« They have a fundamentally superficial understanding of what they’re doing, » budget expert warns.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the billionaires President-elect Donald Trump picked to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have made their aspirations of slashing government spending clear, promising to bring a « chainsaw » to federal bureaucracy and costs.
To cut back on hundreds of billions in government spending, one approach Ramaswamy has suggested is eliminating programs that have lapsed spending authorizations despite still being funded by Congress, which include veterans’ healthcare services, housing assistance and the Justice Department. But not only does that proposal misunderstand the function and role of funding authorization in Congress, the lack of authorization doesn’t indicate wasteful expenditures, federal fiscal policy experts told Salon.
« They have a fundamentally superficial understanding of what they’re doing », argued Bobby Kogan, the senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress. « They have a meme-level understanding. ‘Let’s get rid of unauthorized spending’ is the sort of thing that you might see in a Facebook meme. »
Ramaswamy and Musk expanded on that suggestion in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Wednesday, outlining the newly minted out-of-government advisory commission’s plans for reducing excess spending. DOGE, they wrote, will target some $500 billion in annual federal expenditures that « are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended » in an effort to help « end » federal overspending.
But the notion that any spending is not approved by Congress or used outside of how the legislative body intends is « inaccurate », said David Reich, a senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. The Constitution requires Congress to authorize any and all government spending, which it does through funding bills, or appropriations.
« For anything the federal government is spending, there’s going to be an appropriation », Reich told Salon in a phone interview. « It could be an annual appropriation. It could be an appropriation and authorizing law, but Congress will have authorized that expenditure.
