Democratic lawmakers are fuming over the “DOGE boys” and their recent crackdown on federal spending, holding a rally outside the newly formed cost-cutting department’s potential next target: the Social Security Administration (SSA).
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, has been working with federal agencies to identify and cut wasteful spending. Most recently, the group began probing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for potential fraud — a move that wasn’t welcomed by Democratic lawmakers who warned that the SSA could be the next agency on the target list.
On Monday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Ma., Rep. Johnny Olszewski, D-Ma., and Rep. Sarah Elfreth, D-Ma., gathered for a rally outside the SSA headquarters in Baltimore to criticize DOGE’s efforts.
“Every time you hear DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, you just remember it is the department of government evil,” said Mfume, a Maryland-based Democrat.
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Rep. Kweisi Mfume at a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 8, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla)
Fox News Digital previously reported that according to Just Facts, a nonprofit research institute, SSA disbursed roughly $2 billion in fraudulent or improper payments in 2022, which it calculated was enough “to pay 89,947 retired workers the average annual old-age benefit of $21,924 for 2023.”
Democrats, however, have claimed that Americans’ Social Security benefits could be targeted.
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“We have one simple message, which is: Elon Musk, keep your hands off our Social Security,” Van Hollen told the crowd.
Sen. Van Hollen told Musk to ‘keep your hands off our Social Security.’ (Getty Images)
“Over the last 21 days, we have seen Elon Musk conducting illegal raids on federal agencies with his DOGE crew,” the senator said. “This is a recipe for corruption by the DOGE boys.”
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Ma., speaking during the rally, claimed that “the intention of this administration is to make us feel demoralized, to make many of us feel frightened, to incite fear, to silence people.”
Many of DOGE’s targets have ranged from canceling a number of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at federal agencies to consolidating duplicative agencies and programs.
Angela Alsobrooks, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Maryland, and Gov. Wes Moore, D-Md., are seen while greeting voters on the state’s primary election day at Lewisdale Elementary School in Chillum, Md., on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (Tom Williams)
DOGE, as of the end of January, said that it was saving the federal government $1 billion a day, mostly by “stopping the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, deletion of DEI and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations, all consistent with the President’s Executive Orders.”
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The efforts have been widely rejected by Democratic lawmakers, who have been gathering outside government agency headquarters in protest of the DOGE agenda.
Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller and Eric Revell contributed to this report.
