12/13/2024 --axios
President-elect Trump and Elon Musk are finding a wellspring of unexpected cooperation from Democrats in their plans to crack down on government waste and inefficiency.Why it matters: Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE, has been a mostly Republican brainstorm so far, but centrist and progressive Democrats have begun offering ideas for it.Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), the lone Democrat to join Congress' new DOGE caucus, told Axios he thinks "more Dems will join the caucus."Doing so "gets you a voice to fight for the things where there's bipartisan agreement and fight against the irrational things that will probably get proposed," he said.Zoom in: Axios interviewed more than a half-dozen House Democrats who, rather than balk at DOGE, had suggestions for how it can streamline the government and cut spending.These lawmakers hew younger and male, and some have open ambitions about running for higher office. They're seeking to answer Republicans' tech billionaire-led rebrand by flipping the perception of Democrats as unquestioning champions of bureaucracy — and embracing a sleeker government. What we're hearing: Moskowitz's big idea is to shrink the sprawling Department of Homeland Security, including by making the Secret Service and FEMA independent agencies that report to the White House.Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) offered several ideas: Cutting agency redundancies, consolidating export promotion agencies and instituting self-populating tax forms, as well as the more liberal idea of scrapping fossil fuel subsidies,Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) proposed cutting the federal workforce and reducing the size of many government forms — particularly those used for student financial aid applications and tax returns.Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) suggested making it easier to obtain permits for infrastructure and development projects, an idea Trump himself floated Tuesday.Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) said he's working on a bill to "move all the federal agencies out of D.C. ... and send them all over the country," which Trump and his allies have long embraced.Moskowitz and Khanna both proposed upgrading the federal government's notoriously outdated and slow IT systems.What they're saying: "It's not a particular department across the board. It's the way individuals interact with government — there are so many inefficiencies, so many layers," Landsman said.He added: "The forms are overly complicated ... [and] when you look at some of these departments, you see that there are like 12 supervisors for every five people.""Democrats and Republicans should work together to make government more efficient without hurting people, and whatever we can come up with as a team would be great," said Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.).Yes, but: Fears about cuts to mandatory spending — the entitlement programs that make up nearly two-thirds of the federal budget — are giving Democrats serious pause about getting more involved in the effort."I have a lot of ideas, but I don't know ... if they're talking about cutting Social Security and Medicare," said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas).In a sign of the political dangers, Moskowitz already has been criticized by pro-Social Security groups for joining the DOGE caucus.Moskowitz told Axios that if Republicans "wanted a Cut Social Security Caucus they should have formed one, and I would not have joined."DOGE co-chair Vivek Ramaswamy and other Republicans have refuted the allegation that they want to cut entitlement spending. Ramaswamy has called for massive reductions in the federal workforce, however.The other side: Democrats could face blowback within their party even for targeting non-mandatory spending, particularly from colleagues who represent huge swaths of the federal workforce."The vast majority of federal functions are things that we want," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), whose district is in a suburb of D.C."It's easy to just attack the workforce. The question is: What are the federal purposes and functions you want to get rid of?"
