Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were on Capitol Hill this week to outline their plans for massive reductions in federal spending and headcount, where they met with a skeptical Congress and came face-to-face with the real limitations of their thus-far-nebulous purview.
The pair initially outlined their plans to rely heavily on executive actions from President-elect Donald Trump in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in late November. Trump’s authority, however, will focus on the elimination of redundant and unnecessary regulations. The pair cited the recent Supreme Court ruling that eliminated the “Chevron Doctrine” as a blueprint for rolling back regulations Congress did not authorize.
Spending reductions, however, will fall to Congress to approve.
Trump has yet to outline the exact powers of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that Musk and Ramaswamy will co-lead, leaving many unsure as to what they will be able to accomplish beyond making ambitious recommendations. The department is expected to work closely with the Office of Management and Budget, but its own purview, again, remains unclear.
Complicating the prospect of making their proposed $2 trillion in cuts are the twin-problems of the narrow House majority and the Senate filibuster, which will make substantive financial overhauls difficult to send to Trump’s desk.
