By Fred Lucas, The Daily Signal | March 05, 2025
Canceling federal contracts and grants are real savings that can be done at the executive level through the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, some Republican senators assert, although with an eye to using congressional action as well to cut costs.
“I think it’s been very effective, and it can be very effective. And I think the cuts are going to be made without congressional action,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., a member of the Senate Appropriations and Budget committees, told The Daily Signal in a brief Capitol Hill interview. “When the executive branch cancels a contract, for example, the money is saved.”
Republicans broadly support DOGE, though vary in views as to whether, how, and at what point Congress should take action to advance President Donald Trump’s initiative, spearheaded by entrepreneur Elon Musk to slash waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.
The National Institutes of Health canceled grants for transgender experiments on animals, including a study on mice that cost more than $500,000, DOGE announced Wednesday.
DOGE also worked with the Department of Agriculture to slash a $10 million annual contract to study the eating habits of food stamp recipients.
Kennedy added canceling government contracts could make a dent in the federal budget deficit.
“I think so, yes. If we do enough of it,” Kennedy said.
But Congress has to back up DOGE for long-term fiscal stability, said Sen. Mike Lee, a Senate Budget Committee member.
“DOGE is definitely doing their own thing, separate and apart from what Congress does,” Lee, R-Utah, told The Daily Signal shortly after the Senate GOP luncheon on Tuesday. “My vision is that the savings and reforms that can be achieved through DOGE directly need to be matched and backed up by congressional action, by legislation.”
“In other words, there’s a lot that can be done in the short term through the executive branch acting alone through the DOGE efforts,” Lee added. “They will prove to be a lot more lasting and impactful in so far as we can make it permanent through legislation.”
The thorough audit of government expenses will determine what can be cut through the executive branch and what programs will need a legislative solution, said Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.
“The executive branch is doing a pretty good job of finding a lot of things where these agencies and departments have stepped way outside their boundaries,” Hagerty, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told The Daily Signal.
Hagerty said the waste goes back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal government expansion.
“This is an opportunity to clean up a lot of things that shouldn’t have ever happened,” Hagerty said. “It’s an opportunity to highlight things that we can come back and reinforce through legislation. And I think we just are going to have to go through it, item by item, opportunities to figure out where a legislative solution is required versus an executive branch action.”
Democrats have been uniformly opposed.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, blasted DOGE, claiming that reducing government employees would make it more difficult for Americans to get benefits such as Social Security.
“Elon and DOGE are positively gleeful in touting these staffing reductions,” Murray said on Monday. She added, “When you make it impossible for people to meet or talk to anyone about their Social Security benefits—that’s a benefits cut. Maybe making it impossible to talk to a real person is a good business model in Silicon Valley, but it’s not how our government should treat taxpayers.”
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said there will be congressional buy-in on DOGE plans.
“I did the same thing when I was governor of Florida,” Scott told The Daily Signal. “I went line by line through the state budget to cut waste.”
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said a budget reconciliation is the primary focus for the Senate now.
“I think we will put together a deal that will make sure that the tax cuts are permanent,” Rounds told The Daily Signal. “And I think we’ll be able to do some things to actually take care of the needs at the border and some additional money for the defense, which is what our goal is. I think those are the things that we are most concerned with right now.”
Cutting the bureaucracy will be a “separate issue,” Rounds said.
“I think it’s one that we’ve never had the opportunity to see happen before,” Rounds continued. “Not so much as a part of reconciliation, but just simply as a matter of making changes at the executive level by the executive itself, and taking responsibility for doing it.”
Rounds stressed the proposed cuts to the executive branch are significant, and it could be complicated. But he also stressed it could be corrected.
“We’ve never had a president who actually wanted to cut the executive branch of government before and in doing so, actually has somebody getting results in that respect,” Rounds told reporters.
“It’s not been easy, and it is still a broken system,” Rounds said. “We’re going to break some things out of the way. If that happens, we’re going to repair it as quickly as possible.”
Fred Lucas is chief news correspondent and manager of the Investigative Reporting Project for The Daily Signal.
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