My fellow Iowans sent me to Washington to fight for taxpayers and make the porkers squeal.
For a decade, I waged a lonely battle exposing waste, fraud, and abuse. It often felt like I was living a twisted fairytale. Much like Goldilocks, it was always too little, too big, and never just right to cut spending.
Until recently.
The election of President Donald Trump and formation of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has broken through and disrupted business-as-usual in Washington. Finally, the tables are turning, and we are already trimming the fat.
Not a moment too soon either. The federal government is more than $36 trillion in debt, adding $3 billion a day in interest payments, and spending money faster than ever before.
The election of President Donald Trump and formation of DOGE has broken through and disrupted business-as-usual in Washington. Finally, the tables are turning, and we are already trimming the fat.
With numbers this big, it’s critical we get involved at every avenue to scrutinize spending, including through appropriations bills, the reconciliation process, and the rollback of Biden-era rules and regulations.
That’s why I am carrying out DOGE’s goals in the Senate.
As Senate DOGE Caucus Chair and Founder, I am leaning on my decade of experience to create a roadmap to cut more than $2 trillion. The craziest part is that we can eliminate waste without touching essential programs that create jobs, support livelihoods, and provide key services.
There is no better place to start than the broken federal workforce.
My telework report revealed 6 percent of workers report in-person full-time, and my investigations have exposed that federal employees keep themselves very busy during the workday – just not at their jobs.
Whether it is relaxing on a beach, hitting the golf course, or sitting in a jail cell, bureaucrats keep a very interesting calendar while on the clock. Even worse, many of these bureaucrats have moved hundreds or thousands of miles away from their D.C. headquarters, with some ripping off taxpayers with incorrect locality pay.
To put a cherry on top, while these bureaucrats “work” from home, taxpayers are paying more than $15 billion every year to maintain office buildings that are mostly ghost towns, with the average occupancy sitting at an embarrassing 12 percent.
Federal employees clearly don’t want to work in Washington, and taxpayers don’t want to foot the bill. There is an obvious solution that the Trump administration has already tapped into. Bring all bureaucrats back to work, condense office space, and sell off extra unused buildings.
We can eliminate waste without touching essential programs that create jobs, support livelihoods, and provide key services.
On day one, President Trump did just that by signing an executive order calling bureaucrats back to the office and back to work for the American people.
On the topic of fixing the federal workforce, you would think the IRS would be the last place for a tax revolt, but in fact the spirit of 1776 is very much alive there with more than 800 employees owing millions in back taxes. Tax evasion only gets worse throughout government with nearly 150,000 bureaucrats owing $1.5 billion in back taxes. It is time to audit the auditors and fire these tax-dodging tax collectors.
While we crackdown on pointless waste in Washington, next should be the long list of boondoggles. From California’s crazy train to nowhere (that is more than $100 billion over budget) to a trillion-dollar secret slush fund, the swamp needs to stop operating like a bloated bureaucracy and start treating tax dollars more like a family budget.
That starts with ending spending that is so insane it would almost be funny if taxpayers weren’t footing the bill. From costume parties and coloring books for bureaucrats to silly science experiments putting shrimp on a treadmill, tax dollars are being flushed down the drain.
And as I have said, if you can’t find waste in Washington, there is only one reason – you did not look. I have spent a lot of time looking, and the Trump administration, DOGE, and I are ready to carry out this work and downsize the government.
Joni Ernst represents Iowa in the United States Senate.