Members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee clashed on Tuesday over the impacts of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), mounting Federal worker firings, and defense spending levels, with one Republican member predicting that the current turmoil at Federal agencies may be the “tip of the iceberg.”
During a Feb. 25 hearing of the committee’s panel on military and foreign affairs, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., raised concerns about the tens of thousands of Federal worker dismissals over the last several weeks, warning that the cuts amount to a “brain drain in the Federal government.”
“The shuttering of agencies and the disdain for civil servants is a huge threat to our national security and actively goes against the goal of preparing the country for emerging threats,” Subramanyam said.
The congressman also voiced his concerns that the firings will crimp Federal technology acquisition especially in the defense arena.
“When you cancel a contract, many times, the company will have spent many years investing millions of dollars or more into trying to develop that technology or that asset, and that research and development ends up really going to the wayside,” Subramanyam said.
“We go years behind on military technology and assets as a result,” he added.
And, the congressman said, “If we are firing people who really do cutting edge, important research and technological innovation in our military and in our civil service, we are not going to have the best people, we’re going to be less safe, [and] we’re going to have more emerging threats.”
Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., expressed his concern about the Trump administration’s targeting of DEI initiatives in the military, as well as wasteful defense spending especially after the Pentagon “failed” its seventh audit in a row in 2024 – meaning it could not account for all items spent in its budget.
“Let’s find a way to talk about how we’re going to make sure that billions of dollars that are being wasted each year at the Pentagon does not continue to happen,” Mfume said. “There is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse there.”
Rep. John McGuire, R-Va., agreed that uncovering “waste, fraud, and abuse” needs to be a priority for the government and commended the Trump administration’s efforts in making it a priority item.
“We have got to get our spending under control … there’s so much waste, fraud, and abuse,” McGuire said. “We’ve only been in this new administration for five or six weeks and I think we’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg,” he added.
Subcommittee Chairman William Timmons, R-S.C., who also sits on the DOGE subcommittee, clarified that DOGE chief Elon Musk is taking his directions from President Trump.
“Elon Musk is only doing whatever President Trump tells him to do, and President Trump is the one that is responsible,” Timmons said. “That is our democratic system of government, that is what 77 million people voted for,” he added.
Timmons said that defense spending is the next area in which DOGE is going to operate, and noted reports stating Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plans to cut the Pentagon’s budget by eight percent annually over the next five years.
“The spending is not only going to be on Democrat priorities, it’s not only going to be on the role of foreign aid. It’s going to be across the board, because we have a $36 trillion in debt,” Timmons said.
The congressman also pitched the need to protect “social safety net” programs while the administration is analyzing its funding priorities.
