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Coming up on Washington Journal this morning, we'll take your calls and comments live.
And then Wisconsin Democratic Congresswoman Gwen Moore discusses the incoming Trump administration and legislative priorities for the 119th Congress.
And later, Texas Republican Congressman Pete Sessions will talk about a new congressional caucus to support the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory commission announced by President-elect Donald Trump.
Washington Journal starts now.
Join the conversation.
Good morning, everyone.
Welcome to the Washington Journal on this Friday, December 6th.
Yesterday, Capitol Hill was a buzz with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy visiting lawmakers and giving them a taste of how they will shake up Washington with cost-cutting proposals.
This morning, we want you to tell Washington, how can the government become more efficient?
Here's how you join the conversation: 202-748-8001 for Republicans.
Democrats, dial in at 202-748-8000.
And Independents, 202-748-8002.
You can text us as well.
Federal employees, your line this morning is 202-748-8003.
That's the same line for all of you to text us this morning, 202-748-8003.
Or you can join us on Facebook.com slash C-SPAN and on X with the handle at C-SPANWJ.
Again, this morning, we want to hear from you and federal employees as well.
What are your ideas to make government more efficient?
Before the lawmakers met on the House side behind closed doors with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Speaker Mike Johnson spoke to reporters about what he expects from the Department of Government Efficiency called Doge.
We're all excited.
I know you're all excited that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have joined us today.
This is an important day.
It's the beginning of a journey.
You've heard what Doge is all about, the Department of Government Efficiency.
It's a new thing, and this is a new day in Washington and a new day in America.
We have long lamented the size and scope of the government, that it has grown too large.
And let me be frank about this.
Government is too big.
It does too many things, and it does almost nothing well.
And the taxpayers deserve better.
They deserve a more responsive government, a more efficient government, one that is leaner and more focused on its primary objectives.
And that's the opportunity that we have here now.
We believe it's an historic moment for the country.
And these two gentlemen are going to help navigate through this exciting new day.
Elon and Vivek don't need much of an introduction here in Congress for certain, and most of the American people know what they're capable of and what they've achieved.
Both of these gentlemen have run very successful organizations.
They're innovators and they're forward thinkers.
And so that's what we need right now.
Speaker Mike Johnson making a plug for the Department of Government Efficiency, so-called Doge Commission.
It's not an official department.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy plan to run it and they have many ideas of how they would make government more efficient.
How would you make it more efficient?
That's our conversation this morning here on the Washington Journal for the first hour.
Gallup recently did a poll at the end of November asking people if they support this idea.
55% of those polled said they do support making government more efficient.
Recently here on the Washington Journal, Everett Kelly of the American Federation Federal of Government Employees, the union that represents federal employees, had this to say about the Doge Commission.
You know, we are the ones that's making sure that Social Security checks are out on time, okay?
You start cutting 75% of that, you know, it's not going to happen.
We're making sure that veterans are taken care of.
You start cutting 75% of that, you know, it's not going to happen.
But the truth of the matter, okay, it's not that they're trying to make the government more efficient.
What they're trying to do really, in all essence, is contract out these jobs so that, you know, and when they do this, you know, then it's a matter of not the patriotism that the people that I represent display, but it's about the bottom line.
It's about making a dollar, okay?
And that's what it's all about.
You know, and, you know, I remember, and I'm a retired Department of Defense employee.
And I remember the saga when I was employed with the Department of Defense when contractors was bidding on our jobs, bidding on various portions of our jobs, right?
And the sad thing that I remember is contractors were charging the government $600 for a hammer, okay?
This is the type of thing you get into when you start contracting out jobs, you know, and things like that.
It's not a cost savings at all, okay?
But I would enjoy the opportunity to sit down with the administration to talk about how we make the government more efficient.
Okay, we're not saying that it shouldn't be.
We're saying we should sit down and have those conversations.
For instance, if you really want to talk about making the government more efficient, let's look at Medicare, okay?
Okay, I think that there's an opportunity that we can save about $60 billion there.
When you look at the RS, you know, let's look at that.
Let's have this conversation because there's about a trillion dollar savings when you start looking at those that will evade taxes just this year.
You know, so let's have those conversations and talk about how we can be more efficient.
Everett Kelly, who represents federal workers on the Washington Journal recently.
How can the federal government become more efficient?
Washington Times, front page today.
Doge leaders visit Capitol Hill, sparking energy for new day in America.
Rob in New York, Democratic caller.
Let's hear from you first.
Rob, what do you say?
Hey, good morning.
Are you doing a great job as usual?
Well, thank you for that.
Thank you for C-SPAN.
You know, there's so many simple fixes.
I remember hearing a few years ago that they could streamline the paperwork for health insurance companies for Medicare and save a fortune.
But I think that ultimately before you really start cutting, you have to put proper taxes on those earning more than $400,000 a year, which the Republicans refuse to do.
And by the way, oddly, that Elon Musk and Vivek and even our incoming new president make fortunes off these tax breaks that have been extended and will likely continue to be extended.
So, you know, I believe you have to remove the cap on Social Security on those earning over whatever, $126,000.
That cap should be removed, and you can shore up Social Security.
So we're not doing the basic things that we need to do, raising taxes on those earning more than $400,000.
And I think it's just a big game that the Republicans are playing.
And, you know, we don't believe in trickle-down economics any longer.
So again, thank you for that.
Thank you for the time.
All right, Rob.
Michael, Republican in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.
Michael, can the government be more efficient?
Absolutely, it can be, Greta.
Thank you for taking my call.
Thanks for C-SPAN.
I do believe that there's so many things that the government can do.
Even Warren Bezos admitted that he likes the idea of making the government more efficient.
This latest report that came out said that 1% of the federal workers in Washington, D.C. show up for work five days a week.
And it's really, that's an abuse of our taxpayers' money.
And you hear these stories of orgies and all kinds of things going on in D.C.
And there's a certain amount of, you hear this federal, the fellow that you had on earlier talking about the federal employees union.
I think it's really a shame that the federal union, there were so many, I believe it was FDR and Mankin said there's no reason that federal workers, that government workers should be in unions.
It's just a shame that that has to happen.
And because they have a dog in the fight.
And the last thing I want to say is that you have the Department of Defense, they've had seven audits in a row, and they could not meet these audits.
They could not, they failed every single one of them the last seven years.
And 14 years before that, they started the audits, and that was the first one they were able to even come close to doing.
So Michael, you say, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, look at the Pentagon and look at how they spend money.
Yes, they do.
They're very, very wasteful years.
All right.
So, Michael, you may be interested in this.
Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, tweets out on December 1st, Elon Musk is right.
The Pentagon, with a budget of $886 billion, just failed its seventh audit in a row.
It's lost track of billions.
Last year, only 13 senators voted against the military-industrial complex and a defense budget full of waste and fraud.
This must change.
For all of you watching this morning, would you say that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-chairs of this unofficial informal commission, DOE, the Department of Government Efficiency, that they should look at the Pentagon and should it be first on their list?
The caller also mentioned federal workers.
to share this headline in the politics section of the Washington Times.
Like being on vacation, federal employees are abusing remote work according to an audit done by senator, by a senator.
And Republicans are saying that they will make the federal workforce return to their jobs in office, no more work from home when they are in charge of the 119th Congress.
We also heard from callers already this morning Medicare and Social Security pointing to those programs.
Want to share this headline and story in the Wall Street Journal.
Doge Road Show receives GOP embrace on Capitol Hill.
President-elect Trump has promised not to cut Social Security or Medicare benefits.
Vivek Ramaswamy in an interview Wednesday said that Doge would look for waste and fraud in those programs, but wouldn't push for broad cuts to entitlements.
Let's listen to the former presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, in a conversation with the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday.
You've tweeted about efficiency.
Ivan has tweeted about efficiency.
What are some of the efficiency approaches, metrics that you're looking at beyond cutting humans?
Well, look, one of the ways if you run a business, you look at whether or not the dollars of the company, which belong to the shareholders of the company, are being used in the highest ROI manner or not.
I think the way that the federal government ought to think about the dollars it's spending on behalf of its taxpayers is look at the taxpayer as the shareholder.
Are we actually getting the highest ROI possible out of those taxpayer dollars or not?
And I think the answer to that question today is undeniably.
I think people on both sides of the political eye would say this.
Where do you start with that?
Yeah, so I think that there's a little bit of a counterintuitive approach here where some of the biggest items are mandated mandatory spending on entitlements that require Congress to change.
But often when you're running a business, you have many people who have come in for turnaround artists who have successfully turned around businesses would tell you it's some of the smaller items that you can move more quickly but add up to be pretty big when you actually add them all up together.
For example, about over half a trillion dollars a year is now not even authorized by Congress in terms of spending that's going out the door.
The magnitude of waste, fraud, abuse, error, or program integrity issues with even the kinds of entitlement payments that we talk about in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, that alone adds up to, we believe, probably hundreds of billions of dollars in savings as well.
And so one of the things I've noticed coming at this, not as a politician, but as an outsider, is that sometimes you use these traditional political debates, philosophical debates about to cut entitlement spending or not, as a way to sidestep, in some ways, the harder question, but also the more practical question of what if you could just look at what savings we could get to by making sure that nobody who isn't even supposed to receive that payment is actually getting it.
And I think it's irresponsible to begin a discussion around cutting entitlements before we've actually wrung all of that waste and all of that excess error out of the system.
Same thing, you'll get into grandiose discussions about whether or not the president has the power to impound funds.
Well, if you read the statute, it actually says the president doesn't have to spend the money if it's known to go towards waste, fraud, or abuse.
And so I've seen this pattern in Washington, D.C., where often it's a bit of a deflection, a bit of a conflation to say that there's this grand political philosophical question that we would rather be debating or banging our heads on the wall about when in fact there's lower hanging fruit that we can all deliver in ways that require real work, require actually barreling through.
Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday, he and Elon Musk heading up this government, Department of Government Efficiency.
That was Wednesday.
On Thursday, the two of them were on Capitol Hill.
First, they met with senators behind closed doors.
Then they walked over to the House side and they met with House lawmakers behind closed doors.
We're asking you to join the conversation here in Washington.
How can the federal government become more efficient?
Warren, in Florida, Republican.
Hi, Warren.
Hi.
Yeah.
One of the ways the government needs to get out of the way.
Social Security, before they took $2.97 trillion away from it, put it apart of the general fund.
They said they put bonds in there.
They're paying $1.5 interest rate in there.
Now it's part of the general fund.
They need to eliminate the education department, give it back down to the state.
They need to pass a budget saying that they won't go over, they're borrowing $1.6 trillion a year.
They need to have a balanced budget amendment so they only can go over 3% or around there of their budget.
No more printing money.
And they need to do that.
No matter what, there's always an excuse to borrow more money, and they need to eliminate that somehow.
Okay.
Warren's thoughts.
Yep, Warren's thoughts there in Florida, a Republican.
Rhonda is a Democrat in Brooklyn.
Rhonda, what do you say?
Can the government be more efficient?
Yes.
There's no way for the government to be more efficient without having a strategy and without calling out that there's tremendous income inequality and that's a strategy that we need to, you know, as a country, as a government, we need to address that.
So unless you have that as an outstanding factor, primary factor in any decision made, no efficiency is going to be achieved.
All right.
Rhonda's thoughts there in Brooklyn.
Ed's in Massachusetts, a Republican.
Hi, Ed, your turn.
Yes, I guess one of the things I would do is like cut all that funding for EVs and rockets that Musk is getting.
You would start there.
Social Security for billionaires like Bill Gates.
Anybody who has a six-figure government pension or private pension should not get Social Security?
All right.
There's a couple.
Ed's thoughts there, Republican in Massachusetts, and where he would make government more efficient.
That is our question for all of you this morning here on the first hour of the Washington Journal.
We ask because yesterday on Capitol Hill, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were up there talking to lawmakers and giving them a taste of what they would do first with this Department of Government Efficiency.
They met behind closed doors.
Tim Burchett, who's a Republican from Tennessee, went on X to post this video of his thoughts leaving that meeting with the two gentlemen.
Hey, everybody, Tim Burchett.
Just leaving the Doge meeting with Elon and Beck Ramaswamy.
And I think the key to the whole thing is going to be, oh, excuse me.
The key to the whole thing is in that room.
If Congress doesn't have the guts to do those things that they're talking real big about, it's just going to be a waste of time.
They'll do away with executive orders and unelected bureaucrats who put rules and regulations on us.
If Congress doesn't have the guts, and that's what scares me, you know, I vote against a lot of stuff.
There'll be 15 or so red dots on the board, which means we voted against horrible spending.
There'll be about 400 green lights on the board, and that's going to be the problem.
My friend Chip Roy's right here.
Chip, how are you?
Knox HTML says, Yeah, I was just telling them that the problem's in that room.
Yeah, 100%, and that we've got to have the guts to pull the trigger.
Our friends Elon and Vivekan do a good job exposing it, but then we've got to actually do our jobs.
Yeah, I hope they do it, and then we'll have to hold our colleagues accountable.
Right on, amen.
Thank you.
Thank you all for saying that was Congressman Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, and you heard him and Chip Roy say the problem was in that room.
The room was full of House Republicans meeting with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
It was a meeting for Republican House lawmakers led by Speaker Mike Johnson and Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
From Notice.org's reporting, they also quote Chip Roy.
Republican lawmakers were thrilled to meet with the leaders of the Department of Government Efficiency on Thursday.
Here's a quote from the Texas Republican: Hopefully, these guys can expose it so that Congress has to do its job.
In the next breath, he pointed out just how difficult cutting spending will be in practice.
Anybody with common sense could rip apart the federal government and identify thousands of things we shouldn't be funding, he said.
Roy then gestured down the hallway to where his Republican colleagues were gathering.
But these guys that I work with believe they've got an unlimited checkbook, they have no limiting principle.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, the two leaders of Doge, have said they'll consider firing much of the federal workforce, abolishing some government agencies, and that they may even find $2 trillion to cut from the government's expenditures.
They could take stabs at some reforms through executive authority if President-elect Donald Trump agrees with their recommendations.
But other ideas would likely have to go through Congress.
And plenty of Republican lawmakers say they would be happy to see changes to make their government function better and for less money.
But they've also spent years trying to pass their own efficiency bills and spending cuts, and they know how much of an uphill climb real reform might be.
Half of the people in the room were probably very excited, and the other half are in reality, said Representative Max Miller of Ohio.
We have a four-seat majority, he noted.
$2 trillion is a lot.
Your reaction to what you're hearing here from House Republicans about the Department of Government Efficiency and the ideas that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have thrown out.
Plus, what do you think the government should do to become more efficient?
Let's go to West Palm Beach, Florida.
Democratic caller, good morning to you.
Yeah, hello.
Your turn, caller, go ahead.
Yeah.
The main problem with the deficit is from way back then during the time of Ronald Reagan when they decided to do supply-side economics.
Imagine from the Great Depression to that point, the deficit was less than a trillion dollars.
And from the time of Reagan, the deficit has arisen every year on the Republican presidents.
And that is the main problem with the budget deficit.
It's supply-side economics.
And people should not let the Republicans, you know, spread lies about the other stuff.
I mean, the other stuff has to be taken care of, but the main problem was supply-side economics.
In fact, when Trump was in office, he passed a $6 trillion tax cut for the rich.
All right.
All right, Caller, we'll move on to Bill, who's in Columbia, Maryland, independent.
Bill, what do you say?
Yeah, good morning, Greta.
Good morning to your audience.
First thing I want to say is I want to bring up Tom Coburn, the late great senator from Oklahoma, who wrote, who studied all the waste, fraud, and abuse and wrote a book in many books, but the main one that I'm familiar with is The Debt Bomb, where he talked about how we were going bankrupt.
So I know we're in the Washington area.
A lot of Dodge folks are probably listening.
I hope they revisit Tom's work because I think he's laid out a map for them to start their work.
Yeah, Bill, I mean, he would have a report every year about what he called waste and fraud and abuse in the federal government.
He would come to the floor and try to pass amendments to cut spending time after time.
So the other thing that needs to be done is all these, all the port that's added to all the legislation.
That's, you know, that's sort of like the grease that keeps the wheels going in Washington.
And, you know, it's like you want to secure the border.
Well, you can't just deport everybody and leave the border open.
Well, it's the same sort of thing.
We can work on reducing the waste, fraud, and abuse.
But if they keep adding all this port, so they need to get to a point where they're just passing one bill.
They're voting on the bill.
And, you know, you don't have dozens of senators and congressmen adding to the bill.
And so, of course, I've heard people say the education department.
I heard one person, I hear so much because I listen to C-SPAN all the time, but somebody was on talking about how there were like 50 or 60 programs for job, helping people prepare for jobs, job training.
So obviously, if you come down to one program, delete all the duplication, and just reduce the size of government.
I mean, the money goes from Washington to the states.
So cut federal workforce, Bill.
That's what you're saying.
Start there.
Absolutely.
And then also look at the civil service.
I've got a friend who's a GS-15.
Okay.
They asked him to look at how they could reduce costs.
He had about 15,000 people under him, and he did a report.
He did the work, and he said we can reduce this to 5,000.
So in other words, 10,000 jobs could be eliminated through attrition.
You don't have to fire the people.
Just don't rehire the people.
And you know what happened when he put that report?
He got crickets.
Bill there in Columbia, Maryland.
You, Bill, and others may be interested.
You mentioned the president-elect's policy agenda, border security being top of the list.
Here is Politico with this reporting this morning.
GOP lawmakers already divided over sweeping Trump policy bill.
John Thune, who is going to be the new leader for Republicans in the Senate, the majority leader, wants a two-step strategy that addresses immigration and energy first and then taxes later.
Key House Republicans aren't on board with that plan.
So they have got to iron this out before January 3rd when the 119th gavels in.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune sparked heartburn across the Capitol this week when he told GOP senators that the package, which under budget reconciliation rules would allow the GOP to bypass a Democratic filibuster, would be split into two parts.
The first would focus on border and energy with a goal to pass it in the first 30 days of the new Trump administration, and the second on tax.
Speaker Mike Johnson quickly endorsed the two-step strategy, though he noted leaders were still working out what would be included in each package.
Look for more reporting on how Republicans in the House and the Senate, with majority in both of those chambers, push President-elect Donald Trump's agenda in January when the 119th Congress convenes.
Ray, Pleasantview, Tennessee, a Republican.
Ray, we are talking about how you make government more efficient.
Where would you cut what you think is waste, fraud, or abuse?
Yes, there is waste.
There has been waste for years.
If it's 55% of the people think the government could be run more efficient, I'd like to know what the other 45% are thinking.
I mean, come on.
If government, let me tell you a little story.
I was a private in the Army back in the 60s.
The mess sergeant told me and another private to take a hindquarter of a beach and throw it in the dumpster.
And we wondered why.
He said, if you don't use it, you lose it.
That the government has been running that way for years.
It's time that somebody stepped in there and took a blowtorch to it and stopped this craziness.
And Ray, would you start with the Pentagon?
Say what?
Would you start with the Pentagon when you look at government spending?
Absolutely.
When you're paying $90,000 for a bag of boats or $500 for a hammer, come on.
Where is the person that's in charge of purchasing everything?
That man needs to be fired.
All right.
Because he's not doing his job.
Ray in Tennessee, a Republican caller talking about the Pentagon.
Other callers have mentioned when we shared a tweet with Senator Bernie from Senator Bernie Sanders, too, saying Pentagon has failed audits.
They have lost track of billions of dollars.
Adam Smith, who is the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee in the House, has some reservations, though, about this Doge Commission and what they can accomplish.
Here's what he had to tell CNN.
I think, you know, Bill Clinton and Al Gore had reinventing government.
I mean, when he was president, they went in, they tried to say, how can we make this more efficient?
That's great.
I've seen no evidence that Marjorie Taylor Greene has really any understanding of how government functions.
And when Elon Musk says he can cut $2 trillion out of the budget, 60% of the budget is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
And he's also saying, I'm not going to cut any Trump has said he's not going to cut anything out of it.
So where's that money?
Yeah, exactly.
I don't want to drag us, as they say, they said there would be no math.
So we're getting into math here, but you got a $6.5 trillion budget.
You're not going to touch 60% of it.
You're down to a little over $2 trillion.
So what, you're going to cut 80% of everything else?
Defense is about $1 trillion.
So now you're down to $1.7 trillion that you're going to cut $2 trillion out of.
The math doesn't add up.
The instinct to want to make government more efficient, yes, let's do it.
There's a thousand different ways to do that.
But to come in and think that you could slash it like he slashed Twitter, okay, you know, people want their Medicare checks.
They want their Social Security checks.
I think we want to continue to defend this country.
So even if you cut all the stuffs, you know, Republicans don't think education matters, that doesn't even get you there, even if you cut every last penny of that.
By the way, even education is important because it helps fund poor school districts.
It's what the federal government does to try to give people opportunity.
So I think they're going to run headlong into reality.
Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington.
He's the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, expressing concern about the Department of Government Efficiency, so-called Doge, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
From MediaITE's website, here's the headline: Democratic Rep says Musk and Ramaswamy's Doge agency is unconstitutional and illegal.
They were quoting Zoe Lofgren.
Well, it's illegal, she said in an interview with CNN.
You know, they haven't asked me to meet with, they haven't asked to meet with me, but the impoundment of funds that have been appropriated by the Congress is unconstitutional and illegal.
There is no such Department of Government Efficiency.
It's made up.
So good luck to them.
Cliff in Oklahoma, Independent.
Cliff, do you support this idea of the Department of Government Efficiency, Doge?
Cliff in Oklahoma, Independent, talking to you.
All right, moving on.
Charles, Tennessee, Democratic caller.
Do you support the Department of Government Efficiency?
Yes, I think that it's going to have to be a state-by-state thing.
Here in Tennessee, we have a thing called 10 Care, and it just kind of runs wild.
We've got a lot of factories here that's wanting to hire people that offer good insurance.
But people quit those jobs and go put all their family on ten care, and it don't cost nothing.
And they don't really go back to work.
They go out and get a job enough to get by with.
But they really need to take it state to state and see where they can do this.
And I think in Tennessee, that teacher is just, you know, it's a great big waste in a lot of ways.
I mean, don't get me wrong, a lot of people get it.
But there's a lot of people, I know people that quit their jobs at factories that have good health insurance at a fairly reasonable rate, and then they'll just quit and go say, you know, open up a little bit of business or whatever and stuff.
And they will put all their family on tea care because it don't cost them nothing.
You know, there need to be some, they need to have some skin in the game because the people that are working can't afford to keep paying taxes for all the people.
And I think that, you know, Musk and him need to sit down with governors and go state to state, you know, and say, hey, you know, you've got all these jobs open that offers health insurance, or they had to start charging them for tea care or something because just the people working can't afford to keep paying it.
And I guess that's about what I got to say.
Thank you very much.
All right, Charles in Tennessee.
Michelle on Facebook.
She's joining the conversation there and posts.
Maybe federal workers return to their offices so buildings in Washington aren't 60 to 70 percent vacant.
If not, sell the buildings and close their departments.
William in Richmond, Virginia, independent.
Hi, William.
Hey, well, I tell you what, let's just see where we are now.
This president was elected by people who are either ignorant of the history and purpose of this country or they just didn't care to have elected an immoral imbecile who has not, he doesn't have the maturity to run the country.
He doesn't have the knowledge.
And you see what he's doing with the people that he's appointing to certain positions like his Father-in-law and others, you know, appointing family members and felons to things.
He just doesn't have people.
We might as well, I got to tell you, we realize the situation we're in.
Democracy died when Donald Trump became prominent.
And we do not have our country lasted, the democracy lasted for 250 years, but it is over.
The Supreme Court is so political, they gave not respect the rule of law anymore.
All right, William, there in Virginia, we're asking you this morning, how can the federal government become more efficient?
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were on Capitol Hill yesterday.
They met behind closed doors with senators first, Republicans, and then they went over to the House side and met with Republicans over there to talk initially about where they see that they can make the government more efficient.
Do you think it can be?
And if so, where would you cut?
What would be first for you to make the government cut waste, fraud, and abuse?
There are the lines on your screen.
We've divided them, Republican, Democrat, Independents, and federal workers.
We want to hear from you this morning as well.
More of that conversation coming up.
But first, I want to show you what President-elect Donald Trump had to say last night.
He was named Patriot of the Year at an event on Fox Nation yesterday.
And here's a portion of his remarks touting his recent tariff threats on Canada and Mexico.
As you know, I spoke with Canada, and Justin came flying right in because we talked about 25% tariffs.
That's just a beginner.
This is a hell of a nice crowd.
I like this.
This is a nice crowd.
Yeah.
That's an interesting statement.
Thank you very much.
I do appreciate all that pent-up anger and love.
It's everything at one time.
It's everything at one time.
But we're going to do things that a lot of people thought we're going to drill, baby, drill.
We're going to get your prices down.
And we're bringing the cost down.
You know, when we were campaigning, a lot of people thought the biggest thing was the economy, and it is.
It probably polled the best, but I never believed it was as important as immigration and the border and stopping our country from being invaded because this was a massive invasion of our country.
And I spoke with, as you probably read, I spoke the other day to the president, the new president of Mexico, very nice woman.
And we had a very nice conversation, but she said, why are you doing this to me?
I said, I'm not.
I'm just putting a lot of tariffs on because you're allowing criminals to pour into our country.
And we can't allow that anymore.
And it stopped.
It stopped.
It was so fast.
It stopped.
President-elect Donald Trump on Fox Nation, where he received Patriot of the Year award, talking about his threats on tariffs for Canada and Mexico.
He also mentioned that the leader of Canada, Mr. Trudeau, made a trip down to Mar-a-Lago right after he was elected to meet with him.
And then there's this headline in the New York Times this morning, Mexico seizes 20 million doses of fentanyl.
The new president of Mexico said she added that the operation seized more than 20 million doses of fentanyl pills worth nearly $400 million.
The new president's focus on combating crime is a move that some security analysts say may appease Mr. Trump, who has consistently made Mexico a target.
He has threatened extreme tariffs on the country's exports to the United States and even challenged Mexican sovereignty by proposing U.S. military strikes against drug cartels there.
Here's a quote: Trump's threats, without a doubt, have set the wheels spinning, said one security consultant.
All of this is being done to arrive at the negotiating table with Trump's security team with a portfolio of achievements.
Crackdown in Mexico.
New York Times this morning, if you're interested in reading that.
Other headlines this morning about the president-elect's picks to serve in his administration.
This second time around, he has the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
Friendly SEC pick delights the crypto industry.
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday chose Paul Atkins, a crypto company advisor, as the next chair of the Securities Exchange Commission, a milestone for an industry that has often felt unwelcome in Washington.
A few hours later, Bitcoin raced past $100,000 for the first time.
That's the front page of the Wall Street Journal this morning.
Front page of the New York Times this morning.
Pete Hegseth's work troubles feed leadership doubts, added heat for Trump defense pick over nonprofit missteps and his alcohol use.
And according to news reports, there are 11 senators who are not publicly saying it, but are privately saying that they oppose the nomination.
Here's the Washington Post.
DeSantis, a top Trump pick if Hegseth can't win approval.
That's in the Washington Post this morning.
And then there's this headline in the Wall Street Journal.
Heg Seth says that the president-elect urge him to continue fighting on.
Here is what the nominee said on Capitol Hill to reporters yesterday.
I'm grateful that President Trump has bestowed this opportunity on me.
This process has been a very good one, despite all the noise on the outside.
I had a great interview with Megan Kelly yesterday and will continue to answer questions specifically to senators who are the ones that deserve answers to every question they have.
And in every office we've stood in, we've welcomed that opportunity.
It has been a great week.
It's a process that's ongoing and we look forward to finishing it.
Will you support the release of that whistleblower report for the concern?
It's very interesting what the press likes to dub a whistleblower report, which some others might clarify as an email from a disgruntled employee, one might say.
So would you support the release of that information?
I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get a visit to you on the issue of alcohol.
We've had great conversations about who I am and what I believe.
And frankly, the man I am today because of my faith in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and my incredible wife, Jenny, right here.
I'm a different man than I was years ago.
And that's a redemption story that I think a lot of Americans appreciate.
And I know from fellow vets that I've spent time with, they resonate with that as well.
You fight, you go do tough things in tough places on behalf of your country, and sometimes that changes you a little bit.
And by the grace of God and my Lord and Savior, I had an opportunity to come on up out of it and do great things with great veterans organizations that fought for vets, that fought for reform at the VA and for warfighters, and at the Fox News Channel to advocate for those very same causes.
And I'm proud of what I've fought for.
I'm not going to back down from them one bit.
I will answer all of these senators' questions, but this will not be a process tried in the media.
I don't answer to anyone in this group.
None of you.
Not to that camera at all.
I answer to President Trump, who received 76 million votes on behalf and a mandate for change.
I answer to the 50, the 100 senators who are part of this process and those in the committee, and I answer to my Lord and Savior and my wife and my family.
I'm proud to be here.
And as long as Donald Trump wants me in this fight, I'm going to be standing right here in this fight, fighting to bring our Pentagon back to what it needs to be.
Pete Hegseth on Capitol Hill yesterday, meeting with senators, Republicans have 53 seats in this new Senate in the 119th Congress.
And he saying, Pete Hegseth saying that he answers to President-elect Donald Trump and the senators who have to confirm him.
According to news reports, there are nearly a dozen, around 10 or so senators who are privately saying they would oppose the nomination.
Also on Capitol Hill, Wall Street Journal, with this report, the release of the Gates report by that ethics committee blocked.
Republican lawmakers voted down a proposal from Democrats to release a detailed report on allegations of sexual misconduct against the former Congressman Matt Gates, who resigned last month while President-elect Donald Trump considered him to lead the Justice Department.
In a 206, 188 vote, this was on the floor, lawmakers voted to send to committee, effectively blocking a resolution from Representative Sean Kasten that would have forced the public release of the Gates report.
In a second vote of 204 to 198, a similar resolution was sent to the committee.
That was actually on the House floor.
Let me clarify, the House Ethics Committee also met behind closed doors on this Gates report yesterday on Capitol Hill.
Back to our conversation with all of you.
How can the federal government become more efficient?
The co-chairs of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, on Capitol Hill yesterday, George in Circleville, Ohio, Republican.
George, what would you tell those two gentlemen to cut first?
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family, Greta and the C-SPAN family.
First of all, I'd like to complain.
I've called, you've asked for callers.
I called, and now I had to listen to 12 minutes of recordings.
You ask for callers and then you don't take the calls, or you're wanting people to hang up.
I don't like to complain, but I've been on hold.
And you're playing recorders, recordings of Wall Street Journal and this and that, and people are waiting to ask people to call.
What's going on with C-SPAN?
What is going on with C-SPAN?
Thank you for your patience, George.
We're also letting you know what's happening in Washington at the same time.
It's part of the conversation, informing you about the debates that are happening here.
Go ahead, Willow, with your comments.
I think your callers are pretty well informed.
They wouldn't be calling.
I'm a senior citizen.
I know probably more about what's going on in the country than you do.
All right, George, you better get to your point.
I'm going to get to the point.
Your caller a few callers ago was complaining about Social Security and Medicare.
Well, the government owes Social Security $3 trillion that they borrowed.
If they repay that, which they cannot because the government's bankrupt, Social Security wouldn't be part of the general fund.
So point that out.
That needs to be pointed out to people.
They're being misled.
And Medicare fraud is rampant.
Oh, look at all the COVID money that was given out.
You know that 6% of federal employees work from home?
Like I say, I know all the facts.
You can look it all up.
And 87,000 IRS agents, how much they make?
I mean, the Pentagon, like the previous caller, talked about all the parts and expenses.
The list goes on and on.
There's so much fraud, and there's so much fraud in the government.
And you mentioned Bitcoin went up.
Well, Bitcoin's going up because the dollar's gone down.
All right, George's thoughts there in Ohio, Republican, where you cut waste in Washington.
Juan in Odenton, Maryland, Democratic caller.
Where would you cut, Juan, if at all?
I would start with the Pentagon.
You know, I retired from the Pentagon, and I used to work for one of those agencies in the security assistance, security cooperation arena.
And our purchasing, our acquisition department was so worthless, they failed two audits back to back.
And the leadership of the agency decided to just disband the acquisition shop and basically align us with the main Washington headquarters services to streamline the process.
And our acquisition shop was just worthless.
There were employees who came into the office two days a week, and they would come in at 10 o'clock and leave at 3.
And some of them wouldn't even do any work.
So that's where the fraud and abuse is.
Okay.
And Juan in Maryland, Democratic caller, Jane on Facebook, eliminate all government contracts with private companies.
Cut out the middlemen making outrageous profits.
Eliminate all pollution discharge permits that cost taxpayers billions and end all subsidies to private, profitable companies.
Terry in Bellwood, Illinois, Democratic caller.
Terry, where would you cut the waste in the federal government?
Well, you know, the first thing we need to do is let everybody take responsibility for this.
So I would start from the top.
I hear the billionaire pay such a low tax rate than average working people.
So I think for the first two years, I would text all the billionaires at the 1975 level.
And that's me one sacrifice.
And they don't like it.
Tell them to give up their corporate charter.
And we get some more corporations in here.
U.S. Steel, when Carnegie went into business, you know, he sold out.
So why we didn't create another one entity with young Americans?
So I think everybody needs to make that sacrifice.
We need to look at dual citizenship.
How much money is leaving out this country?
Are you loyal to this country?
I would need to take care of the seniors and put a freeze on everything else since they're not making no money.
We need to, you know, America needs to make some sacrifices and we need to get serious about it until the two guys you mentioned, Rasama Kami and Elon Musk, let's start the sacrifice with their corporate buddies.
All right.
Terry's thoughts there.
Matt is a Republican in Texas.
Hi, Matt.
Yes, ma'am.
You know, I tell you, I mean, Trump and Elon and everybody's, our Republicans have been repeatedly telling everybody exactly.
He did it again last night, telling you what he, how is he going to, how is he doing it?
He's going to open up the federal oil.
We are blessed.
The Lord God blessed this country with so much oil.
We got more oil than Saudi Arabia.
You can drill for that oil, sell it to the NATO countries, pay off your national debt.
That will bring down your interest rates.
And also, you can take that money, and you're going to have more money than you ever dreamed of once you start selling that oil to the NATO countries and to India.
That right now, Biden wouldn't allow our oil industry to drill on federal lands.
He kept his foot on something that the Lord God has blessed us with.
He had put so much oil onto this country, it's unbelievable.
And the Permian Basin down here in Texas, Pennsylvania, Anwar.
It's everywhere.
And Biden, all he cares about is putting men in women's bathrooms.
And you got a businessman in there now.
And what did he say last night?
Again, he said it.
What did he say?
He said, we need to drill, drill, drill.
And after that, you sell that oil to NATO countries.
You're going to be able to rebuild your roads, your hospitals.
Yeah, you can do a little cutting if you want to, but that's not going to really amount to much.
Where you're going to get your money is selling that oil, that federal land oil, and selling it to NATO countries, pay off your national debt.
All right, Matt and Texas, a Republican caller with that idea.
David in Swainsboro, Georgia, Independent.
David.
Good morning, Griff.
Good morning.
What do you propose?
Things real quick.
One of them is Medicare.
It's a $4.5 trillion a year industry.
That's a Medicare tax.
That's how much they collect.
Now, they're wasting $1.5 trillion of that with the PPO, that's public-private offices, where this is a Republican program that they started.
This is Mitch McConnell with his let's have insurance companies come in here.
That's costing us $1.5 trillion a year.
Now, let's take another Republican policy, which was cut the taxes for the wealthiest people in the country down to 9.6% per year, while everybody else is having to pay over 25% a year.
Now, that's just two Republican programs.
Now, let me correct this last gentleman who was all about the oil.
Look, when we started drilling and hit all this oil recently, we had 49 years of oil left in the ground at current production levels of 14 million barrels of oil a year.
House Bill 702-2015 give the people from foreign countries the ability to come in here and sell our oil, and we're not getting tax money for it.
The only tax money we get is from when oil is sold at the punk.
The rest of it is going to the wealthy who are not paying taxes.
So, y'all need to wake up to what the Republicans are doing.
This is another raid on our economy, on our revenues that they're doing with this doe business, a fancy word to just cloud up what's really going on, which is to take another $1.5 trillion a year for the wealthiest people and just give it back to them and let us suffer and pay the bills for it.
Thank you, Greta.
I appreciate you putting up with me.
I know you don't really like it when I tell all this truth, but that's what's going on in our country.
All right.
Well, thank you for joining the conversation.
David in Georgia there.
Also, another moment from Capitol Hill that we want to share with you.
C-SPAN cameras at the task force on the attempted assassinations of Donald Trump when he was running for re-election this past campaign cycle.
They had their final hearing on Capitol Hill.
I want to share this moment.
Representative Pat Fallon, Republican of Texas, and the acting Secret Service Director, Ronald Rowe, got into a shouting match over accusations of not properly protecting both President Biden and former President Trump at a 9-11 ceremony in September.
Do you recognize this photo?
Yes, sir, I do.
Okay.
Is that the remembrance of September 11th?
It was.
Was it in New York?
It was at ground zero.
Okay.
Who's usually at an event like this closest to the President of the United States?
Security-wise.
The sack of the detail.
Special agent in charge of the detail.
Were you the special agent in charge of the detail that day?
Actually, let me address this.
Could you please, staff, leave that?
Oh, no, leave that one up with the circle around me.
Thank you.
So, actually, Congressman, what you're not seeing is the sack of the detail off out of the picture's view.
And that is the day where we remember the more than 3,000 people that have died on 9-11.
I actually responded to ground zero.
I was there going through the ashes at the World Trade Center.
I was there at Freshkills.
I'm not asking you that.
I'm asking you, Congressman.
Were you the special agent in charge to show respect for our secret service that died on 9-11?
Do not invoke 9-11 for political purposes.
I'm not.
I'm invoking this.
You are, sir.
You are out of government.
I would like to ask him a quick please.
You are out of time.
Don't you fully me.
I'm an elected member of Congress, and I'm asking you a serious question.
And you are a person who has served this nation, and you won't answer on our day, on our country's darkest miscarriage.
The minute I'm asking you serious questions for the American people, and they're very simple.
They're not true questions.
Were you the special agent in charge of that?
No, I wasn't.
I was there representing the United States Secret Service.
No, sir.
Mr. Ballon, your time did not affect protective opportunities.
I like because you wanted to be visible because you are existing for this.
It was there to pay respect for a fallen member of this agency.
You endangered president, Congressman.
Vice President out of his life because you put those agents out of position.
Heated exchange on Capitol Hill yesterday when the acting Secret Service director testified before the task force looking into those attempted assassinations against Donald Trump.
That was their final report, and we covered it here on C-SPAN.
Go to our website, c-span.org, to listen to that hearing, watch it there.
If you missed any of it, we have points of interest.
Those are the yellow stars at the bottom to indicate the key moments from that hearing yesterday.
And you can find it again on c-span.org or our free video mobile app, C-SPANNow.
Back to our conversation about government waste.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy want to cut the waste of the federal government.
They think they can make it more efficient.
Mike in Ohio, an independent, what do you say?
Morning, Garrett.
Morning.
That Ronald Rowe should be terminated automatically.
Unprofessional.
And for another thing, even though he does work for the government, his government agency failed in protecting Donald Trump.
Two things I'm thankful for this year.
I have a healthy family, and we are making it through.
And Trump is in position now to exactly show us what our government is doing.
And I'll tell you one thing: when Biden got in there, he screwed everything up.
It's his effort.
So, Mike, how would you make government more efficient?
What we should do, Bretta, and I believe Elon's going to get in there, we should get every department, audit every department.
If they fail their audit, everybody that is responsible for the audit and the expenditures should be terminated.
Any other company, as far as being outside the government, they would have terminated everybody, even the CEO, the SEO, everybody.
The only way that this, that we are going to actually uncover everything is if we have people outside of the government that have no skin in the game to get into our government, which they made their own dirty little deals, and expose it and stop it.
As far as the VA, are you serious?
West Virginia is outrageous.
They've had sexual stuff going on.
I mean, this is ridiculous.
We need people to get in there to open up and expose what's been going on.
All right, understood.
Mike's calling for an audit of every federal agency.
That is where he wants this Department of Government Efficiency, so-called Doge, to start.
Mike also mentioned the Veterans Affairs Department.
Yesterday on Capitol Hill, we covered a hearing where they discussed the budget shortfall for the VA, and you can find that on our website, fcspan.org as well.
Bernice, in Detroit, Democratic caller.
Bernice, do you think the government is inefficient?
I do, but I do, but I think it in the opposite way of the American people.
My comment is really directed towards the American people.
I'm not highly educated or experienced, no half-boarded questions, answer to the questions you ask, because I can't count billions of dollars.
I've been working poor since the age of 16 years old.
And I don't understand why we, as American people, go against each other and say what should be cut on jobs and the Pentagon, things that protect us and keep us safe.
We deserve at least that.
Why don't they start off by telling Elon Musk to give back those tax credits that have made him the richest man in the world?
It takes all our taxes to carry this country.
But we let him walk down the hall grinning with a child on his shoulder.
We let the one that's running for the Pentagon look in the camera at us, arrogant, and says, I'm not listening to the American people.
I thought they said we pay their salary.
I'm not listening to the American people.
I only listen to Donald Trump.
That's because some of us is Donald Trump.
Some of us is Joe Biden.
I'm a strong Democrat, but I'm impartial.
All right.
Bernice's thoughts there in Detroit.
We'll go to Ohio.
Gary's watching.
They're a Republican.
Gary, your thoughts on making the government more efficient.
Yeah, I would start with our military.
We have troops all over the world, Korea, Japan, Germany.
I would bring them back to the United States.
And maybe our Trident Missile program, I think we have maybe a dozen of them out there, and they can hit about, each submarine can hit about 100 targets or more.
Bring some of those back.
I don't think we need that many targets hit.
And with Social Security disability, I personally know a lot of working aged people that are on disability for stupid reasons.
That needs to be looked at.
That's what I think needs to be done.
All right, Gary.
Rick in Tuckerton, New Jersey, Democratic caller.
Rick, your turn.
Good morning.
Morning.
So, okay.
Here's my problem with cutting soap, you know, trying to cut $2 trillion from the budget.
I saw the cow jump over the moon last night, too.
It's not going to happen.
I'd like to bring the budget situation down to this.
Family economics, kitchen table economics.
If a family is having financial trouble, they try to make more money.
A wife that's not working might get a job.
A husband who's working a job might get a second one.
And then they're going to cut spending.
They might not take a vacation.
They want to.
They might eat pasta three times a week.
You have to do both.
You have to make more money and you have to spend less money.
The Democrats want to raise taxes.
The Republicans want to cut spending.
They have to do both.
That's what happened when we paid off our World War II debt.
At that time in the Eisenhower administration, the top tax rate was 92%.
People won't believe me when I show them that on the phone because they're like, oh, yeah, the government lies.
But we have to do both, just like a family.
Get more money in and spend less money.
Thank you.
Okay.
James, Chevy Chase, Maryland, Independent.
Hi, James.
Oh, hi.
Hi, C-SPAN.
Thanks for taking my call.
I really do agree with that last caller.
I just think it's a matter of controlling our spending.
But I also wanted to point out that I noticed in the last few years that we're having trouble balancing our budget, and the government is always under the threat of shutting down.
And, you know, I used to work for the government, so this is like a problem.
I mean, if you can't control your spending and you're always on the threat of shutting down, it doesn't look good to other countries.
So I think that's an issue that we have to address.
And I think we should start with the Department of Defense.
I think there's a lot of waste.
Social Security is an area we can look into.
And I think that this committee that's formed with that Trump has formed is a great idea.
We just have too much spending that we need to cut out.
Okay.
James, there in Chevuchus, Maryland.
And we are going to return to this conversation of government efficiency later on the Washington Journal at 8.30 a.m. Eastern Time.
First, coming up, Wisconsin Democrat Gwen Moore, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, to talk about the future of tax cuts in the incoming Trump administration.
And then, like I said, later, we'll return to Doge, the Department of Government Efficiency.
Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas, has formed a new congressional caucus designed to support the efforts of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
we'll talk to him about that coming up on The Washington Journal.
Since 1979, in partnership with the cable industry, C-SPAN has provided complete coverage of the halls of Congress, from the House and Senate floors to congressional hearings, party briefings, and committee meetings.
C-SPAN gives you a front-row seat to how issues are debated and decided with no commentary, no interruptions, and completely unfiltered.
C-SPAN, your unfiltered view of government.
American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
This weekend at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, more than 80 years after his death, the recently identified remains of mess attendant third class David Walker of Virginia were buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
The 19-year-old African-American sailor was killed on the USS California during the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
And at 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures and History, the first of a two-part lecture by University of Maryland history professor Michael Ross on the 1893 trial of Lizzie Borden, who was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe.
The murders and trial received widespread publicity at the time, and Lizzie Borden became a lasting figure in American popular culture.
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Exploring the American story, watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/slash history.
Washington Journal continues.
We want to welcome back Congresswoman Gwen Moore, Democrat of Wisconsin, member of the Ways and Means Committee and a member of the Progressive Caucus joining us from Capitol Hill this morning.
Congresswoman, let's begin with the 2017 tax cuts put in place during President Trump's first term in office.
Remind viewers of the changes that were made then and which ones are set to expire.
Well, thanks for having me, Greta.
In 2017, the Tax Cut and Job Act, I was not on the Ways and Means Committee at the time, but there were very serious changes.
The corporate tax rate went down from 35% to 21%.
I heard your programming earlier where somebody was talking about the Eisenhower years where he was 92%.
Well, the corporate tax rate went dropped precipitously from 35 to 21 percent.
In addition to that, there was a change to the standard deduction to double the standard deduction for individuals, which was great.
But mostly the tax cuts went to the top 1% of the population, you know, CEOs of companies and to shareholders.
We had a provision called the 199 provision, which was supposed to be targeted towards small businesses, but quite frankly, the benefit primarily went 70% or so went to very large corporations.
And so what we found is that we had like a $2 trillion tax cut, and most of the benefit went to shareholders, CEOs, and to corporations, quite frankly, and sort of didn't trickle down to regular Americans.
Which ones are set to expire?
The ones that are set to expire, unfortunately, are the individual taxes.
But even if we were, and that's about $3 trillion, but were we to renew those tax cuts, people with incomes, say, under $114,000 a year would not experience that big of a tax change again.
Those individual tax changes will benefit primarily people who are wealthier.
And we also have business, we have the 199 that I mentioned before provision for businesses that is to expire.
And that's a provision that I think the committee ought to look real hard at because we've had input from small business associations that say that, you know, that the small business community, what we consider Main Street businesses, don't really benefit from a 20% deduction on qualified business income.
It's mostly those larger companies, you know, $10 million or so more in income that organize the same way that smaller businesses do as LLCs and so on.
They are primarily raking up all of the benefit from those tax cuts.
Let's listen to Missouri Republican Jason Smith.
He's the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, and he was on Fox Business earlier this week.
And here's what he had to say about letting these tax cuts expire.
We win this by delivering for working class Americans, small businesses, and family farmers.
If Congress does nothing, every single American will face a tax increase by the end of the year.
Every individual rate will go up.
The child tax credit, which is something that helps a lot of working families, will be slashed in half.
It will go from 2,000 to 1,000.
The standard deduction, which 91% of Americans use to file their taxes, gets slashed in half.
These are tax cuts for real working Americans.
And I would hope to think that the Democrats would not want those taxes to increase on working class Americans, small businesses, and farmers.
You know, Jason Smith and I are good friends, and he's a very clever man.
And what he just talked about there was the fact that they elected to make permanent those tax cuts that benefit corporations.
And were they to renew them, that will add $4.6 trillion to the deficit.
And what they allowed to expire were those provisions that helped families.
You know, I just want to say that doubling the standard deduction, again, that helped a lot of families.
But at the same time, doubling the standard deduction, people lost tax deductions that they had, lost other benefits.
And again, those tax cuts for small businesses, you take a small business, there's a small business, say you had a small business that had a net income of $100,000.
That tax cut was about $2,000 as opposed to the millions of dollars that larger corporations receive.
There definitely was no equity.
So the other thing is that the $4.6 trillion of tax cuts that Jason Smith has said that we need to renew would be added to the deficit and not,
and the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Federal Reserve Board, other economists have said not a single penny of the tax cuts that we have given to these corporations has trickled down to regular Americans, that they've gone towards CEO pay, that they've gone for stock buybacks and to shareholders.
And if there's any growth that's been realized from slashing the corporate tax cut down to 21%, it is inured to the benefit of large businesses and crumbs literally from the master's table.
So if Jason Smith says that, you know, every single person will have their taxes increased and the measly child tax credit that they have put in place to replace what we did, Democrats did during the American Rescue Plan, it's hardly worth the pain that people will endure with this being added to the deficit.
Congresswoman, Republicans will have the majority in the 119th.
It will be a thin one, just a handful of seats.
Will any Democrats join them in re-upping these tax cuts?
Well, I'll tell you, some of the tax cuts have bipartisan support.
I think there's bipartisan support for the research and development credit, for example.
But the question for me is what Republicans will join Democrats in reforming some of these things.
As I mentioned before, the 199 credit is really a huge giveaway to large corporations.
The bonus, the 100% bonus depreciation is a huge giveaway to big corporations.
How many Republicans, there are Republicans that wax on about the deficit, and I hope that they'll step up during these discussions and cause there to be some restraint.
I heard earlier in your programming that people talked about, oh, how spending is the problem.
Spending is the problem.
Providing tax cuts to corporations is spending.
Be clear that that is spending.
And the pay for for these corporate tax cuts that I've heard about have included Medicaid, have included SNAP, formerly called food stamps, and we've even had Republicans admit that Social Security and Medicare is on the table.
So, yeah.
Let's get to calls, Congresswoman.
We've got a handful of people waiting for you.
Bill in New Jersey, Democratic caller, you're joining the conversation here with Congresswoman Gwen Moore.
Welcome.
So, yes, I just want to know about the status of veterans disability pensions and health care.
I heard that the Republicans are probably going to go after that, and I've just wondered what you could say about that.
I hope I'm getting your question right.
The disability benefits, the Social Security disability benefits?
No, the veteran disability benefits and our health care.
I'm a veteran.
Okay, well, what you're talking about, I think, is the Doge committee that's to be headed up by Elon Musk and Mr. Ramaswani.
They've talked about really slashing and burning any sort of program that doesn't have a reauthorization connected to it.
The veterans' benefits that you're talking about, and I am really scouring my memory, I think that it hasn't been reauthorized since maybe 1976.
So that would theoretically put it on the chopping block.
And it's an example of how sort of this blanket notion that programs that don't have the reauthorization could be on the chopping block.
But yeah, that's an example of a program.
And I don't remember the exact date, but it hasn't been reauthorized for decades.
But it is one of the programs that could be on the chopping block because of its status with regard to reauthorization.
All right, let's go to Tom, Charlotte, North Carolina, Republican.
Hi, Tom.
Good morning.
Good morning, Madam Congresswoman.
Good morning.
I'm glad we strolled into Dolge because that's what I'm calling about.
I was a VA nurse.
I'm a retired VA nurse and a veteran.
And the administrator in my hospital got a $500,000 bonus because he had saved $5 million from the Veterans Administration.
They say if you save the government any amount of money, you get 10% of what you save them.
So if you save them $2 trillion, then these boys, Musk and Vivic, are headed for a $200 billion bonus.
You know, I'll just have to plead ignorant on what you're talking about with regard to these bonuses.
But I think that the bonus ought to endure to the American people.
You know, if we've got $2 trillion that they can save from somewhere, we ought to make those investments in people.
The child tax credit we discussed earlier, I mean, there's a $10 to $1 payback that we can document for investing in our future workforce, in our children, versus,
you know, 100% bonus depreciation, which, you know, if we restore that benefit, cost us more than half trillion dollars just to go into the pockets of big fat cats, quite frankly.
There's more useful, productive use of money than just providing it, than slashing benefits, which is another thing they're talking about doing, slashing benefits from our efforts to meet the challenge of climate change, just to be able to provide those benefits to fossil fuel companies.
And we do know that we've got to tackle this problem and not just stand up to the donor community.
You know, there's absolutely no reason to go back to having, you know, grandma pay, you know, $500 a month for insulin because we're realizing some savings for pharmaceutical company executives who are not suffering at all.
This is the biggest profits that they've seen in the history of the industry.
And so I understand the whole notion of your question.
I'm sorry I don't know the specifics.
But yeah, the trend has been to reward people at the top, CEOs, and to allow people at the bottom to suffer.
I just want to point one thing out.
You know, when we start talking about the poor, we're talking about the 11% of people in the country who are struggling from day to day, facing possible homelessness and food insecurity.
But the reality is, is that when you look at the true cost of making it in America, over half of Americans, 52% of Americans, are financially insecure.
I mean, dog gunned, if that car that gets you to work every day breaks down, you don't have $500 to get it fixed up, ready cash in the bank.
52% and not a penny of the tax cuts that we're talking about reauthorizing will solve that problem.
People under $114,000 a year really will, the problem of that financial insecurity will not be solved by adding another $4.6 trillion to the debt.
Well, first of all, I want to tell the Congresswoman, Madam Moore, I love your eyeglasses.
They are absolutely fantastic.
I got three quick questions that I tried to cut them down, so I'm going to try to just go through them.
I want to know, first of all, why can't a mother divorced on food stamps with a couple of kids get the assistance that she needs over the years?
Because they cut all of that, but someone who owns a company and not paying taxes can continue to get tech cuts and they haven't paid any taxes.
I would like to see the Democrats come down on those Republicans about where this money is going.
All right.
And Loretta, I apologize to you, but we have to just take the one this morning because we're running out of time with the Congresswoman.
Well, Loretta, thank you for your question.
And, you know, basically, that's what they're talking about.
They're talking about cutting SNAP or food stamps or Medicaid, block granting it, you know, so that there's not enough money to meet the need in order to provide these tax cuts because that's where their priorities are.
There are some people who perhaps believe that these tax cuts pay for themselves, and there is absolutely zero proof that it ever happens.
Investing in people feeding babies with food stamps has a return.
Peter in Orange Park, Florida, Independent.
Hi there.
Peter in Orange Park, Florida, Independent.
Your turn.
Yeah, I'm right here.
I'm right here.
Representative Moore, thank you for everything.
I'm a retired teacher from MPS.
I was at Mex and at Clark and with the Mexico Foundation.
And thank you for fighting for our children in MTS.
Thank you for your service, sir, and a male teacher at that.
We really need you.
Akiva in Clifton, New Jersey, Independent.
Good morning to you.
Good morning, Brett.
Good morning, Representative Moore.
Good morning.
First, before I get to my question, I need to say your city hosted the Republican National Convention.
Congratulations.
And my question is about the tax law, specifically what it did to certain insurance companies.
The insurance company, Assurant, is headquartered in Milwaukee.
And I also hold that because of the tax law, which was passed in 2017, President Trump worked with Speaker Ryan at the time.
Because of the tax law, it was not going to leave for Bermuda and it was going to stay in Milwaukee.
Isn't that a good thing?
And so why are you not going to vote to extend the tax law?
It does not make sense.
Well, I didn't say I wouldn't vote to extend some of it.
I hope they take it in pieces.
I'll tell you, we have insurance is different.
Life insurance, they were the pay for for the corporate tax cut.
And it really put a lot of the life insurers in a really strange position.
They became the pay-for for other businesses.
You know, I guess it's picking winners and losers, so to speak.
But you say, why wouldn't I, you know, vote for the tax law?
I mean, the tax law ought to provide some sort of equity.
Remember when I talked about the 52% of Americans, you may even be one of them, you know, who, you know, day to day, I mean, you're not facing homelessness.
You're not, your kids aren't going to starve.
But, you know, if Aunt Main dies and you need to get a plane ticket to go to her funeral, that would be a huge strain on your budget.
You don't, people just don't have the kind of window and kinds of needs that they have.
You know, everybody doesn't have employer-sponsored insurance, and we're talking about cutting Medicaid.
People are very, very insecure.
And so why would I vote to extend bonus, 100% bonus, depreciation or the 199 benefit so big it doesn't help mainstream businesses.
You drive a Mac Truck through that loophole to so that CEOs you know the head of pharmaceutical companies and fossil fuel companies and can can get $10 million bonuses while 52% of the population is struggling.
And so I'm going to look at it and I'll vote for some of the stuff.
We do want companies to grow with the research and development credit, but some of it doesn't make any sense at all, particularly since it is going to extend the deficit, which Republicans complain about all the time and watch.
They're going to stop complaining about it all right, James?
San Diego Republican.
As the Congresslady knows, corporations do not pay taxes.
They pay employees.
Number one, they pay share.
They pay shareholders with interest and dividends.
So that area, that area, is not correct, young lady.
Number two, the Congress spends the money.
If the House, the president, sends out a budget that he thinks or she thinks is correct, the House OF Representatives go over the budget along with the Senate and then they approve and they compromise on what they want to spend.
If the Congress and the Senate quit spending money, then the deficit would go round to go down, to start off with.
All right James, I'm going to get Congresswoman's reaction.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you for that.
I'm not as young as you think, but thanks for the compliment.
You know, spending tax cuts To corporations is spending through the tax code.
We're given bonus depreciations instead of doing other things with the money.
So be clear that, so we start talking about spending.
Everything needs to be on the table.
Right now, we have a deficit of revenue.
We don't have enough revenue in this country to meet the needs of veterans.
I mean, we just had a caller earlier.
If they block grant, for example, Medicaid in order to pay for these tax cuts, what that'll mean is that we'll have so many of our wonderful seniors in nursing homes, you know, maybe spending the last month of their life in an ICU burning up the Medicaid dollars.
And some mother with two kids who's totally eligible won't be able to receive those benefits.
We might find ourselves, states might find themselves cutting things like rides to doctors' appointments, cutting perfectly eligible people on behalf of rich people.
And like you said, corporations don't pay taxes, but the tax cuts that we have given them, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Federal Reserve Board, all of these economists find that people did not get jobs, new hires, or increase, I'm sorry, increases in wages based on these tax cuts.
They went to shareholders.
They went, like you said, they went to shareholders, good for them.
But they did not trickle down to the 52% of the Americans that I'm talking about.
The people who, during exit polls in the election, say that they voted because they were feeling financially insecure.
The money did not help them.
Congresswoman Gwen Moore, Democrat of Wisconsin, thank you as always for talking to our viewers this morning here on the Washington Journal.
And thank you, Greta.
We'll take a short break when we come back.
Congressman Pete Sessions will be joining us.
He has formed a new caucus to support that Department of Government Efficiency, and we'll talk about how it's going to work and where they may start cutting.
Stay with us.
American History TV, Saturdays on C-SPAN 2, exploring the people and events that tell the American story.
This weekend at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, more than 80 years after his death, the recently identified remains of mass attendant third class David Walker of Virginia were buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
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And at 8 p.m. Eastern on Lectures and History, the first of a two-part lecture by University of Maryland history professor Michael Ross on the 1893 trial of Lizzie Borden, who was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe.
The murders and trial received widespread publicity at the time, and Lizzie Borden became a lasting figure in American popular culture.
And then at 9:30 p.m. Eastern on the presidency, eyewitnesses recount what unfolded inside the White House on December 7th, 1941, as President Franklin Roosevelt learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and then moved to assess the damage and America's response.
Exploring the American story.
Watch American History TV Saturdays on C-SPAN 2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history.
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Here's a look at what's coming up this weekend.
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Watch Book TV every Sunday on C-SPAN II and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org.
Washington Journal continues.
At our table this morning, Congressman Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas, 17th District, and the co-chair of the Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency Caucus.
What prompted you to start this caucus?
The need that became apparent, not just to me, but I think the country, came as a result of the performance of the last four years.
As the chairman of the subcommittee for government reform and oversight on government operations and federal workers, we saw very early on the impacts of the president, whether we say COVID or not, the president having almost every single government operations figure out a way where you can stay at home.
Figure out a way where you can not only operate from home, but see if you can use that as your mainstay.
And what happened is we immediately saw where the Passport Office became the first public casualty of this.
People, the American people, need for government to provide goods and services that they legally are responsible to do, but also to make Americans' lives better.
And as people stayed at home, we dug in on our subcommittee of what is the plan?
How are you going to make sure you serve the American people?
What do we do about these problems?
And the more we found out, the more we found out that thousands of operations, thousands of people in operations were inefficient, not meeting their mark, and became a problem.
And so then we tried to get under that.
And that's where it developed really this idea, we've got to deliver a better product.
Your caucus will help support this Department of Government Efficiency run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
They were on Capitol Hill yesterday, met behind closed doors with Republicans.
As lawmakers came out, we heard from folks like Tim Burchett and Chip Roy saying, the problem is in that room.
It's Republicans who are going to be the problem with having Doge be successful.
I know both these men, and there could be truth behind what they're saying.
The bottom line is we are kicking off an idea that is bipartisan.
We now have four House Democrats who've said, I want to be a part of this also.
Government efficiency, whether you're a Republican or Democrat, needs to work for the American people.
Government has services that it provides to a lot of people that are inefficiently being provided.
So, when they want to make these comments, they are right.
It's a tough lift.
We are going to include any member of Congress that wants to be available.
We're going to include an email address, doge at mail.house.gov.
We're going to take feedback and solicit feedback and specific problems or ideas that people have, and we're going to work on them.
The difference that I think that Tim and Chip are really not given credible viewpoint to is, and the President of the United States has two titans of not just commerce and industry, they have two titans who have jumped into this with their own personal time to say, we have run large companies, and we may be here, but we need to go there.
And I think it's going to be at least successful for us to say, and we need to be held accountable by the American people, to sell to the American people also why we're doing what we're doing.
Reporters say in the newspapers this morning, there is no statutory authority for Doge.
It's not a department.
Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, lawyer, says it's illegal.
You know, she's quoted it as telling CNN, they haven't asked me to meet with them, but the empowerment of funds that have been appropriated by the Congress is unconstitutional and illegal.
There is no such Department of Government Efficiency.
It's made up.
So good luck to them.
Well, I'll call Zoe this morning.
I know her.
She's a very thoughtful, articulate leader for the Democratic Party, but she is also one that would recognize that she will get an invitation.
We will allow her to provide her feedback, and I think she would help make Doge better because if we would assume that it's okay to have the IRS to be years behind, or Office of Professional Management, OPM,
to take months after a person were to retire from the government before they started receiving their benefits, and to wait five months for these offices to do these, only to find out when you peel back the onion, they're operating from home with no real, I don't think, direct supervision over what is awaiting them.
We have conversations with government all the time, and we ask them, do you recognize the backlog?
Well, yes, but there's just more people.
We said no.
How are you managing your people and holding them accountable?
And so if there's a problem, and we'll point plenty of them out, we'll invite her to be a part of it.
Want to invite our viewers to join us in this conversation.
We talked about it earlier this morning on the Washington Journal.
Where is their government waste, fraud, and abuse?
How would you make government more efficient?
We have at our table this morning to take your comments and your questions.
Congressman Pete Sessions is to the co-chair of the Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency Caucus, a compliment to that Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Roger in Phoenix, Democratic Caller, you're up first.
Good morning.
Good morning, everyone.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to say I know you're a Southwestern man, so go Pirates, and also from Waco, so go Baylor Bears.
My question is specific to the federal workforce.
I know that you are going to be receiving feedback specifically from constituents and Americans, but are you all going to be doing any hearings on Doge specifically?
And I know just from working on the Hill and specifically working for federal contractors and subcontractors, would your committee be open, your subcommittee be open to fellowships?
I know there are a lot of fellowships at the agency level and fellowships coming into Congress, but more fellowships to help just alleviate the federal brain drain.
I look forward to having your answer, and thank you all for taking my call.
All right, Roger.
What a thoughtful young man.
I think insight that he is providing, not only where I went to college, Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas, but they live in Waco.
And then he referred to a brain drain.
And the brain drain is something that we do need to pay attention to.
There have been an incredible number of schools, universities, master's programs that have developed themselves here in Washington, D.C., because many of the government workers need to be brought up to date with not only the newest processes and procedures, but the code and the computing necessary behind all this.
I do believe that what we've got to do is look at making sure that every person that's hired is qualified.
And this has been an issue that Republicans have made over the kinds of people that were running these departments and making these decisions.
You may recall that nine days after President Trump, there was an attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, we had the head of the Secret Service.
She essentially, in my opinion, and I think others, did not offer the American people nor Congress nor her agency the kind of leadership that is needed to lead.
And we really caught her flat-footed in front of the committee.
We find this across government.
We find that people were selected for a reason or two as opposed to learning, using their experience, and gaining that on behalf of the American people.
We will have feedback to people.
We do want to make sure that we're taking care of the worker that wants to come to work for the government, but it needs to be done at work.
Will there be hearings led by your caucus or other committees on Capitol Hill?
And will Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy testify?
I have no reason to assume that we would not include that.
That has not, we have not really broken out in the new Congress yet.
We will do that and we will plan the schedule.
We're in essentially the first three or four days of this.
It will be open and there's a reason why we need the American people to know what we're doing and why, because it's got to pass their smell test, and that's why we push what's in the best interest for the American people.
Let's start with telling the American people what's happening by telling them what happened behind closed doors yesterday with House Republicans.
What did you hear from those two, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy?
Well, it's very simple.
They came and had an opportunity to meet 30 people they'd never met, and then to meet about 200 members of Congress, probably that they had never met.
And it gave them an opportunity to say that we are in this battle.
We're in this fight because we've put our companies, we've invested ourselves, we are doing the things, and America is in trouble.
And if we allow us to go from $35 trillion to $40 trillion to $50 trillion naturally, simply because we are having to pay off the debt, then America is in trouble and we will look up.
They are responsible.
They looked at us, but they looked us right in the eye and said, kind of like Chip Roy and Tim said, we're looking at either the problem or the answer, and you were sitting in those seats.
So it was not necessarily a comfortable time for a member of Congress, especially not someone that's brand new.
But we empowered ourselves to say we will get there and we will make sure it's bipartisan, or at least an opportunity to be bipartisan.
And the answers that we've got, we've got to sell to the American people.
Let's go to Huntsville, Texas.
Tor, a Republican.
Well, thank you very much.
Congressman Sessions, it's a pleasure to speak with you today from wonderful Huntsville, Texas.
And my question is this: we trust our elections in Walker County.
We know the people who run the elections, but in some of the larger cities in Texas, there are problems that we suspect there has been a lot of cheating going on.
It happens not only in Texas, it happens in certain counties in Georgia, in Maricopa County, in Arizona, and other states where election cheating happens.
In what way, Tor?
There are several ways it can happen.
It can happen with crooked election officials.
We had a gentleman in Terrant County who used to work for SmartMatic.
He developed a code that enabled Chavez to cheat in the Venezuelan elections.
And that was not a bug.
It was a feature of that system.
So governments could bring in voting machines and people could vote.
And famously, Chavez, there was a recall election for Chavez.
All right.
I think we understand your concerns.
Let me see if I can address what this gentleman, Tor, has said from Huntsville, Texas.
In fact, we have had lots of reports of abnormalities, inconsistencies, and things that have happened with irregularities.
Many of these, while they were in our past, could still exist today.
But I think many states looked at those things, abnormalities, inconsistencies, irregularities, and they came back and they updated their laws.
For instance, in Georgia, Texas, and other states, governors, as a result of COVID, made decisions that were contrary to the law, but they put them to a commission and the commission made a recommendation.
We now have lots of states that have said a governor nor any official can waive the rules that are laws of the election.
I think that it's a continuing progress, process and progress.
I was here with Gore v. Bush, where they were hanging Chads, and we've continued to do things that bring the American people to have confidence in what we do.
In Texas, in particular, we have paper ballots.
And so the paper ballots at least provide a context for a paper trail that would be necessary.
So I'd like to say to Tor, we're going to take a look at this.
We're open to hearing back from people.
It's also an important state matter, and I hope that your state officials will look at it also.
We'll go to Potomac, Maryland.
Mary is watching there, independent caller.
Hi, Mary.
Oh, hello.
I am calling to say that Donald Trump added the most to the national debt.
When he in his first term, today he is strangling the life out of the Republican Party.
Well, Mary, let's take the first part of what you had to say there.
We were talking to Gwen Moore earlier, and she was talking about the 2017 tax cuts adding to the nation's debt and deficits.
And then on top of that, Republicans' spending during the first term of the Trump administration.
How do you reverse course here in the second Trump administration?
Well, I think it's important to note that what happened is that we had an economy that was losing jobs, that faced high taxation rates.
As you know, they were corporate tax rate was about 36 percent, almost 37 percent.
American business found themselves at the back end of becoming not just efficient, but adding jobs because they were making those payments to government.
So Republicans are not for higher taxes.
Republicans are for more people having jobs.
Once we immediately cut those taxes, which could be a claim, well, don't have as high of rate, more money came into the Treasury.
Almost overnight, there was $500 billion that came from overseas investment into America, investing in jobs and opportunity.
But I will take it for what it is.
That is right.
The debt of the country rose.
But it was not because of the tax code.
It is because we have people who are like me who are turning 65 and 70 and who are moving to Social Security and who are moving out of the workforce and into retirement where the government would have to pay that.
That is not something necessarily that the president had to do with.
That's demographics.
The question became, are we going to replace those people who retired, who moved to Social Security, with younger workers?
And that answer was overwhelmingly.
So America, I believe, is better off.
We not only made investments here, but we added new workers.
So many workers that we had jobs that were going begging.
At one point, about 6 million jobs, more jobs were available than people were signing up for.
So this was what those darn Republicans did.
They created a successful viewpoint that people could move on, that we would replace workers behind them, and that American companies would not only make a profit, but stay at home.
We have only a few minutes left here before the House gavels in for their morning session.
They are going to do so early today at 9 a.m. Eastern Time.
I'll just share this headline with our viewers, and you can read it if you're interested.
This is the New York Times: Trump tax cuts won't help the economy grow.
This is from the Congressional, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
That's what they found in their latest reports.
Patricia's in Chandler, Arizona, Democratic caller.
Welcome to the conversation.
Good morning, everyone.
I want to see what the Congress was going to do about this, because I've written Andy Big about this bad issue.
Biden reauthorizes the Patriotic Act, FISA 702.
It's affected me and a whole lot of people across the country.
I want to see what Congress intends to do about the Patriotic Act.
Well, the Patriot Act originally came about after 9-11 when we recognized a huge number of things that were happening that America, were we asleep?
No, had we been balancing ourselves off processes that we thought were important, including the Bill of Rights.
And what's happened since then is Congress has not only authorized but paid for a huge data center that is in Utah.
This huge data center collects incredible amounts of data.
The question now becomes something that the FISA court is dealing with, the intelligence agencies, NSA, FBI, and others are tinkering with.
I do not see at this time that there is going to be any law change with FISA until we see how the new process works.
You and I both know that what happened is that under testimony, the FBI director was confronted with some five or six million, I don't recall exactly, instances where people were looked at, where their records were looked at.
And he, in my opinion, did not adequately answer the question, okay, they're looked at, what did you then do with it?
And the questions that we have are the retaining of that data and information.
And so we've been unable to, between not just Republicans, but Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate, and the President, to come up with the best or more thoughtful way, how do we deal with people's information that has been gathered and collected?
Are they American citizens?
Was it because they got a call overseas and FISA kicked in?
And this is where the FISA court, probably four years ago, came back to the Department of Justice and said, you need to clarify exactly when you come to us and ask for a FISA warrant.
Tell us not just what you're after, but also how you followed through to use that data and then disseminate that data or get rid of it so that it's not available, again, to harm the American people.
I'm delighted in Chandler, Arizona, that we have people that are interested in this issue.
And that is essentially something that the FISA court, this administration, Department of Justice, and I have real belief that Pam Bondi, the new Attorney General nominee, will be prepared to tackle.
We'll go to Palmer, who's a Republican in Hazlehurst, Georgia.
Hi, Palmer.
Hi.
Representative Sessions, I thank you for taking the call, and I appreciate your efforts in trying to reduce excess spending, but I think you're fighting a losing battle overall.
I'm an old man, and I've heard this song sung many a time over the years, and nobody, it's Congress's responsibility to set the spending, but they're irresponsible.
There's 535 representatives, and nobody is responsible for the deficit.
Until we change, I think we need a constitutional amendment that would allow the Federal Reserve to dictate the amount of deficit spending allowable.
All right, let's step farmer.
Let's take that idea.
Congressman.
Well, I think this gentleman, once again, feedback from the American people, he represents a lot of viewpoints that not only I hear, but that I subscribe to.
The first thing I would say to him is please remember there's something called mandatory, whether you like that term or not, and discretionary spending.
And the federal government does have to deal with the larger 70, 65 to 70 percent of spending that is on pilot.
People retire.
They're entitled to Social Security.
We really don't budget how much will be spent, and that spending has accelerated.
Do we need to deal with the issue?
Yes, we do.
But off the size of government, which is where we primarily are going to spend our time, pending this president deciding that they want to wander into some other issues, the government is wholly inefficient.
They are inefficient because it's not our song.
It's the truth.
The American people know that government is staying at home.
President Biden and his administration just two days ago announced that they had concluded a deal with the union that is binding contractually with the union, that some 42,000 people could work from home.
So we openly asked the administration, the Biden administration, how do you make it work?
What is your backlog?
How do you take new people and have them come and work to learn?
We have lots of new people.
And how do you manage your business and why are you behind?
These are questions that will be vetted by not just the American people, but the DOS caucus.
And I think we will make things better.
And we will make sure that the reorganization that is going to happen comes from the very top.