[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 42 (Wednesday, March 5, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1506-S1508]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                  Department of Government Efficiency

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, there is a lot going on here in 
Washington, DC. That is an understatement. But I want to highlight the 
meeting that I had--that I attended, along with many of my Senate 
colleagues--last week, with Elon Musk and the Department of Government 
Efficiency team. That is a topic that has gotten a fair amount of 
information and visibility in the press, but much of it has been 
misinformation. I would like to address some of that and the importance 
of this effort, here, in the next few minutes. We had a very 
informative meeting with Mr. Musk and his team about the work they are 
doing on behalf of the American people.
  I first met Elon Musk maybe 15 years ago, when he came to my office 
and said he had a new company called SpaceX, and he wanted to be able 
to compete with other companies that had all of the NASA contracts for 
space. I guess, looking back on it, that was quite a long time ago, but 
we see how far SpaceX has come, which now

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covers the vast majority of payloads into space for the U.S. Government 
and for the private sector.
  Interestingly, and to the point of the Department of Government 
Efficiency, Mr. Musk had to sue the Federal Government in order to 
compete, which tells you a lot about the problems that the Federal 
Government has; that it is not open to competition and, thus, creates a 
lot of the problems now that I think the Department of Government 
Efficiency is now looking at.
  But in addition to all of that, Mr. Musk has now moved personally his 
family and his businesses to Texas. So I am happy to have him as a 
constituent. He has created a lot of jobs in my State, anywhere from 
Boca Chica in South Texas, in Cameron County--which is now, I think, 
officially renamed Starbase--and the Tesla gigafactory, which is right 
outside of Austin, which I visited a few months ago with Mr. Musk; 
Starlink, obviously, providing internet access to people in remote 
parts of the planet that would never hope to have that access--all 
sorts of interesting things that he is involved in.
  Certainly, I think we can all acknowledge, whether you like Mr. Musk 
and what he is doing or you don't like him, he is obviously a brilliant 
individual and, certainly, among the most brilliant people I know.
  So you have to ask yourself: Why would a guy, maybe one of the 
richest--maybe the richest--human beings on the planet, do what he is 
doing for the U.S. Government? I think that is an important question to 
ask.
  Certainly, he is not doing it for the money. He is certainly not 
doing it for the glory, because anytime you start messing with the 
status quo here in Washington, DC, you can be assured you will become a 
target. You will be criticized. You will be demagogued against. You 
will be lied about. It just goes with the territory, and it is 
something, I am sure, he has not necessarily experienced before. 
Frankly, I am glad he is willing to put up with all of that in order to 
do some important things.
  But, of course, what the Department of Government Efficiency is 
focused on is efficiency--something that we purport and claim to be 
focused on here in Washington, DC: waste, abuse, and fraud. We talk 
about it a lot, but that is basically what we end up doing--talking 
about it and not doing much, if anything, about it.
  Right now, the U.S. national debt--that is like our credit card--sits 
at over $36.4 trillion. I am sure that the American people--certainly, 
it is true in my case--can't really get your heads around how much 
money that really is. To me, one of the most telling indications of how 
big a number that is, is that we are now spending more money on 
interest on our national debt than we are on our defense, which is the 
most fundamental and important role that the Federal Government plays.
  I know, sometimes, when you have such a big number or a big challenge 
or a big problem, it is easy to say: Well, it is just too hard. We 
can't do anything about it.
  In the case of politicians, some may say--and I bet there are more 
than a few: Well, it is too politically risky to try to deal with the 
status quo because I am sure there are going to be some sacred cows or 
some pet projects that individual Members of Congress or maybe 
constituent groups or special interest groups want to preserve. So they 
don't want you looking at that. They don't want you disrupting the 
status quo.
  But the reality is--and as we heard from President Trump last night, 
as well as news reports--there are many examples of outrageous 
expenditures of taxpayer dollars that need to be exposed, and they need 
to be addressed. We have to start somewhere, and I would submit that 
there is no time like the present.
  If you spoke to someone struggling with a substance abuse problem, an 
addiction, you would never say to that person: Well, the situation with 
your addiction is just so bad that it is hopeless. It is simply too 
hard to change. There is nothing you can do.
  The truth is, Washington, DC, is addicted to spending and has been 
for a long, long time. And we have no responsible choice but to address 
it.
  So I am glad that Mr. Musk and his team have stepped up. And while 
DOGE may not erase that national debt overnight, they are certainly 
highlighting the problems that those taxpayer expenditures present. And 
I think this effort will be part of the answer to how we get back on 
track and correct our fiscal challenges here in our country.
  Now, of course, there are many in Washington who want nothing to 
change. I think we saw some of them last night sitting on their hands 
during the President's State of the Union speech. They like the way 
things are. They like the status quo. As a result, there has been a lot 
of wailing and gnashing of teeth and, frankly, dissemination of a lot 
of erroneous information, again, which is just simply not reality.
  Now, some in the media have created, for their own reasons, 
misperceptions that Mr. Musk and his team are going in and making 
personnel and financial decisions on their own or forcing these 
decisions on the respective Agencies that they are researching, but 
that is simply false. Let me say that again. Some may have the 
perception that Mr. Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency 
team are themselves making personnel or financial decisions on their 
own. That is false. The reality is that those working for the 
Department of Government Efficiency are doing so in compliance with the 
law.
  Each Agency's DOGE employees have gone through the Presidential 
personnel office onboarding process. They have appropriate security 
clearances and are direct contract employees of these Agencies, and 
they must abide by the same guidelines and rules as other employees to 
ensure the protection of sensitive information.
  The reality on the ground is that DOGE employees are reviewing 
systems, processes, data, personnel, and making recommendations--
recommendations--to the Agency heads. Then the Agency head--in most 
cases, a Cabinet member appointed by President Trump and confirmed by 
the Senate--is the one with the authority to make those discretionary 
calls.
  Now, of course, it is a tremendous project, as I indicated earlier, 
to reform our government's giant bureaucracy, and with any undertaking 
of this size, it is a given that there will be some trial and error, 
some mistakes that are made. But, hopefully, those can be readily 
addressed once pointed out. And the administration has made those 
course corrections, and they should continue to do so and, I believe, 
will do so. But there is much to be hopeful about.
  One example that DOGE identified--and it is just, to me, a symptom of 
the problem--is reforming software licenses and subscriptions. We were 
told at the meeting at the White House with Mr. Musk and the Department 
of Government Efficiency that some Agencies are finding out that they 
are paying for as many as 37,000 software licenses but only about 
10,000 employees are responsible for functions that require those 
licenses--37,000 licenses but only 10,000, arguably, would be required. 
Now, think about what this means for a minute. And, again, this is just 
a symptom, I think, of a larger problem. This means taxpayers are 
paying for a lot of software licenses that are sitting around and are 
not being used.
  Imagine if a private company let something like this go unaddressed. 
Of course, they wouldn't, because if they did, they eventually would go 
out of business. They would go bankrupt and cease to exist. But the 
Federal Government doesn't work that way. Some of these things that Mr. 
Musk and his team are finding should be an embarrassment.
  I can tell you that my constituents back in Texas are paying close 
attention and mainly like what they see. But the perennial problem is 
that the Federal Government just is very slow to change, and part of 
that has to do with the incentives that exist in the private sector 
that don't exist in the public sector. As I indicated, a private 
business couldn't do what the Federal Government does, or they would go 
belly up.
  This is part of the reason that our national debt has been growing by 
leaps and bounds without any credible effort by the Congress or the 
Federal Government to change. And change we must. It is unsustainable.
  Now, here in Congress, we have a certain amount of accountability 
because we run for election. We have to stand

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for reelection. Our constituents get to vote for us or against us, and 
we, naturally, want to be responsive to what our constituents are 
telling us. There is always a sensitivity, for example, in what we 
spend in our offices. We take great care--I bet, to a person--not to 
waste the taxpayers' dime. Now, that is the sort of accountability that 
democracy provides: government of the people, by the people, for the 
people.
  But when you look at the bureaucracy--a word that literally means 
ruled by the desk--there are no such incentives; there is no 
accountability--until now. So to have someone like Elon Musk and DOGE 
come in and shake things up is just exactly what Washington needs. And, 
again, it should be no surprise to any of us that there are some folks 
here in town who don't like what they see. There are many people who 
want nothing to change.
  And we are definitely hearing a lot of speculation, in addition to 
the misinformation, about what this means and where it will ultimately 
lead, but many of these stories have turned out to be nothing more than 
that: stories.
  We know there has always been waste, fraud, and abuse within the 
government, but it does not have to be that way. The problem is big, 
but it is our job as elected Members of Congress--working as part of 
the Federal Government, working for the American people--not to ignore 
it, not to give pretty speeches talking about how bad the problem is; 
but, actually, our job is to do something about it.
  That is why I appreciate what the Department of Government Efficiency 
and the Trump administration are doing. I truly believe this is a once-
in-a-generation opportunity to actually get our fiscal house in order. 
This is not easy. If it were easy, we would have done it before. This 
is hard. It is politically risky. But it is absolutely critical that we 
do so.
  If we look at what the voters told us on November 5 of last year, we 
saw an overwhelming desire of the American people to change the 
direction of the country. They gave President Trump and us a mandate 
for change, and I think what DOGE is doing, along with the Trump 
administration, is very much in line with the mandate that we got from 
the voters on November 5.
  So I support the efforts that the Department of Government Efficiency 
are undertaking, and I look forward to continuing to work with Mr. Musk 
and President Trump, as a member of the Senate Caucus for DOGE, the 
Department of Government Efficiency, so that we can get our Nation's 
fiscal trajectory back on track. It is absolutely essential that we do 
so.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ricketts). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.