Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said Wednesday on Newsmax he is "pleased" that President-elect Donald Trump has "put a priority" on cutting government spending with the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Lankford told "Wake Up America" that he championed government efficiency for a decade on Capitol Hill and circulated ideas among his colleagues to cut wasteful spending.
"For 10 years, I put out year after year after year, here's a set of ideas to make government more efficient, here's a set of ideas to make government more efficient, and each year, we put out a different set, and there's lots of areas," Lankford said. "My encouragement all along has been every single office on Capitol Hill should do this, should look around and find areas of efficiency.
"I'm pleased to be able to see President Trump actually say let's put a priority on this," he continued. "Let's bring all these different ideas together, and let's start actually implementing them. For years we've been talking about it; let's actually do it. That's the key thing that we need to do right now."
Asked where the federal government should start scaling back, Lankford had an answer at the ready: "start anywhere and start cutting there."
"It's not challenging," he said. "It is a target-rich environment when you stand in the middle of government and look for areas of inefficiency, and it's a good day to be able to go after waste on it. So I would tell you, in every single agency there are areas that we can be more efficient, but there are big ones when you deal with things like the grants.
"My taxpayers in Oklahoma were paying for drag shows in Ecuador; they were paying to study the secret language of butchers in Paris; they were paying for Napa Valley — one of the richest areas in all of America – paying for them to get a new wine walking trail," Lankford continued. "I mean, this is the kind of waste that just drives people crazy in Oklahoma and all across the country to say, why is my money going there? I want it to go to national security. I want it to go to defending the border. I want it to go to veterans. I want it to go to the key places, transportation, the things that government is supposed to do. Not into wasteful spending."
On Tuesday, Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., reportedly became the first Democrat in the House to join the DOGE caucus and Lankford said he "would hope" that more Democrats are open to joining and working with Republicans.
"This is an area that shouldn't be a partisan area," he said. "Everybody, everybody, everybody wants the government to be more efficient. We want to not have our dollars wasted."
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