Ernst on DOGE: The E Stands for Efficiency

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), chair and founder of the Senate DOGE Caucus, advocated for a more efficient government for American taxpayers by ensuring public servants are actually serving the American people.

During a U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs hearing, Ernst pointed out several bureaucrats that her investigations exposed who should receive a “Reductions in Force” notice, including:

• A Veterans Affairs (VA) manager phoning in from a bubble bath while veterans’ calls go unanswered,
• A VA therapist who gushed about telework with a cat around her neck instead of helping an Army veteran with mental health,
• A Housing and Urban Development employee who was arrested for drunk driving while on the clock,
• A Social Security employee who had his mother answer emails on his behalf while he ran a private business on government time, and
• An IRS employee who was caught golfing on the taxpayers’ dime.

Watch Senator’s Ernst full remarks here.

“We need people that care about our constituents. They need to show up to work and do their work. We should reward good employees and get rid of those that truly don't want to work for Americans and only are working for themselves,” said Ernst.

Ernst asked Director for the Office of Personnel Management nominee Scott Kupor and Deputy Director for Management for the Office of Management and Budget nominee Eric M. Ueland for their plans to empower agencies to not only dismiss bad employees quickly but reward good employees, stating that “taxpayers deserve better than bubble bath bureaucrats and self-interested therapists.”

Ernst also cited her personal experience working to get the Social Security Administration’s field office in Sioux City, Iowa back to work after a whistleblower exposed the office’s habit of ignoring simple requests for weeks and not serving Iowans.

Background:

As chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus, Ernst unveiled a $2 trillion plan to save taxpayer dollars and downsize the government and her telework report that exposed an absent federal workforce.

For years, Ernst has been working on getting bureaucrats back to work. In August 2023, Ernst demanded investigations into 24 federal departments and agencies to determine the impact of telework on the delivery and response times of services. In December 2024, Ernst exposed that, almost four years after COVID-19 temporarily closed federal buildings, not a single government agency was occupying even half their office space and called on Biden’s bureaucrats to deck the agency halls with federal workers or sell off unused facilities.

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