House Democrats aren't addressing the waste and debt that's being uncovered by Elon Musk and his DOGE team, but are creating an "embarrassment" for themselves while complaining about Musk and the youth of his team, Rep. Beth Van Duyne said on Newsmax Saturday.
"We're talking about witnesses that they really should have paid attention to," the Texas Republican said on Newsmax's "America Right Now" about the Democrats' actions during the House's first DOGE Committee meeting this week.
The team has presented "simple solutions" such as an identification and verification process that could "stop nearly $1 trillion" in government overspending, she added.
"Why were they not looking at the fact that we've got countries that are taking advantage of our weak system, countries like North Korea, China, and Russia that are stealing our benefits from our American citizens?" Van Duyne said. "They weren't outraged by that. The only thing they wanted to concentrate on was Elon Musk being unelected and not looking at all of these other actors, all these other bureaucrats that are unelected. They just wanted to shoot the messenger, and they refused to listen to the message."
The congresswoman added that this raises questions about whether the Democrats "and their cronies and their donors and their friends have been benefiting from these slush funds. You've just got to ask the question why, and that's what we're starting to ask."
Van Duyne noted that only the surface has been scratched on how much misspending there has been.
"Imagine how much we will uncover," she said. "Just think about how much fraud is in Medicaid."
But Democrats and Republicans alike should be tackling the issues, said Van Duyne.
"Why would we want to waste our taxpayer money?" she said. "We have got to get down to the bottom of this."
The House Ways and Means and other committees have been working in the past two years to cut wasteful government spending, particularly in the years following the COVID pandemic, she added.
"Whether or not it's out of the Small Business Administration, whether it's the 24% of some of the shady suspect payments that have been coming out of our Treasury, and considering that 90% of the payments come out of Treasury and 24% right now are suspect, we have to look at that," said Van Duyne.
Republicans are excited to have an administration that is willing to work with them on the issue, but Congress must also be willing to be involved with the White House as a partnership, she continued.
"I think when you see Congress putting together a budget that's looking at $4.5 trillion in cuts and when you start thinking about the DOGE effort and what that's going to do, I think for the first time, it's realistic that we can start cutting some of the debt," Van Duyne said. "But at the same token, we can't lose our momentum and allow just the spew of 'Elon Musk, Elon Musk' from the Democrats to stop it."
She noted that House Democrats didn't just have "freak outs" in the DOGE Committee meeting but in two Ways and Means Committee meetings as well.
"It seems that the Democrats have all gotten the exact same talking points," she said. "Let's talk about Elon Musk. That was all they talked about in our Ways and Means hearings as well. It was absolutely pathetic."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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