By Rob Bluey, The Daily Signal | March 05, 2025
With $105 billion in taxpayer savings already identified, Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency hit a big milestone this week. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday it’s now up to Congress to implement DOGE’s work.
“I was texting with Elon earlier this morning about this. What DOGE is doing is one of the most exciting things that’s happened in a long time. He’s doing what we have not been able to do,” Johnson told a group of social media influencers, including The Daily Signal, at the U.S. Capitol.
DOGE is identifying government waste and tracking the savings at DOGE.gov. After just 45 days of work, DOGE estimates each taxpayer is saving $652.17. The $105 billion total is about one-tenth of Musk’s overall target of $1 trillion, which would cut the federal budget deficit in half.
Johnson promised to prioritize DOGE’s work in Congress. But he first needs to pass a continuing resolution by March 14, then a budget reconciliation bill to advance President Donald Trump’s policy agenda. After that, the House will turn its attention to the 2026 appropriations process.
“This is going to be the Super Bowl of appropriations,” Johnson predicted. “We’re going to have all of the DOGE cuts. We’re going to have potentially a lot of new revenue from President Trump’s tariff policies. It’s going to be a very different paradigm.”
“For those of us who have been trying to scale down the size and the scope of government our whole lives, this is the moment we’ve been waiting for,” he added.
Democrats have threatened to withhold their votes for the continuing resolution unless it contains “guardrails” on DOGE. But a group of 21 Republican lawmakers wrote a letter to Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Tuesday insisting that the continuing resolution include no such restrictions on DOGE.
“We understand that Democrats are insisting that any government funding deal include policy provisions that would tie the hands of the President and prohibit DOGE from continuing their efforts to promote transparency and accountability in government spending,” the Republicans wrote.
Musk and the DOGE team have targeted government waste and other spending that does not align with Trump administration policies. During his Tuesday address to Congress, Trump listed a litany of examples, including millions of taxpayer dollars spent by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“Under the Trump administration, all of these scams … have been found out and exposed and swiftly terminated by a group of very intelligent, mostly young people headed up by Elon, and we appreciate it,” Trump told Congress.
Johnson recounted a recent late-night meeting in Musk’s office to review some of his discoveries: “He says he’s going to find a trillion dollars in fraud, waste, and abuse this year alone. It’s going to dramatically change the budgeting and appropriations process for 2026.”
Johnson described the effort as not just about saving money, but also “restoring the Founders’ vision” of limited government with oversight from Congress.
“That system has been broken for decades because the deep state bureaucracy was hiding the data. We couldn’t do oversight. We had hearings, we issued subpoenas sometimes, but they wouldn’t give us the stuff that Elon has found,” Johnson said.
Musk had to crack the code, Johnson said, using his algorithms and expertise to unearth what Congress couldn’t find on its own.
“We have to take the DOGE cuts and savings and codify them,” Johnson said. “I told Elon, ‘There’s a three-step process: I have to qualify, then quantify, and then codify what you’re doing, in that order.”
Johnson said the House is already working with Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to coordinate efforts and ensure DOGE’s work is addressed in legislation.
Rob Bluey is president and executive editor of The Daily Signal.
Original article link
