Anamika Dey, editor
Brief news
- House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will meet with Republican leaders on December 5 to discuss government reform, focusing on regulatory rescissions and cost savings.
- Musk and Ramaswamy co-chair the Department of Government Efficiency, aiming to reduce federal employment and eliminate various agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
- Implementation of their proposals will require Congressional approval, facing potential resistance due to the impact on federal employees across districts.
Detailed news
In an announcement made on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, stated that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will be traveling to Capitol Hill on December 5 to discuss government reform with Republican congressional leaders.
It was stated by Johnson that the business owners will “discussion major reform ideas to achieve regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings” with politicians from the Republican congressional party.
Musk and Ramaswamy have been appointed to the position of co-chairs of a new outside advisory body that President-elect Donald Trump of the United States of America has called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. It appears that the primary purpose of the group would be to work with the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is responsible for preparing the annual budget request that the president submits to Congress. However, specifics of the panel are still being uncovered.
Musk and Ramaswamy have outlined a comprehensive list of objectives for the project, which includes enormous reductions in the number of people employed by the federal government as well as the elimination of a large number of governmental agencies and regulators.
They have expressed their desire to do away with “expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress,” as stated in a recent opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal. They would also work to reduce the amount of money that the federal government provides to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a number of international organizations, and Planned Parenthood, which is a provider of healthcare services for women.
Musk also said on Wednesday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is an independent agency, should be “delete” from consideration by the White House.
On the other hand, the majority of these suggestions would need to be approved by Congress. This is due to the fact that the House of Representatives is in charge of allocating federal monies to particular agencies.
The meeting that is scheduled to take place the next week is the most recent evidence that Republican leaders in Congress are given serious consideration to Musk and Ramaswamy.
However, it is possible that even the most diligent efforts of Republican leaders in Congress will not be sufficient to put many of these ideas into action.
Despite the fact that the outcomes of a few House contests are still unknown as of Wednesday, Johnson is still on course to achieve one of the most slender majorities, of any party, in the history of the House of Representatives of the United States.
In light of the fact that the federal workforce is scattered across the 435 congressional districts in the United States, the possibility of throwing the federal employees of any one district out of work is likely to be met with hostility by the members of that district in Congress.
The requests for comment that were made by CNBC on Wednesday were not immediately met with a response from the spokespersons for Johnson and Musk.
Musk is the richest person in the world and the CEO of many companies, including SpaceX, Tesla, and the social networking platform X. Previously running for president as a Republican, Ramaswamy is now an entrepreneur in the field of biotechnology.
Source : CNBC news
