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Continued signs of expected change in Washington, D.C. presented in Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s (R) proposed freezes until the Department of Government Efficiency is in place.

Between a number of unconventional staffing nominations and his thus far privately-funded transition team, President-elect Donald Trump’s approach to his second term continues to buck the status quo before it officially begins.

Now, as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped to lead the newly proposed DOGE, Blackburn detailed her own effort to halt federal salary increases, hiring, and current systems of promotion before the duo can present their recommendations.

“I’ve had legislation to do across-the-board spending cuts, and it’s hard to get that passed and get that agreement,” she told Ramaswamy on her “Unmuted” podcast. “I also have legislation that would freeze federal salaries and freeze federal hiring until we can get some of these recommendations from DOGE put into place.”

Voicing her favor for a merit-based system to replace tenure-based promotions in the federal workforce, Blackburn went on, “And those are things that need to be enacted.”

“We are just so pleased that President Trump has said now’s the time. We’re so pleased that he has said that you and Elon are the people to make this happen. And we are so looking forward to working with you on this and appreciate all those efforts,” the senator added.

During their discussion, Ramaswamy touched on some of the planned focuses of DOGE as he expressed, “One of the low-hanging fruit areas is to look at areas under the executive branch, through executive action that we can actually put an end to a lot of the money that hasn’t been authorized by Congress, but it’s still being spent, a lot of the waste, fraud, and abuse, even in entitlement programs that are resulting in a lot of frictional costs, and ultimately tame the administrative state itself back down to the size that would make our Founding Fathers proud.”

“It’s a big undertaking. But I do think that if we bring the public along and even allow the public to participate in airing areas where they’re encountering government waste or bureaucracy and surface that we’re able to make this something that isn’t just top down, but also bottom up,” suggested the businessman.

Ahead of Trump’s Election Night victory, Musk set a target of $2 trillion worth of cuts from the federal budget which DOGE would only have until July 2026 to accomplish under the president-elect’s plan.

At once addressing the temporary nature of the department and the perpetuity of the ever-growing federal bureaucracy, Ramaswamy said, “I think it was Reagan who famously said there’s no such thing as a government program that doesn’t live, it’s the best evidence we have for eternal life. And you know, I don’t think it has to be that way.”

In addition to Blackburn’s proposed legislation, Oklahoma Sen. Stephanie Bice (R) introduced H.R. 10177, dubbed the Decreasing Overlapping Grants Efficiently or DOGE Act, to curb “duplicative or fraudulent applications” for federal grants. As that bill has been referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Chair Kentucky Rep. James Comer (R) has announced that the 119th Congress will have a subcommittee to correspond with DOGE.

Sen. Blackburn’s conversation with Ramaswamy can be viewed in full below via her YouTube channel:

(Video Credit: Senator Marsha Blackburn)

Kevin Haggerty
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