‘Taking the ax out’: Kentucky’s Comer huddles with Elon Musk on shrinking government
Rep. James Comer met with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy at the U.S. Capitol Thursday afternoon to discuss the duo’s plan to drastically reduce the size and scope of the federal government by $2 trillion during the first two years of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term.
The pair of wealthy entrepreneurs have been appointed by Trump to oversee a new non-governmental body called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE for short, and as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Comer plans to be intricately involved in the overhaul.
“I love the two point people on this DOGE thing,” Comer said ahead of the meeting. “I think we’re going to look at unnecessary government programs, wasteful grants, we’re going to look at unneeded federal bureaucrats and just start taking the ax out and trying to chop waste, fraud and abuse in every corner of the federal government.”
Promises to root out “waste, fraud and abuse” are as old as time. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has memorably railed against wasteful spending projects each of his 13 years in Washington.
But identifying the precise cuts may prove politically precarious given that the largest parts of the federal budget fund programs Trump has said he will protect or even enhance, such as Medicare, Social Security and the Pentagon budget.
“What is left are popular expenditures on things like education, meals on wheels, national parks, and much more. The backlash to these expenditures being labeled ‘cutable’ will likely be enormous,” said Lisa Gilbert, executive vice president of Public Citizen, a Washington-based watchdog group.
One area that seems ripe for Republican targeting is Medicaid, the healthcare program for the poor as well as pregnant women and people with disabilities. It’s nearly a $600 billion annual program federally that pairs funding with states.
Comer has issued concerns about Medicaid inefficiencies rather than explicitly advocating cuts to the program, emphasizing improper payments and criticizing pandemic-era Medicaid enrollment expansion. Approximately 37% of Kentucky’s population — 1.6 million people — are enrolled in Medicaid, according to HealthInsurance.org.
In comments at the Aspen Security forum this week, Ramaswamy said it would be premature to discuss sweeping cuts to any entitlement program and it was unclear if they were discussed in Comer’s meeting Thursday.
Some Democrats have already signaled interest in working with DOGE to slash waste, suggesting a cursory examination of defense spending and eliminating the penny.
Other early proposals are likely to run into fierce headwinds like eliminating the National Institute of Health, which funds life-saving cancer research.
But Republicans now have a a Senate majority along with a slim one in the House, giving Comer hope that there will be more appetite to cut spending and regulations.
“We didn’t have a majority of senators willing to go along with many of the good government bills we passed out of the House. We sure as hell didn’t have a White House that wanted to have good government,” Comer said. “Now we do. Now the pieces are in place.”
This story was originally published December 6, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
