WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senate Democrats who spoke with Fox News Digital said they do support cutting some wasteful spending from the federal government, but not by Elon Musk.
“Of course there’s some wasteful spending, but you don’t use a meat ax and cut everything,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday after Fox News Digital asked whether there was some waste worth cutting.
“We need to look at each program. We need to go through Congress and see what’s wasteful and move to eliminate it,” he said.
Democrats have been critical of Elon Musk’s efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to slash “wasteful” federal spending, as the newly formed cost-cutting department rescinds hundreds of millions of dollars dished out by the previous administration.
Democratic lawmakers told Fox News Digital on Capitol Hill they are generally in favor of cuts to federal spending but aren’t in support of how DOGE is conducting its sweep.
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. (J. Scott Applewhite)
“DOGE is turning the country over to the billionaires. They’re looking to make money for themselves,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. “They’re not interested in government efficiency.”
Murphy told Fox “there’s plenty of money to be cut,” such as on prescription drugs, but “that’s not what DOGE is doing.”
“We spent way too much money on prescription drugs. We pad the pockets of the drug industry every single year. We should be negotiating all of our prescription drug costs. We waste a ton of money on overspending,” Murphy said.
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Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., laughed, saying, “There’s always things that can be improved.”
Sen. Chris Murphy said, “DOGE is turning the country over to the billionaires.” (Anna Moneymaker)
Democratic Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey said, “There’s certainly waste and efficiencies that we can get better at,” but “the way in which it’s happening right now is not the right way to do it.
“I mean, you’re having federal employees getting kicked out, and then we realize that we need them for bird flu or nuclear regulation and other things like that,” Kim told Fox News Digital. “It’s causing way too much chaos. But I would have been prepared to work in a bipartisan way. I still am.”
Senators Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., told Fox they think there should be cuts to wasteful spending but did not elaborate on where that should be.
DOGE has spent the past month entering federal agencies and uncovering billions in spending from the federal government that the Trump administration considers wasteful.
Democratic lawmakers tell Fox News they do not support how Elon Musk is going about making cuts to federal spending. (Fox News Digital/Getty Images)
The method sparked opposition from critics such as Schumer, who claimed DOGE “went after community health centers in Medicaid” and “many things that American families need, want and approve of.”
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Trump on Wednesday floated the idea of delivering 20% of the DOGE savings to taxpayers directly through personal checks to taxpaying households, while another 20% would be used to pay down the national debt.
