They were so close.

After weeks of negotiations, U.S. House and Senate leaders had agreed on a year-end spending bill that would fund the federal government through March 14, extend the 2018 Farm Bill through next September, and provide more than $100 billion in disaster aid. The legislation included numerous other policies, including at least two that had been priorities for Iowa’s members of Congress. The bill would have legalized year-round sales of higher ethanol blends known as E-15 in all states. It also contained new regulations for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which could have saved consumers billions while helping small pharmacies.

All of the Iowans in Congress have talked up E-15 as a path to U.S. energy independence. (In reality, only about 3,400 of some 198,000 gas stations across the country dispense higher ethanol blends.) Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) and Senator Chuck Grassley have been among the most vocal proponents of PBM reform, calling for action on prescription drug middlemen in draft bills, press releases, news conferences, House and Senate hearings, floor speeches, and taxpayer-funded radio ads.

Little did they know that President-elect Donald Trump and his billionaire buddy Elon Musk were about to blow up the deal.

Ed Tibbetts, a longtime reporter and editor in the Quad-Cities, is the publisher of the Along the Mississippi newsletter, where this article first appeared. Find more of his work at edtibbetts.substack.com.

It’s a startling statistic, but it’s not true.

Joni Ernst has gotten a lot of attention recently for her claim that only 6 percent of federal employees work in person on a full-time basis.

The New York Post ran with it. So did Elon Musk. The Des Moines Register quoted it, too.

It’s not true.

Before I dig into the details, a little background:

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.