Lawmakers seek ‘low-hanging fruit’ for government efficiency after first DOGE Caucus meeting

Some legislators in the new Congress DOGE Caucus are eyeing a crackdown on federal agencies’ work-from-home policies when Republicans take the reins of power in Washington DC next year.

The group’s name is an acronym for Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency, coinciding with the Department of Government Efficiency – also DOGE for short – a new advisory panel commissioned by President-elect Trump and led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

The caucus held its first meeting Tuesday, which lawmakers described to Fox News Digital as largely “organizational.”

DOGE Caucus co-chair Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital the room was full of interested lawmakers.

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“We had 29 sign ups to come, so we met in a small conference room. But it was full – we had over 60 members in attendance,” Bean said.

That included three Democrats: Reps. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., Val Hoyle, D-Ore., and the first Democrat to join the DOGE Caucus, Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.

Documents given to attendees and shared with Fox News Digital encouraged lawmakers to think about what kind of DOGE goals would be “valuable upgrades,” “quick wins,” “lower priority” and “low hanging fruit” and other ways organize and get organized. prioritize initiatives.

Asked what would be “low-hanging fruit” for the panel, Bean said: “People are getting back to work.”

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“We have a problem,” Bean said. “(Federal workers) do a lot of work from home. That’s a debate: whether or not they’re productive working from home. But if they’re working from home, we have 6 to 15 percent employment of billions of square feet of commercial buildings that we’re spending billions on to maintain and others, do we still need that much space if people aren’t using their offices?

This was echoed by Rep. Beth Van Duyne, Republican of Texas, who also attended the meeting.

“You know, when you take out security, you’ve got one percent of federal government workers coming into work on a regular basis, and we’re paying for 100 percent of all of them to have office space,” Van said. Duyne said. “There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit. I just hope we can identify what they are.”

Bean also rejected accusations by critics of Musk and Ramamswamy’s DOGE push that it was a way for Republicans to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits.

“That’s not the intention,” Bean stressed. “It’s not intended (to be) to cut benefits, not health care or (veterans) or Social Security. But those benefits … have a limited lifespan, unless we make reductions elsewhere. So, the purpose is not to cut these things, but to safeguard them.”

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Other lawmakers who attended said they left enthusiastic about the group cost reduction and efficiency objectives.

“It was a good introductory caucus meeting, challenging us all to think about our expectations and how we can help, you know, take ideas and move them into bill form and work through the normal process of commission to do so,” said Rep. Nick Langworthy, RNY.

“I’ve even gotten a lot of ideas from constituents … I think this is a great grassroots effort.”

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Vice Chairman of the House GOP Conference Blake MooreR-Utah, another co-chair of the DOGE Caucus along with Bean and Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said “there are a billion and a half ideas out there, and we have to make it actionable for Vivek and Elon “.

Both Bean and Moore indicated that the next steps for the caucus would be to break into working groups focused on various aspects of DOGE’s mission.

The next caucus meeting is expected in January, Bean said.