[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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