    [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 38 (Wednesday, February 26, 2025)]
    [Senate]
    [Page S1362]
    From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                      DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY

      Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, DOGE--day by day, Americans are getting
    more alarmed by the slash-and-burn approach DOGE is taking to basic
    government programs. Americans certainly want a more efficient
    government, but what DOGE and Donald Trump are doing is not efficiency.
    Instead, it is chaos. Americans did not sign up for chaos, that is for
    sure.
      Americans did not sign up for DOGE to take its chain saw, for
    instance, to aviation safety. There was another near miss, this time in
    Chicago, in the air. Thank God no one was hurt, but this shows you the
    immense importance of having a fully staffed FAA.
      How on Earth is it efficiency to fire aviation safety assistance or
    maintenance mechanics or people who help with safety inspections and
    repairs? But that is just what DOGE did. I can't imagine any American
    thinks that is efficiency.
      The only thing that is going to accomplish, of course, is making
    flying less safe. It is going to lead to delays and mixups at airports.
      And not even the 9/11 families who lost loved ones or were hurt as
    they rushed to the towers right after 9/11, not even these folks were
    safe from the DOGE buzz saw.
      DOGE tried to ax the workforce for the World Trade Center Health
    Program. I am glad we pushed Donald Trump and DOGE to reverse.
      Later today, I will join Senator Gillibrand, Representatives Goldman
    and Garbarino to reintroduce the bipartisan 9/11 World Trade Center
    Health Program reintroduction, 2 months after Elon Musk killed this
    program when he tanked the bipartisan funding bill in December.
      Mr. President, 9/11 families deserve to be treated with dignity, with
    respect, not with the contempt we see from DOGE. And no good business
    operator would take this slash-and-burn approach DOGE is taking.
      People's Social Security benefits are also at risk. Their ability to
    see a doctor is at stake. Their ability to put kids in daycare is at
    stake. The longer DOGE is allowed to rain chaos on the American people,
    the stronger the backlash will become.
      And let's not forget, even by their most optimistic projections--and
    they have had to reduce them--the amount of money that DOGE will cut is
    far less than the amount of the deficit created by the huge Republican
    tax cut. So all this talk that they need to do this for deficit
    reduction is belied by their clinging to a whopping deficit creation by
    the tax cut.

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