wasteful spending, Ernst’s seven-page letter to DOGE pointed out many ways to cut spending such as unused space in buildings and uncommitted spending for COVID relief, with the target of reducing spending by more than $2 trillion.
Ernst was elected to the Senate in 2014 and has been focused on cutting bloated government reckless spending. Recently she has targeted telework and remote work within federal departments and the effects moving forward.
“When faced with proposals to trim the fat from Washington’s budget, members of Congress from both parties act like Goldilocks,” Ernst wrote in the letter. “It’s too little or too big, always too hard, and never just right. But the real ‘make-believe’ of this fairy tale is that it’s impossible to reduce Washington’s budget without causing pain. Most Americans aren’t even benefitting in any meaningful way from hundreds of billions of dollars being wasted.”
“While you’re seeking ‘super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries’ for ‘unglamorous cost-cutting,’ all that’s really needed is a little common sense. If you can’t find waste in Washington, there can only be one reason: you didn’t look,” Ernst said.
Ernst easily listed a few projects to cut including three rail projects in California costing $135 billion, $213 million of payments to millionaires via the unemployment office, $31 million in spending on government employees without specifically defined duties, and $10 billion in fraudulent payments made by the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. Ernst also urged to cut the $1.6 trillion in funds allocated for COVID relief that was never spent.
Ernst will be leading the Senate DOGE caucus while in the House, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene will lead the House Oversight Committee sub panel of DOGE.
“I have a simple message to the bureaucrats who haven’t shown up for work in years and the government contractors and grantees collecting millions to study how fast a shrimp runs on a treadmill – buckle up because accountability is coming,” Ernst said during an interview with the Daily Caller. “My decade-long mission to make Washington squeal has created an exhaustive list of more than $2 trillion worth of waste, fraud, and abuse that I will work with DOGE to cut. We are going to break down the nonsense that has taken over Washington and put in its place a government that actually works for the people.”