‘Accountability Is Coming’: Iowa’s Ernst Sends Musk’s DOGE $2T Worth of Ways to Gut Government Spending 

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Sen. Joni Ernst sent Department of Government Efficiency cochairmen Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy a letter Monday with ideas for budget cuts that could save the federal government more than $2 trillion.

Trump named Musk and Ramaswamy as cochairmen of DOGE on Nov. 12. In the seven-page letter, Ernst’s suggestions ranged from addressing unused space in buildings to uncommitted spending for COVID-19 relief, with the proposed cuts totaling more than $2 trillion.

Ernst has focused on government waste since her election to the Senate in 2014, with a recent focus on the effects of telework and remote work on federal agencies.

“When faced with proposals to trim the fat from Washington’s budget, members of Congress from both parties act like Goldilocks,” Ernst wrote. “It’s too little or too big, always too hard, and never just right. But the real ‘make-believe’ of this fairy tale is that it’s impossible to reduce Washington’s budget without causing pain. Most Americans aren’t even benefiting in any meaningful way from hundreds of billions of dollars being wasted.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, is seen here Dec. 8, 2020. (Kevin Dietsch/AFP via Getty Images)

“While you’re seeking ‘super high-iQ small-government revolutionaries’ for ‘unglamorous cost-cutting,’ all that’s really needed is a little common sense. If you can’t find waste in Washington, there can only be one reason: You didn’t look,” Ernst continued.

Three rail projects in California with a combined price tag of more than $135 billion; $213 million in unemployment payments to millionaires; $31 million in pay to government employees with no assigned duties; and $10 billion in inaccurate Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program payments are among the programs Ernst listed as potential cuts. The Iowa lawmaker also said there was more than $1.6 trillion in uncommitted COVID-19 relief spending.

Ernst announced Friday she would lead a Senate DOGE caucus to work alongside Musk and Ramaswamy, while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Fla., was named as chair of a House Oversight Committee subpanel called the Delivering on Government Efficiency panel.

“I have a simple message to the bureaucrats who haven’t shown up for work in years and the government contractors and grantees collecting millions to study how fast a shrimp runs on a treadmill—buckle up, because accountability is coming,” Ernst said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “My decade-long mission to make Washington squeal has created an exhaustive list of more than $2 trillion worth of waste, fraud, and abuse that I will work with DOGE to cut. We are going to break down the nonsense that has taken over Washington and put in its place a government that actually works for the people.”

Ernst previously questioned USAID over an employee who improperly received “locality pay” for the Washington, D.C., area despite living in Florida, and requested a staff briefing after a second instance of improper locality pay involving another USAID employee living in North Carolina was reported.

In an August 2023 letter requesting a review of the issues involved with telecommuting sent to 24 government agencies, Ernst cited a media account of a VA employee who attended a staff meeting while taking a bubble bath.

Ernst wrote the Environmental Protection Agency, urging the agency to take emergency action in an Aug. 28 letter sent to EPA Administrator Michael Regan about contaminants that built up in the drinking water of federal buildings left unoccupied by a shift to remote work.

She also introduced the Stopping Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems (SHOW UP) Act, in September 2023 as part of a package of legislation to rein in the “administrative state.”

“This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I will be providing many more recommendations soon,” Ernst wrote. “My team and I are ready to help you make some prime cuts.”

The Trump-Vance transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post ‘Accountability Is Coming’: Iowa’s Ernst Sends Musk’s DOGE $2T Worth of Ways to Gut Government Spending  appeared first on The Daily Signal.