Conservatives Fume Over Lack Of DOGE Cuts In ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’
Conservative House Republicans have begun grousing about what they see as a disturbing lack of DOGE-recommended cuts in the “big, beautiful bill” that is reflective of President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda, according to reports.
Some have even speculated that an increasing number of Republicans may prefer to delay the cuts until after the 2026 midterms, although it is uncertain whether the GOP will maintain control of one or both chambers of Congress, which would effectively make Trump a two-year lame duck.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who led the DOGE initiative, stirred controversy this week by criticizing a sprawling package passed by the House last week that advances Trump’s tax priorities, expressing concerns about the bill’s potential impact on the deficit.
“I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk said in a snippet of an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” that aired yesterday.
His remarks are part of a growing number of concerns raised by fiscal hawks in Congress and prominent conservatives outside of Capitol Hill.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a former congressman, knocked GOP lawmakers Tuesday in a post on the social platform X, while saying Musk took “massive incoming — including attacks on his companies as well as personal smears — to lead the effort on DOGE.”
“To see Republicans in Congress cast aside any meaningful spending reductions (and, in fact, fully fund things like USAID) is demoralizing and represents a betrayal of the voters who elected them,” DeSantis wrote.
Over the weekend, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller took to X to clarify that the Trump agenda megabill was not the appropriate vehicle for implementing the DOGE cuts.
“DOGE cuts would have to be done through what is known as a rescissions package or an appropriations bill,” Miller said. “The Big Beautiful Bill is NOT an annual budget bill and does not fund the departments of government. It does not finance our agencies or federal programs.”
That said, conservative Republicans are nevertheless keeping the pressure on to make the cuts.
“Personally I want to pass DOGE cuts every single week until the bloated out of control government is reigned back in. As a country, we cannot survive our national debt and honestly, we may be past the point of return. We should be aggressively attacking our debt and aggressively, cutting all waste fraud, and abuse and unnecessary programs,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote Wednesday in a post regarding a rescissions package. “Our future literally is in peril.”
Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) wrote Saturday on X: “Every DOGE cut targets waste, fraud, and abuse. Congress MUST codify them quickly. What’s the holdup?!”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has said he will not vote for Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” in the Senate, wrote Thursday that “@ElonMusk is right. The House’s version of the One Big Beautiful Bill would explode the debt by $4 trillion, undermining all the cuts @DOGE has made. There’s nothing beautiful about that.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), however, pointed to Miller’s explanation, noting that the DOGE cuts would be included during the appropriations process, or by approving White House requests to claw back funds.
He said the House-passed bill to enact Trump’s agenda is intended to “build on DOGE’s success.” And he added the GOP-led House is “eager and ready to act on DOGE’s findings” by quickly passing a package to codify the cuts and using the “appropriations process to swiftly implement President Trump’s 2026 budget.”
