Financial Services and General Government - Member Day

House Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government

2025-03-05

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Source: Congress.gov

Summary

This congressional hearing examines the rapid and unregulated actions of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, which the committee alleges has disrupted federal operations without transparency or legal authority. Witnesses including Ranking Member Steny Hoyer and Representatives Elfrith, Budzinski, Titus, and Stansbury detail widespread firings of federal employees—especially probationary staff—lack of oversight, illegal funding withholdings, data breaches, and threats to essential services like mail delivery, healthcare, and wildfire response. The hearing underscores concerns over the erosion of civil service protections, the unlawful dismantling of agencies, and the absence of accountability, urging the committee to assert its authority through oversight, transparency mandates, and legal safeguards for taxpayer dollars and federal workers.

Participants

Transcript

Either way. Okay. Subcommittee of Financial Services and General Government will come to order. This is the first hearing of the 119th Congress. Members will have five legislative days with which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material into the record. I know I speak for Mr. Hoyer when I say thank you all for being here this morning. We'll now introduce and hear from our colleagues today. First is Congressman Sarah Elfrith, representing Maryland's 3rd District. Did I hammer that? Okay, thank you. Val Hoyle, representing Oregon's 4th District, when and if she gets here. Congressman Hillary Shulton, representing Michigan's 3rd District. Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski, representing Illinois' 13th District. The inimitable Congressman Dena Titus, representing Nevada's 1st District, and also co-chair of the Cannabis Caucus. And Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, representing New Mexico's 1st District. And I will recognize Mr. Hoyer for an opening statement.

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. This is for being here. Look forward to hearing from them. Mr. Chairman, as you and I have discussed, Given what is happening in government today, this committee has particular relevance in that so much activity is being done with the Treasury Department, particularly IRS, with OMB, with the White House budget, and Doge. I'm not sure where Doge comes. We'll find that out, I suppose. And with GSA, I just saw the list of buildings that they want to put up for possible sale. And for the past six weeks, Americans watched Donald Trump and Russell Vogt and Elon Musk and their Doge disruptors wreak havoc throughout the federal government. Doge has acted without my opinion and the court's opinion in many cases statutory authority, without transparency, without regard to the law, without any understanding of how their actions hurt the American people and crucially without any oversight from this Congress. I would hope, because I think we have that responsibility, as a first of the co-equals in government, the Article I agency, We have the responsibility to oversee, particularly in light of so many cases. I see this morning one of the first headlines I read was that the Supreme Court ruled that, contrary to Doge's direction or somebody's direction, federal US aid abroad could not be stopped by them.

This ought to concern every member of this body, Mr. Chairman. I know you're concerned about it, and I expect many will express these concerns before us today. As the subcommittee that oversees Doge's funding, we have a duty to get to the bottom of what it is doing. Doge has sacked federal employees without knowing what they do. No sooner had Doge fired certain employees from health care providers for 9-11 first responders to workers who maintain our nuclear arsenal, then it had to start rehiring them because they were necessary. Uncredentialed Doge disruptors have forced their way into secure government systems. and taken the American people's highly sensitive data, including their social security numbers, home addresses, immigration status, credit card information, health records, IRS earning records, and more. Now, very frankly, we're not sure where that information went. If it went to private servers, however, that's clearly against the law. And we need to make sure that did not happen. We do not know the full extent of this breach because Doge continues to operate essentially out of the public eye. What little information they provide is dubious at best. And let me say as an aside, we heard a string of facts that must have taken five minutes about Social Security. Absolutely false. Those folks are not being paid, unfortunately, because their computer operation is so old, if they strike them, it affects the whole system. So while they no longer pay them, they're still on the rolls. And obviously, maybe some young kid, I don't know, got in there, saw they were on the rolls, hypothesized that they were still being paid. Not true. And it would have taken five minutes to find out that that was not true.

Doge has overreported its savings, as well, that the president mentioned yesterday, in billions, billions, and billions of dollars.

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