DOGE subcommittee meeting holds 1st hearing focusing on 'war on waste'
Chair of the subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) (R) and ranking member Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-MN) (L) preside over a hearing of the House Oversight Subcommittee in the Rayburn House Office
The subcommittee for Delivering on Government Efficiency held its first hearing focusing on the "war on waste."
Wednesday’s hearing titled "The War on Waste: Stamping Out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud" centers on DOGE subcommittee members collaborating with expert witnesses to evaluate how Congress can help President Donald Trump in eliminating improper payments and fraud, according to a release from the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s website.
What they're saying:
During the hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and the DOGE subcommittee’s chair, described excessive spending as an existential threat to the country at Wednesday’s hearing, saying, "The American people are in debt slavery to everyone who owns our debt," the Associated Press reported.
RELATED: Trump, Musk defend DOGE's work: 'We found fraud and abuse'
Greene explained that the federal government should be held accountable, saying there are "no consequences" for bad financial management or service to citizens.
The Associated Press noted that Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a Maryland Democrat and the subcommittee’s ranking member, said Trump wasn’t interested in addressing waste and fraud because he was instead firing inspectors general.
"We have to ask ourselves, what is really going on here?" she said. Stansbury also shared it was wrong to let "Elon Musk and his hackers" gain access to sensitive databases like the U.S. Treasury payment system, per the AP.
The DOGE hearing comes a day after Trump and Elon Musk defended the work of DOGE. Trump put Musk in charge of the agency to help eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in spending and slash the more than 2-million-person federal workforce.
What is DOGE?
The backstory:
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is President Donald Trump's special commission tasked with slashing federal spending. Trump explained that it would "provide advice and guidance from outside of government."
DOGE was originally headed by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who jointly vowed to cut billions from the federal budget and usher in "mass headcount reductions across the federal bureaucracy."
Ramaswamy later left DOGE as he considers running for governor of Ohio.
Much of DOGE’s work is happening behind the scenes. Team members have shown up at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other agencies.
Making the new entity part of the government may allow it to access information more easily across government agencies. DOGE can also possibly do much of its work behind closed doors, even as some regulations on governmental disclosure will persist.
For example, the Executive Office of the President is generally not subject to many Freedom of Information Act requirements. However, it is covered by the Presidential Records Act, meaning its records must be maintained.