Ranking Member Stansbury’s Opening Remarks at DOGE Republicans’ Hearing on Gutting Critical Services to Subsidize Tax Cuts for Billionaires

Washington, D.C. (June 24, 2025)—Below is an opening statement from Rep. Melanie Stansbury, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.  The remarks were delivered at today’s hearing, wherein Chairwoman Greene and Committee Republicans defended the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cruel, costly, and reckless cuts to the federal workforce and the vital programs and services American families rely on. 

Click here to watch the video. 

Opening Statement
Ranking Member Melanie Stansbury
Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency
“Locking in the DOGE Cuts: Ending Waste, Fraud, and Abuse for Good”
June 24, 2025 

Good morning, everyone.  Welcome to the DOGE Subcommittee, notwithstanding the abject failure of the DOGE enterprise inside the federal government and the epic breakup of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.  

Here we are again, once again in this committee.  I’m grateful that the Chairwoman showed again, one of my favorite videos, which she showed on the first day of the subcommittee. 

I’m grateful because it highlights the work that we’ve been doing for decades to root out waste, fraud and abuse, including work that I was intimately involved in as a Budget Examiner in the Office of Management and Budget in which we actually eliminated waste, fraud, and abuse.  But unfortunately, as my friends across the aisle in the GOP and their Heritage Foundation witnesses are still trying to make DOGE happen yet again, the American people are over it. 

In fact, you don’t have to take my word for it.  A poll just two weeks ago found that 67% of voters believe DOGE has done a bad job.  That was just two weeks ago.  And in fact, when I told one of my friends that we were having another DOGE Subcommittee hearing, they asked, really, “is that still happening?”  Because the American people are over it. 

Except that it’s not funny, because DOGE has been used to wage a chaotic, destructive, and ideological war against the American people and the vital programs that they depend on.  But I’m going to turn to that in just a moment.  

Given everything that’s happening in the world right now and with this administration, I don’t think we can sit here and pretend like everything is normal, because just four days ago, the President launched an unauthorized military attack on Iran without the consent of Congress, putting our troops and our bases in harm’s way, as we saw just last night with the retaliatory bombing of one of our largest bases.  

And Madam Chair, I have actually been extremely grateful and wholeheartedly agree with your outspoken advocacy against this war.  But like so many days and weeks in this administration, this follows weeks of chaos here at home as the President has deployed US Marines and National Guard on our own soil against our own people.  His DHS Secretary and federal officials shoved a US Senator to the ground, DOJ indicted a sitting Congresswoman in this House for doing her job and tried to arrest a New York City official in a federal courthouse. 

This is not only not normal, but also dangerous.  It is anti-American, and it is anti-democratic.  And so, we’re not going to sit here today and pretend like what this administration is doing is normal and we’re not going to sit here and pretend like DOGE is just some normal government program.  It is a scam in service of a political agenda. 

While we came to the table at the beginning of this whole process in good faith with real ideas, bipartisan ideas that folks have been working on for years, and a desire to actually fix and modernize the federal government, what we’ve seen from DOGE is the exact opposite.   

It is so failed in its stated mission of saving money that even the President asked, “if it was bullshit” as Elon Musk was exiting the building. 

And if they want to talk about fiscal responsibility while we are sitting here, they’re still trying to pass a reconciliation bill across the aisle that would saddle taxpayers with $2.5 trillion in deficit spending. 

And in the last few weeks, reports have revealed that DOGE may actually have cost the federal government more than it actually saved because of the mass firings, dismantled agencies, stolen data lawsuits, and agencies in chaos that are not able to do their basic operational duties. 

This is not efficiency. This is a scam, and that’s not even to mention the completely reckless and needless suffering that DOGE has caused. 

We’re talking about millions of children and people across the planet who no longer will have access to food and medicine because of the very $9 billion rescission package that was just discussed—thousands of veterans and public service members, servants here at home whose lives have been shattered, and millions of Americans who’ve been impacted by the gutting of vital programs, including staffing, Social Security, and now they’re here today to try to make the case for making it permanent. Are you serious?

Really? Are you serious? I can’t even believe my ears.  So, why are they trying to make DOGE permanent? Well, I think you have to look no further than the witnesses that they’ve called over the last several hearings, including today.  We’ve got the Heritage Foundation and other authors and architects of Project 2025. 

So, we have to be real about what this is actually about.  It’s not about efficiency.  It’s about a political agenda.  An ideological agenda about remaking the US government, about remaking our economy, and our society in line with a hyper-conservative worldview that is so unpopular that even Donald Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025 during the campaign, and now he’s hired over 70 officials to try to enact it.

And now, they’re trying to use this committee to make the case.  Now, they like to try to claim that they’re taking on cancel culture and a woke agenda. 

But let’s be clear, DOGE and the folks who want to make it permanent are the actual cancel culture because they want to cancel anything that they don’t like or they don’t agree with, including your democratic rights and your freedoms, economic opportunity and education, LGBTQ+ rights, rolling back the clock on civil rights, canceling the history of Black, Chicano, and Indigenous communities, and stripping protections from our families and the healthcare, housing, and food people depend on so that they can give more tax breaks to their friends.

But this is all part of a wider agenda that is now seeking to apply political purity tests to government programs and services, including both federal employment and yes, veteran services!  Let me repeat that again.  Even veterans benefits, they want to apply political purity tests to your VA benefits, folks.

This is not about efficiency.  This is about eroding and privatizing our institutions, gutting programs that keep our people and our country safe.  It’s about rewriting history and remaking society to take us back decades, if not centuries.  In short, it’s about making this country less free, less democratic, less prosperous, and frankly, consolidating power under Trump and his allies who are becoming increasingly dangerous, ideological, and yes, autocratic. 

So, we have to be clear-eyed about what is actually going on because this administration and its allies, if they are willing to arrest and indict elected officials who are just doing their jobs, including a US Senator and a US Congresswoman, what will they do if we let them get away with it?

We cannot and we will not remain silent.  We have to continue to speak up, to speak out, and continue to stand together.  I yield back. 

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