Republican firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been tapped to chair a new congressional subcommittee aimed at eliminating government waste under the newly formed “Department of Government Efficiency,” which is set to be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — and firing government employees could be part of her plan.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer announced the creation of the new GOP-controlled “Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE)” subcommittee in the next Congress, and Greene, a loyal supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, will chair it.
Greene said in the new position, she will work to “identify and investigate the waste, corruption, and absolutely useless parts of our federal government.”
“Our subcommittee will provide transparency and truth to the American people through hearings,” she said in a statement. “The goal of DOGE is to bring accountability and GUT useless government agencies.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, slammed the committee and Greene’s involvement in it.
“So now a noted student of American government, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, will chair a subcommittee to work with two unvetted billionaires who stand to receive billions more in government contracts and subsidies from the government under Trump,” Raskin said in a statement.
The Georgia Republican has pledged to carry out Trump’s agenda in the role and “rooted out every penny of waste and abuse” — signaling that government employees’ jobs could be on the chopping block.
Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, July 22, 2024.
Chris Kleponis/AFP via Getty Images, FILE
“In the private sector, if you’re not doing a good job, you get fired. But for some reason, in government, bad employees—whether they’re failing to do the job they were hired to do or working in roles that are no longer needed—never get fired,” Greene wrote in a post on X on Thursday. “This is incredibly unfair to the hard-working taxpayers of our country, and it’s about to change.”
Trump himself has made no secret of his plans to cut what he sees as government waste by calling for the dismantling for the Department of Education and selecting Cabinet picks who talk about abolishing entire agencies and firing tens of thousands of federal workers at a time.
Helping in that effort could be the new Department of Government Efficiency — helmed by Musk and Ramaswamy, both staunch allies of the president-elect. While DOGE will not be a federal agency in the U.S. government, Trump said it will provide advice and guidance “outside of government” and partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to “drive structural government reform.”
The president-elect did not detail how this new department would be funded.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks to reporters as she leaves a House Republican Caucus meeting on Capitol Hill on Nov. 19, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Lawmakers involved in the future subcommittee have already met with members of the White House DOGE team, including Ramaswamy, who support the Oversight Committee’s endeavor and are already working together, according to a source.
Ramaswamy posted on X that he is “looking forward” to working with Greene and with Congress in that effort.
Greene’s time in the House has been marked by several controversies — including her involvement in a raucous House Oversight Committee meeting that included name calling and her plot to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson from the job earlier this year.
She has been on the House Oversight Committee since 2023 — but in 2021, the House voted to remove her from her assigned committees because of her record of making incendiary remarks ranging from allegedly supporting violence against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats, to spreading baseless claims that mass school shootings were staged.
ABC News’ Will Steakin contributed to this report.
Source: abc news
