DOGE is doing what must be done to protect taxpayers – Daily News

The American people elected President Donald Trump to get our economy back on track, secure our borders, build back our military, and get our fiscal house in order.  Since the moment he took office, President Trump has been on a singular mission to deliver on those campaign promises.  

Throughout the campaign, he was clear about what he would do, which was to bring in Elon Musk – arguably the world’s most successful innovators and businessman –  to sort out where our tax dollars are going through a new task force dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).  

President Trump and Musk are causing the disruption they promised – which is clearly unnerving people who have grown complacent and comfortable with the status quo.  

Let’s take a step back for a moment and review how the process is supposed to work.  Every year, the President submits a budget request to Congress.  Then, Congress – specifically the Appropriations Committee on which I serve – reviews that request and writes the 12 annual appropriations bills to fund the various federal agencies. Now here is where it gets interesting.  

As you can read (using the last full year appropriation of FY2024 as the example), the FY2024 Budget request for USAID, President Biden’s prior budget request, doesn’t even mention any of the egregious spending items that we are now learning about. There are general categories that are requested and Congress then weighs in and sets the funding levels for the various activities within each department.  Many times, we include prohibitions on funding for certain activities and by law, the agencies must follow those rules.  

Unfortunately, it appears that non-elected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. have taken too much latitude in the funding provided in the overall categories by Congress.  As you can read in the President’s budget request, there is much talk about securing our national interests abroad, building coalitions, as well as providing economic assistance to create allies and alliances.  But there was no request for $2 million for sex changes and LGBT services in Guatemala or $1.5 million to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.  

The hundreds of millions spent on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that push blatantly political agendas has also been exposed.  As a member of the Appropriations Committee, who takes the responsible stewardship of U.S. taxpayer dollars very seriously, I am appalled by what appears to be a gaming of our system and pleased that President Trump is empowering people to audit these organizations. Which brings us to Elon Musk. 

There has been much discussion about Elon’s role in the U.S. Treasury and his access to secure data. The U.S. Treasury has robust systems and personnel to ensure the integrity of private information and, as I understand it, Musk does not have access to any system that could change or reveal private information. Protections afforded to Americans under the federal Privacy Act remain in place.  He and the DOGE team are essentially acting as auditors and reviewing payments made by the U.S. Treasury. American taxpayers have every right to know how their hard-earned money has been spent. Many of us are shocked by what has occurred and the decisions of bureaucrats to direct money away from the original mission of USAID, and other organizations, and line the pockets of very questionable organizations or activities.