U.S. Senator Joni Ernst will be a leading Congressional partner of President-elect Donald Trump’s effort to drastically cut federal spending. On November 22 her office “announced the founding of the Senate DOGE Caucus, which will work hand in hand with the Trump administration’s recently formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to identify and eliminate government waste.”

That “department” is actually a non-governmental advisory body, co-led by Trump’s billionaire buddy Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Staying outside the government allows DOGE to operate without Congressional authorization, and avoid federal rules on transparency and conflicts of interest.

In recent days, Ernst shared her spending cut proposals with Ramaswamy and traveled to Florida to meet with Trump, Musk, and others in the incoming administration.

Going all in on DOGE is a risky strategy.

SHORT-TERM POLITICAL BENEFITS

The political upside for Ernst is obvious. Whereas her relationship with the president-elect was strained earlier this year, she can now demonstrate her loyalty in a tangible way to the man who carried Iowa three times and this year had the largest winning margin for a presidential candidate in Iowa since 1972.

A close association with Trumpworld should eliminate any risk of a serious challenge from the right in Iowa’s 2026 U.S. Senate election. Ernst may still draw a primary challenger, as Senator Chuck Grassley did in 2022. But without a Trump endorsement or financing from billionaires like Musk, a rival Republican candidate would have no realistic chance of defeating the incumbent.

The DOGE effort will also help Ernst stay in the spotlight after losing her position on the Senate GOP leadership team. She’s already been on national television to tout her cost-cutting plans.

Speaking to Fox News this weekend, Ernst said she gave Ramaswamy “a blueprint of $2 trillion of savings, nearly immediately.” She added that the research her staff have done over the past decade will provide DOGE with “a very clear blueprint for success.”

The examples she cited in that interview wouldn’t come close to saving trillions. She bashed a train construction project in California that costs taxpayers $1.8 million a day, and vacant government buildings that cost about $8 billion a year.

In recent social media posts, Ernst has flagged millions of dollars spent on government-funded research using cats. The DOGE feed on X/Twitter has similarly highlighted hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending on seemingly obscure scientific research. The numbers sound big, but they don’t amount to much in the context of the federal budget.

Federal employees who work from home are a favorite target for Iowa’s junior senator. And on November 21, she welcomed calls by the DOGE co-leaders to end telework options for federal employees: “Let’s do it! Time to tell bubble bath bureaucrats they’re fired!”

However, firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers could disrupt the functioning of many government agencies and programs. And ending telework could make it harder to recruit and retain qualified employees, since many private sector employers offer telework options. It’s also not clear whether the Trump administration could immediately make this change, since many federal workers are covered by collective bargaining agreements that allow them to work remotely.

Ernst has said she will soon release more details on her proposed cuts. I’ll update this post when those plans are available.

BIG SPENDING CUTS WOULD BE PAINFUL

Describing the “obstacles” she has faced when trying to address government spending, Ernst told Fox News, “Those that are pushing against cutting this waste out are usually the fat cats that are actually enjoying this government waste.”

Reality check: mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare account for nearly two-thirds of federal government spending (which totaled around $6.8 trillion in fiscal year 2024). Another 8 percent or so goes toward interest payments to service the federal debt. The defense budget makes up about 45 percent of the federal government’s “discretionary” spending. If those programs are protected, expect huge cuts to almost everything else, from farm subsidies to small business loans to Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act exchanges, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in a November 20 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that they will start by cutting “the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended.” DOGE posted on X/Twitter the same day, “In FY2024, U.S. Congress provided $516 billion to programs whose authorizations previously expired under federal law. Nearly $320 billion of that $516 billion expired more a decade ago.”

Sounds wasteful and easy to fix—until you look at the linked report from the Congressional Budget Office. About $119 billion of that “unauthorized” spending stems from a veterans’ health care law.

Does Ernst support scrapping health care for millions of veterans?

About $48 billion is connected to a law that authorized funding for the National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, and other programs related to public health like treating opioid addiction. Tens of billions are connected to various education programs, from Head Start for young children to higher education. Tens of billions support programs related to housing or child care.

Shutting down all government agencies operating this way would involve enormous disruption. How would air travel work without spending $7 billion on the Federal Aviation Administration? What would happen to weather forecasting without $6 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration?

By embracing DOGE, Ernst is associating herself with everything Musk and Ramaswamy propose, no matter how stupid or impractical. “Make ’em squeal!” is a good slogan until the people squealing are sympathetic children, farmers, veterans, or small business owners.

DOGE MAY FLOP

Some experts doubt the DOGE recommendations will meaningfully change how the government spends money. For one thing, Congress may refuse to act on most of the proposals. Republicans on the Hill may embrace Ramaswamy’s call to eliminate the $535 million budget of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports a national network of public radio and television stations. But that’s chump change compared to the trillions in promised savings.

Ernst is not a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and neither are other founding members of the Senate DOGE caucus, like Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah.

On the House side, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene will work with DOGE as chair of a new subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee. Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, told the Washington Post “he hadn’t spoken to Musk or Ramaswamy, but was eager to discuss their plans.”

DOGE has criticized the Pentagon for not being able to fully account for the enormous defense budget. Ernst claimed on November 21 that she has identified “$100 billion in pointless bureaucracy at the Pentagon.” Many liberals would support significant defense spending cuts. Most Republicans in Congress disagree, though. During budget negotiations, Republicans have often demanded larger defense spending increases.

Trump may try to eliminate government programs or whole agencies (such as the Department of Education) without Congressional action. But even this U.S. Supreme Court, which has bowed to Trump at almost every opportunity, might not allow him to usurp the legislative branch’s spending authority.

Musk and Ramaswamy have pointed to recent Supreme Court rulings that limited federal agency regulations. Those say nothing about allowing the president to disregard appropriations by Congress.

Whatever the outcome of the legal battle, Ernst would be aligned with those seeking to cut federal programs that help hundreds of thousands of Iowans. That might be a hard sell, if she faces a well-funded challenger in 2026. At this writing, no Democrat has announced plans to run for Senate.

UPDATE: Ernst sent the following letter to Musk and Ramaswamy on November 25. It purports to offer “a trillion dollars’ worth of ideas for trimming the fat and reducing red ink.” However, the specific savings listed add up to far less.

Near the end of the letter, Ernst asserts,

More than $200 billion in financial benefits could be achieved by implementing the thousands of outstanding recommendations made by Congress’ nonpartisan watchdog agency, the Government Accountability Office. We may not agree with every suggestion, but GAO always puts taxpayers’ best interest first.

The GAO website estimates that implementing the recommendations “could produce measurable financial benefits of $106 to $208 billion.” That’s not the same as spending $200 billion less next year.

Ernst’s letter also claims,

For every $1 billion Washington spends, $102 million is wasted as projects go over budget, are delayed, or fail to meet projected goals. Implementing the most basic management systems—like establishing scopes and goals—could have saved taxpayers $688.5 billion from the $6.75 trillion the federal government spent this past year.

That’s not a road map to spending $688.5 billion less. That’s a vague estimate of potential savings if projects were not delayed, over budget, or not meeting goals. But the majority of federal government spending doesn’t go toward “projects”; it’s spent on programs like Social Security and Medicare. There is no magic way to save 10 percent on what the government spends servicing the federal debt either.

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Full text of November 22 news release from Ernst’s office:

Ernst Creates Senate DOGE Caucus to Eliminate Government Waste

Caucus to serve as the “bite” to partner with the “bark” of Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a leading champion for taxpayers in Washington, announced the founding of the Senate DOGE Caucus, which will work hand in hand with the Trump administration’s recently formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to identify and eliminate government waste.

The newly formed caucus will build upon Senator Ernst’s decade-long work to make Washington “squeal” by exposing trillions in waste, fraud, and abuse.  

“Iowans elected me with a mandate to cut Washington’s pork and make ‘em squeal! From billion-dollar boondoggles to welfare for politicians and trillion-dollar slush funds, my decade-long investigations have exposed levels of abuse that are almost too insane to believe,” said Ernst. “The tables are finally turning, the knives are out, and waste is on the chopping block. As President Trump, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy prepare to take action, the Senate DOGE Caucus is ready to carry out critical oversight in Congress and use our legislative force to fight against the entrenched bureaucracy, trim the fat, and get Washington back to work for Americans.”

“We look forward to partnering with the Senate to downsize government. Grateful to Senator Joni Ernst for her excellent suggestions yesterday,” said Vivek Ramaswamy, co-leader of DOGE.

Senator Ernst is working with Representatives Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) and Pete Sessions (R-Texas), co-chairs of the House DOGE Caucus, and is joined by Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.). Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), and James Lankford (R-Okla.)in founding the Senate DOGE Caucus.

“Our national debt has surpassed a staggering $36 trillion and should be a wakeup call for all Americans. We must take action to avoid diving headfirst off the cliff of fiscal ruin. The DOGE Caucus will work with President Trump, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy to dismantle the out-of-control bureaucracy, cut wasteful programs, slash excess regulations, and restructure federal agencies,” said Bean. “As House co-founder of the now Bicameral DOGE Caucus, I look forward to partnering with Senator Ernst to help rein in reckless spending and stop the abuse of taxpayer dollars.”

“As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, addressing waste, fraud, and abuse in government has been a top priority of mine,” said Sessions. “According to a report from the GAO, over $2.7 trillion has been lost in fraud and improper payments since 2003. This is an absolutely unacceptable misuse of taxpayer dollars. Hardworking Americans deserve a government that works efficiently and effectively. I am committed to working in bicameral fashion with Senator Ernst, Congressman Bean, and my colleagues in the DOGE Caucus to continue rooting out inefficiency in our government, ensuring taxpayers get the accountability and results they deserve.”

Background:

Critics have falsely claimed that DOGE will be all bark and no bite, but Senator Ernst’s 10 years of “Squeal Awards” exposing waste, fraud, and abuse and countering them with specific oversight and legislative solutions lay out the perfect way to carry out these plans in Congress – Senator Ernst will lead the caucus to be the “bite” in the Senate. 

Ernst has tracked down trillions of wasted taxpayer dollars, including spending on risky research, teleworking bureaucrats, empty government buildings, and tax dodging IRS agents.

Next week, Senator Ernst will be releasing a Thanksgiving menu of trillions of dollars of cuts to be carved out of Washington’s budget.

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Top photo was posted on Joni Ernst’s political social media feeds on November 23. From left: Howard Lutnick (who is leading Trump’s transition team and is the president’s pick for Commerce secretary), Ernst, Trump, Ernst’s longtime chief of staff Lisa Goeas, and Elon Musk.