Musk asks senators to codify DOGE cuts

Elon Musk, the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency, asked Senate Republicans to codify the cuts that he and his cohorts are making to the federal bureaucracy.

Senators who attended the Wednesday lunch meeting with Mr. Musk said they are on board with that plan and suggested using the rescissions process to do so, because it only requires 51 votes in the Senate as opposed to the 60 it takes to pass most spending bills. 

“There’s a political element to this [cost-cutting] we’re missing. We need to capture this in a legislative process to make it real,” said Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, suggesting “it’s time for the White House now to go on offense.”

He said Mr. Musk was “so happy” to learn that the rescission process is a tool available to lock in the DOGE cuts with only Republican votes that the billionaire did his signature two-fist pump and said, “Let’s use it.” 

Rescissions are available under a budget law known as the Impoundment Control Act that allows the president to submit to Congress a list of unspent funding he would like to claw back from what lawmakers previously appropriated. 

The proposed rescissions are subject to expedited procedures for consideration in the House and the Senate, including an exemption from the Senate filibuster that will allow Republicans to pass the cuts with a simple majority if they’re mostly united. 

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, who has for weeks been asking the White House to submit a rescissions package to Congress to codify the DOGE cuts, first brought up the idea in the meeting with Mr. Musk. 

“I love all the stuff they’re doing, but we got to vote on it,” he said.