Tennessee U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett Hoping DOGE Comes Out ‘Guns Blazing’ to Identify and Cut Wasteful Spending

Tennessee U.S. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) said he would like to see the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) come out “guns blazing” to identify and cut wasteful federal spending.

Burchett was appointed last week to serve on the U.S. House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.

The subcommittee, chaired by U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14), will oversee DOGE and work to implement the department’s recommendations on how to root out and reduce wasteful government spending.

As one of eight Republicans serving on the subcommittee overseeing DOGE, Burchett detailed examples of federal waste lawmakers will be looking into cutting.

“There are some huge things going on in our country right now that we need to address. We’ve got a Pentagon that hasn’t passed the audit in the last eight audits. Heck, they don’t even complete the audit. That’s how arrogant they are. We just award them with more money. We’ve got a Department of Education that, I guarantee you, not one bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. in that multi billion dollar operation who has educated a kid or taught them how to read, write, or do arithmetic in Davidson County, Tennessee. There’s fraud and abuse that we’re seeing in Medicaid. It’s pretty rampant, we found out,” Burchett explained on Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.

“So we’re going to start on those things and we’re going to start looking at them and going after all of it,” Burchett added.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who was tapped by President Donald Trump to head DOGE, has previously said his goal would be to cut approximately $2 trillion from the federal government’s current spending.

Noting how Musk’s goal sounds like “a lot of money,” Burchett pointed out, “Every 100 days, we run up another trillion dollars.”

“They say we’re stealing from our kids. We’re stealing from our great-grandchildren. Every dollar we spend…So I would hope that we just come out guns blazing and start doing some stuff and I hope we embarrass some legislators who don’t have the guts to make these cuts,” Burchett said.

“We’ve got to start taking control of this stuff, folks. I’m not all jacked up on Mountain Dew right now, but I’m telling you, we’ve got one shot. We’ve got 100 to 150 days and it’s over if we do not address this problem,” Burchett added.

Watch the full interview:

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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.