00:00Burchett, honored to be a co-sponsor of your defund the Taliban bill.
00:04I now recognize Mr. Moskowitz from Florida for five minutes.
00:08Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for allowing me to wave on to today's committee under the rules of the Oversight Committee.
00:14I appreciate it as I tried to wave on to a previous meeting and was barred, so I do appreciate you allowing me to attend today.
00:22You know, I was the first Democrat member to join the Doge Caucus in Congress.
00:27It took a lot of crap for it, by the way.
00:30And I did it for the right reason, because I thought government can get smaller, government can save money, and government can be more efficient.
00:37That poll's in the 80s. Most Americans know that.
00:41And I thought we were really interested in the E part of Doge, efficiency.
00:47Okay?
00:48But ask yourself, what have we made more efficient in the six months that Doge has been around?
00:56The other are things we have found that shouldn't exist, but name a department, name a system, name a service that this committee or the caucus or Elon has made more efficient.
01:10They said they were going to find a trillion dollars, they fell 85% short.
01:15Look, government is inefficient, but the Doge Caucus and process was like, hold my beer, let me show you what inefficiency really looks like.
01:25Okay?
01:25The Doge Caucus hasn't met in months.
01:28It had two meetings.
01:29Congress wasn't involved at all in the process in the executive branch.
01:34Elon's gone, the effort's dead, buried, rigor mortis is setting in.
01:38I feel, sorry, ill talking of the dead.
01:41I shouldn't do that.
01:43But, I mean, seriously, the Newark airport, that is the key example for the American people.
01:52You want to talk about how did we make government more efficient?
01:55We didn't.
01:55We made government the Newark airport.
01:57And, by the way, now that the national divorce is happening with Elon Musk, and I'm a child of divorce, okay, I mean, who's going to get big balls?
02:07I'm worried about him in the divorce.
02:09The children always get caught in the middle, right?
02:12And so I just, you know, if he's out there, I just want him to know we're rooting for him.
02:18Certainly, we've not made FEMA more efficient.
02:20The administrator apparently doesn't know there's a hurricane season.
02:23Wait until he finds out there's five categories.
02:25We're going to blow his mind.
02:28Nothing has been made more efficient by Doge.
02:31No new technology in any of these departments.
02:32No lower costs.
02:33Hasn't happened, right?
02:35We promised to tackle the national deficit and debt.
02:40They haven't done that.
02:41They've made it worse by the big, bloated, abomination bill, okay?
02:46I mean, Elon has turned on them, but he's telling the truth.
02:52The bill will add to the deficit, and it will add to the debt.
02:57And so, listen, I ask my colleagues, point to me one thing we've made more efficient.
03:03If you want to drop the E from Doge because we've not done efficiency, that's fine.
03:08We can rename it.
03:08We can always rebrand.
03:10They're great at that.
03:11But nothing has been made more efficient.
03:14Here are the wins for congressional Republicans.
03:16You ready?
03:16They're going to do a $9 billion rescission bill, okay, which they're going to get rid
03:23of Elmo, which the American people were clamoring for, okay?
03:27But they're going to add $2.4 trillion to the debt, $9 billion versus $2.4 trillion.
03:33And then they want us to cheer for them and give them a trophy like they're a five-year-old
03:37at a soccer game.
03:37Everyone gets a trophy for their participation, okay?
03:41By the way, these things I'm bringing up, Republicans themselves, including the chairwoman,
03:46have expressed their frustration that Congress has not codified anything at all.
03:53And so, look, it's interesting.
03:56Elon just retweeted this.
03:58When are we going to flatten the curve?
04:00It's fascinating.
04:01We're using COVID graphics and COVID slogans.
04:05This is the debt.
04:06This isn't COVID cases, okay?
04:08And yet, my Republican colleagues who have always talked about the debt and deficit,
04:12I went out, I bought the debt clock that Thomas Massey wears, $99, by the way.
04:17I don't know if that's a great deal, but, you know, like two-hour battery life, he told
04:22me you got to, like, if you dim the screen, it'll last a little longer.
04:26Wow, it's still going up.
04:28Doesn't seem like these doge cuts, right, or this rescission bill have handled anything
04:34with a debt or deficit.
04:36And so, yeah, look, yeah, Elon is, we love dark Elon now.
04:40Oh, yeah, this is interesting times, right?
04:43And Republicans will say, oh, wait, he was a patriot.
04:46He left his companies.
04:47He was doing the right thing.
04:48That's what they said for six months.
04:50Now they're saying, well, he's just mad because he's losing his EV credits.
04:53He didn't get his Starlink thing.
04:54They got rid of his NASA administrator, okay?
04:58Look, we got to do this together, guys, on a bipartisan basis to tackle the debt.
05:02I asked the Speaker to put a budget commission together to get Democrats and Republicans
05:06on a bipartisan basis to tackle the debt.
05:08But that bill should die.
05:09Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
05:10The Gentleman Times expired.
05:12I now recognize Mr. Burleson from Missouri.
05:14Thank you, Chairwoman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here.
