Donald Trump is not holding back on interference in the congressional monitoring of his forthcoming administration, positioning one of his preferred attack figures to take the lead as his primary strategist.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has been selected to head a new House subcommittee that will collaborate with the anticipated Department of Government Efficiency overseen by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. This House committee is set to be named the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency—allowing its acronym to read DOGE.
“I’m thrilled to chair this innovative subcommittee intended to closely partner with President Trump, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the full DOGE team,” Greene stated in a release. She emphasized that her subcommittee would work towards the elimination of government “bureaucrats,” and “offer transparency and truth to the American public through hearings.”
Following Greene’s announcement of the “BIG NEWS”—accompanied by six flashing red alarms—on X, Ramaswamy retweeted her message, expressing eagerness to collaborate with Greene, the outspoken representative from Georgia.
Greene and House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) have engaged with future DOGE director Ramaswamy and are “already collaborating.” Comer aims to finalize the subcommittee’s formation by early 2025. The initial report on this was given by Fox News on Thursday.
Similar to its external partner, the congressional DOGE panel aspires to investigate and eliminate governmental waste and bureaucratic red tape. Moreover, according to Comer, the subcommittee will “collaborate closely” with both Musk and Ramaswamy.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) expressed that he was not surprised to learn that Trump’s strong influence is dictating how Congress should execute its oversight over the executive branch.
“It’s absurd,” he remarked to the Daily Beast.
“But that’s what they call efficiency,” he quipped. “Why bother with the middle man—Speaker Johnson? That’s their plan, and Speaker Johnson will respond, ‘Yes, sir. How many more, sir? I’ll have another, sir.’”
Musk and Ramaswamy’s DOGE agency will provide “guidance and counsel” to the White House and the Office of Management and Budget, while Greene’s subcommittee paves a way for these two billionaires and Trump to execute their agenda within a Republican-majority Congress.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, these Trump supporters outlined their strategy to dramatically reduce federal expenditure and regulation, claiming that “most decisions regarding enforcement and discretionary spending are not made by the duly elected president or even his political appointees, but by countless unelected, unappointed civil servants.”
“We’ll be serving as voluntary external participants, not as federal officials or employees,” they asserted. “Unlike governmental panels or advisory boards, we aim to do more than just produce reports or cut ribbons. We intend to cut costs.”
A key element of their recommendations includes abolishing remote work for federal employees, which they refer to as a pandemic-related “privilege” that taxpayers should not have to support.
They argue that requiring a return to the office would trigger a significant number of voluntary resignations, thereby decreasing the government workforce. This proposal could affect over a million workers, even though only approximately 10 percent of federal employees are fully remote, based on data from the Office of Management and Budget.
Greene has been dubbed “Moscow Marjorie” by some owing to her repeating Kremlin talking points with regards the ongoing war in Ukraine.
