DOGE CUTS: Why They Can’t Be Part Of The BBB… And What Trump Is Doing Instead
The clock has run out on Elon's time at DOGE, but the real work is just getting started
Trump ran on several big promises… high on his list was a promise to take dead aim at Washington’s profligate spending, stamping out waste and abuse.
With Elon having run out the clock on the maximum length of time an unappointed official at his level can continue in that role, he is returning to his (not-so) regular life. The time he’s been here, he’s overseen a team that has made itself VERY busy.
They’ve been looking under every rock for big and small ways to secure savings. That has included identifying spending that supports initiatives that are prohibited by the Constitution, official policy, or both (DEI being one of them), exposing massive grift operations (like the $2B cash cow that Stacey Abrams was getting ready to sink her teeth into), ridiculous examples of ‘foreign aid’ that did nothing to advance legitimate national priorities and everything to advance creepy leftwing agendas or serve as little more than an elaborate money laundering process to reward their friends and benefactors. They have cancelled untold needless news subscriptions, phone lines, and software accounts. Ditto government credit cards that have been caught wasting taxpayer dough sometimes on such obviously fraudulent uses as parties and strippers. Government handouts going to people long-since dead were identified, as were illegals who mysteriously found themselves on the voter rolls.
Besides all of this, they have identified massive amounts of unused office space — and have cut it loose.
Elon’s group delivered results: example after example of waste, fraud, and abuse were identified, exactly as Trump had promised. And politicians hate him for it.
The US Debt clock has added their work to the numbers it tracks. Here’s their tally so far:
That’s half-a billion in savings. But a lot of the waste found so far is beyond the power of one group in the Executive Branch to fix. It requires a change in Congress.
Conservatives have made a lot of noise about how these savings have not found their way into the Big Beautiful Bill. It’s led to allegations that the House is in on the grift, that they’re secret obstructionists to the MAGA agenda, or that they are putting regional priorities above national ones.
Suspecting government officials of having sketchy motives is a healthy practice by and large. And there’s ususally mixed motives in any of these kinds of decisions. But this time, it’s a little more complex than that.
Stephen Miller — who is not anyone’s definition of a RINO — helped explain what’s going on with the Big Beautiful Bill, and why we’re not seeing the YUGE cuts in it we are looking for, here’s the text of his tweet:
DOGE cuts are to discretionary spending. (Eg the federal bureaucracy). Under senate budget rules, you cannot cut discretionary spending (only mandatory) in a reconciliation bill.
So DOGE cuts would have to be done through what is known as a rescissions package or an appropriations bill.
The Big Beautiful Bill is NOT an annual budget bill and does not fund the departments of government. It does not finance our agencies or federal programs. Instead, it includes the single largest welfare reform in American history. Along with the largest tax cut and reform in American history. The most aggressive energy exploration in American history. And the strongest border bill in American history. All while reducing the deficit.
Which is to say, the adoption of the DOGE cuts we are looking for will require a different vehicle to deliver them. Trump has a particular vehicle in mind:
Recission bills. They only take a simple majority.
And since they will be signed into law, they knock the teeth out of most of the lawfare attempts that Democrat obstructionists have been using to block pretty nearly every Trump policy.
Now, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought confirmed on Fox Business that they will be bringing a bill next week, Monday or Tuesday, when Congress is back in session with a DOGE cuts package.
[…] “They will get our first recessions bill,” Vought said. He said this first package will include foreign aid, USAID, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR. He said they had already been talking with Congress to ensure it was something that could pass the House. He said he was “excited for that to happen next week.” —RedState
We have ourselves a goal.
We have path of executing that goal.
Now it’s time to get it done!
Posts
