We are officially over 50 days into the Trump 2.0 White House, and I can confidently say the Swamp is draining more and more by the second. President Trump campaigned largely on a mission to root out the vast waste and fraud that has entrenched itself in the federal government for decades. The President and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have quickly exposed how bureaucrats in the federal government have been taking the American taxpayers for a ride. As a proud member of the Senate DOGE caucus, I couldn’t be more thrilled.
Under the Biden administration, the federal government was spending taxpayer money like a teenager with their dad’s credit card. Don’t believe me? Check the U.S. debt clock – it’s up to $36 trillion and counting. Some of the programs taxpayers have been forced to pay for without their knowledge are absolutely ridiculous. For example, Alabamians don’t want their hard-earned paychecks funding Sesame Street in Iraq or transgender experiments on mice. They don’t want to pay $8 million for bureaucrats to subscribe to left-wing outlets like Politico. And the Yellowhammer state certainly doesn’t want their tax dollars funding $2 million for sex changes and LGBTQ activism in Guatemala. The list goes on and on.
Predictably, the media is in full panic mode, claiming that President Trump is trying to “dismantle the federal government.” As far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing. It’s truly astounding what has been going on behind the curtain here in Washington. The American public has unknowingly been bankrolling THOUSANDS of projects that the majority of this country wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. It’s reckless and an outright abuse of taxpayer dollars.
To fix it, DOGE is working around the clock to find innovative ways to trim the fat off of government agencies. President Trump signed an executive order to implement the President’s DOGE workforce optimization initiative, which is making our government leaner and more effective. This initiative is aimed at ensuring that taxpayer dollars are being spent in the most efficient way possible. First, government employees were offered a buyout option to resign in exchange for 8 months of pay and benefits. 75,000 federal employees opted to take the Trump buyout package, while other non-essential employees, including more than 6,000 IRS agents are being shown the exit signs. Like I said, the Swamp is draining.
Recently the media went into a tailspin when DOGE sent an email to all federal government employees asking them to list five things they accomplished that week. When I was a football coach, we had regular performance reviews where we would discuss an employees’ performance and if they weren’t performing at a certain standard, they would be fired. But apparently, that isn’t allowed in the government.
My colleagues and I are working to cut spending in Congress as well. Earlier this month, I joined several of my Republican colleagues in writing a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson urging them to support DOGE’s efforts to cut waste. It is imperative that Congress do our part to slash wasteful spending when funding the government. When Americans reelected President Trump in a landslide on November 5, they also voted for his agenda, including his campaign promise to shrink the federal government. And they’re happy with the work DOGE is doing – a recent poll revealed 76 percent of Americans support a “full-scale effort to find and eliminate fraud and waste in government.” Congress has a responsibility to make sure these popular policies 77 million Americans voted for are made permanent.
It’s tax season, which means that millions of Alabamians are being reminded of just how much of their hard-earned paychecks is collected by the federal government. Alabama has the fourth-highest proportion of blue-collar jobs in the U.S. These hardworking Americans don’t pour their blood, sweat, and tears into their jobs every day to pay Uncle Sam. No, they work around the clock to provide for their families and loved ones. We owe it to these Americans to make sure that their tax dollars aren’t being spent on “Brazilian forest and gender consultants” – whatever that is.
We should be thanking President Trump and the entire DOGE team for the incredible service they are doing for our country. I’m 100 percent committed to making sure Congress does our part to follow the President’s lead to rightsize the government and cut waste, fraud, and abuse. President Trump promised to fight every day for the American worker – and the hardworking men and women in this country deserve to know that their tax dollars
are not being used to fund gender transition surgeries in Africa. Together, we will restore accountability and transparency in Washington and unleash the Golden Age of America.