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vivek ramaswamy
A Modest Proposal From Two Longtime Defenders of the Common Good: Let Us Join DOGE
"We can offer views that are untainted by the appearance of corruption or self-dealing."
Jan 13, 2025
Public Citizen co-presidents Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman on Monday requested to serve on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency "as voices for the interests of consumers and the public who are the beneficiaries of federal regulatory and spending programs."
Shortly after Trump's November victory, the Republican announced that he asked billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead DOGE, a presidential advisory commission that he said would work "to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies."
Since then, numerous watchdog groups, Democratic lawmakers, and others have sounded the alarm about DOGE and its leaders, blasting the commission as a thinly veiled attack on federal programs—including Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security—connected to the GOP trifecta's effort to pass more tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations.
"Public Citizen has concerns about DOGE's structure and mission," the group's co-presidents wrote to Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, co-chairs of Trump's transition team. "In structure, an advisory committee led by individuals such as Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy who hold financial interests that will be directly affected by federal budgetary policies presents substantial conflict of interest concerns that threaten to undermine public confidence in the committee's recommendations to the administration."
"Mr. Trump and OMB should take steps to ensure that DOGE's advice and recommendations take into consideration the viewpoints of the consumers and citizens who would be directly affected."
Musk, the world's richest person, has leadership roles at companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X. He has often been at Trump's side in the lead-up to next week's inauguration. Ramaswamy, who ran for president in the latest cycle before ultimately backing Trump, has founded a pharmaceutical company and an investment firm.
Gilbert and Weissman wrote that DOGE's mission to advise the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) "on how to 'slash excess regulation' and 'cut wasteful expenditures' puts at risk important consumer safeguards and public protections, because it focuses only on eliminating rules and spending without considering the other half of the picture: more efficiently regulating corporations to better protect consumers and the public from harmful corporate practices, and making sound and efficient public investments."
"In light of the significant influence that DOGE is expected to have on the administration's fiscal and regulatory policy," they argued, "Mr. Trump and OMB should take steps to ensure that DOGE's advice and recommendations take into consideration the viewpoints of the consumers and citizens who would be directly affected by the regulatory and spending proposals that DOGE will advance, not only the viewpoint of wealthy businesspeople."
The pair made the case that their appointment to the commission "would not raise conflict of interest concerns."
Before Gilbert joined Public Citizen, she was an advocate at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and worked as a campaign director to pass legislation on social justice and environmental issues for various organizations. Weissman previously directed the corporate accountability group Essential Action, edited the magazine Multinational Monitor, and worked as a public interest attorney at the Center for Study of Responsive Law.
"Unlike Musk, neither Rob nor I, nor Public Citizen, has a financial interest in federal government contracts and spending. In bringing the consumer and public perspective to DOGE, we can offer views that are untainted by the appearance of corruption or self-dealing," Gilbert said in a statement.
Weissman emphasized that "all signs suggest the nonrepresentative DOGE co-chairs aim to use 'efficiency' as a cover to drive a pro-corporate, anti-regulatory agenda, and an ideologically driven social service cuts program. This would constitute an anti-efficiency agenda."
"On the other hand, Lisa and I are prepared to offer a range of evidence-based efficiency proposals—to slash drug prices, end privatized Medicare, reduce the wasteful Pentagon budget—that would save American taxpayers and consumers hundreds of billions of dollars every year," he explained. "We also have recommendations for smart, efficient public investments—in human development and to address climate change—that will have a positive monetary return for the government and society."
As the letter highlights, Public Citizen—which "has worked to hold the government and corporations accountable to the people, including by focusing on research and advocacy with respect to regulation of health, safety, consumer finance, and the environment" since its founding in 1971—has already offered DOGE some recommendations.
"Consistent with Public Citizen's mission—and that of DOGE—Public Citizen on December 20, 2024, sent Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy a letter proposing two measures that would save the government and taxpayers billions of dollars, while improving health and access to medicines: authorizing generic competition to anti-obesity medications and implementing the Medicare drug price negotiation and inflation rebate programs to lower drug prices," Gilbert and Weissman wrote.
They also noted that appointing them to DOGE "would be an important step towards compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires 'the membership of the advisory committee to be fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee.'"
In addition to outlining concerns about Musk and Ramaswamy, they detailed that "DOGE member Katie Miller's background is in handling press relations for government officials. William McGinley worked as a lawyer for various Republican Party groups and big law firms. Other people reported in the media as connected with DOGE also appear to have corporate backgrounds. These individuals lack the consumer and public interest perspective needed if Mr. Trump expects DOGE to have any hope of complying with FACA."
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Musk Admission Exposes 'DOGE's Deeply Unpopular and Unrealistic Agenda'
"Americans see right through Musk's scheme to pay for his own tax breaks by defunding Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare," said one critic.
Jan 09, 2025
Mega-billionaire Elon Musk conceded Wednesday that he's not likely to achieve his fantastical goal of slashing $2 trillion from the federal budget, an admission that one critic said underscores the folly of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
"President-elect [Donald] Trump hasn't even taken office and Elon Musk is already admitting failure on DOGE's deeply unpopular and unrealistic agenda," Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement. "Americans see right through Musk's scheme to pay for his own tax breaks by defunding Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare."
Musk, the world's richest man and a close ally of Trump, said in an interview Wednesday that cutting $2 trillion in federal spending would be an "epic outcome" but described it as a "best-case" scenario. Economists have dismissed Musk's $2 trillion target as absurd, given that the entire annual discretionary budget was $1.6 trillion for Fiscal Year 2024.
Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, said Thursday that Musk's lower target of $1 trillion in cuts is also "too large," noting that "if you protect Social Security, Medicare, vets, and defense, it would mean cutting every other program by 45% on average." Republican lawmakers have floated similarly outlandish cuts.
Opponents of the Department of Government Efficiency—an advisory commission set to be led by Musk and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy—have warned it is a thinly veiled effort to target Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other nondiscretionary programs, a concern amplified by recent comments from GOP supporters of the panel.
"I am a strong advocate of discussing this and reevaluating them, and I do believe, at the end of the day, there will be some cut," Rep. Greg Lopez (R-Colo.) said of Medicare and Social Security outside of the first meeting of the House DOGE Caucus.
Musk said ahead of the 2024 elections—on which he spent heavily to influence—that spending cuts he envisions would "necessarily" bring "some temporary hardship," but he hasn't specifically detailed which programs he would target.
"If the incoming president follows through on even a fraction of the $2 trillion in cuts that Musk and his allies have promised, the pain will be felt well beyond struggling small-town America," journalist Conor Lynch wrote for Truthdig earlier this week. "Veterans, especially, who voted overwhelmingly for the president-elect, could be in for a rude awakening."
"Shortly after being tapped to be Musk's co-chair at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy posted on X that the first order of business should be to eliminate all spending on programs with expired authorizations from Congress, which amounts to over half a trillion dollars," Lynch noted. "Users were quick to point out that if Trump followed Ramaswamy's advice, he would instantly defund healthcare for veterans, which is by far the largest spending program on that list."
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Taking on Musk, Sanders Says Corporate Abuse of H-1B Visa Program Must End
"We need an economy that works for all, not just the few. And one important way forward in that direction is to bring about major reforms in the H-1B program."
Jan 02, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a longtime advocate of reforming H-1B visas, on Thursday reiterated his argument that "widespread corporate abuse" of the guest worker program must end amid a heated battle among Republican President-elect Donald Trump's allies.
"Elon Musk and a number of other billionaire tech company owners have argued that this federal program is vital to our economy because of the scarcity of highly skilled American engineers and other tech workers. I disagree," said Sanders (I-Vt.), a prominent advocate of pro-worker policies including raising the federal minimum wage, in a lengthy statement.
"The main function of the H-1B visa program and other guest worker initiatives is not to hire 'the best and the brightest,' but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad," he asserted. "The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make."
"If this program is really supposed to be about importing workers with highly advanced degrees in science and technology, why are H-1B guest workers being employed as dog trainers, massage therapists, cooks, and English teachers?"
The fight has pitted some far-right, anti-immigrant Trump supporters against Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the billionaires charged with leading the president-elect's proposed Department of Government Efficiency. Musk, who was born in South Africa and is now the world's richest person, has said he once had an H-1B visa and declared last week that "I will go to war on this issue."
Musk is also CEO of the electric vehicle company Tesla and has used H-1B visas as an employer. So has Trump. The incoming president—who in 2016 pledged to eliminate "rampant, widespread" abuse of "H-1B as a cheap labor program"—said Saturday that "I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I've been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It's a great program."
Faced with accusations that those remarks represented a shift from his previous criticism of the program, Trump toldFox News on Tuesday: "I didn't change my mind. I've always felt we have to have the most competent people in our country, and we need competent people... We need smart people coming into our country. We need a lot of people coming in. We're going to have jobs like we've never had before."
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Common Dreamsreported Sunday, progressives are arguing that both the anti-immigrant and billionaire supporters of Trump are wrong. Krystal Ball, co-host of the online news show "Breaking Points," said that "the truth is if you are struggling it's likely because of billionaire robber barons like Trump, Elon, and Vivek, who rig the rules to screw regular people."
Sanders noted that "in 2022 and 2023, the top 30 corporations using this program laid off at least 85,000 American workers while they hired over 34,000 new H-1B guest workers. There are estimates that as many as 33% of all new information technology jobs in America are being filled by guest workers. Further, according to Census Bureau data, there are millions of Americans with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math who are not currently employed in those professions."
Taking aim at just one of Musk's companies on Thursday, the senator asked: "If there is really a shortage of skilled tech workers in America, why did Tesla lay off over 7,500 American workers this year—including many software developers and engineers at its factory in Austin, Texas—while being approved to employ thousands of H-1B guest workers?"
"Moreover, if these jobs are only going to 'the best and brightest,' why has Tesla employed H-1B guest workers as associate accountants for as little as $58,000, associate mechanical engineers for as little as $70,000 a year, and associate material planners for as little as $80,000 a year?" he continued. "Those don't sound like highly specialized jobs that are for the top 0.1% as Musk claimed this week."
The senator shared his statement on the Musk-owned social media platform X, formerly called Twitter. Multiple other users shared videos of Sanders criticizing the H-1B program on television and the Senate floor going back to 2007, his first year in the chamber.
"If this program is really supposed to be about importing workers with highly advanced degrees in science and technology, why are H-1B guest workers being employed as dog trainers, massage therapists, cooks, and English teachers?" Sanders asked. "Can we really not find English teachers in America?"
The senator expressed support for using the program as a temporary fix for labor shortages in highly specialized areas while also arguing that "in the long term, if the United States is going to be able to compete in a global economy, we must make sure that we have the best-educated workforce in the world. And one way to help make that happen is to substantially increase the guest worker fees large corporations pay to fund scholarships, apprenticeships, and job training opportunities for American workers."
"Further, we must also significantly raise the minimum wage for guest workers, allow them to easily switch jobs, and make sure that corporations are required to aggressively recruit American workers first before they can hire workers from overseas," he added. "It should never be cheaper for a corporation to hire a guest worker from overseas than an American worker."
While Musk, Ramaswamy, and others "are right" that "we need a highly skilled and well-educated workforce," Sanders said, "the answer is to hire qualified American workers first and to make certain that we have an education system that produces the kind of workforce that our country needs for the jobs of the future. And that's not just engineering. We are in desperate need of more doctors, nurses, dentists, teachers, electricians, plumbers, and a host of other professions."
In addition to blasting the ultrarich beneficiaries of the H-1B program like Musk and Trump, Sanders called out decades-old lies about the impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and permanent normal trade relations with China.
"Thirty years ago, the economic elite and political establishment in both major parties told us not to worry about the loss of blue-collar manufacturing jobs that would come as a result of disastrous unfettered free trade agreements," he said. "They promised that those lost jobs would be more than offset by the many good-paying, white-collar information technology jobs that would be created in the United States."
Sanders stressed that "not only have corporations exported millions of blue-collar manufacturing jobs to China, Mexico, and other low-wage countries, they are now importing hundreds of thousands of low-paid guest workers from abroad to fill the white-collar technology jobs that are available."
"At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the richest three people in America now own more wealth than the bottom half of our country, and when the CEOs of major corporations make almost 300 times more than their average workers, we need fundamental changes in our economic policies," he concluded. "We need an economy that works for all, not just the few. And one important way forward in that direction is to bring about major reforms in the H-1B program."
Other progressives echoed the senator—including Nina Turner, who co-chaired his 2020 presidential campaign and said on Thursday that "Sen. Sanders is right. We must stand against worker exploitation in all forms, be it American workers, workers overseas, or immigrant workers here in America. The ruling class wants cheap labor and will game any system to secure it."
Like Turner, Howard University professor Ron Hira, who co-authored the book Outsourcing America, also weighed in on X.
"Sen. Sanders has been leading the fight for H-1B reform for 20 years," Hira said Thursday. "He's made floor speeches and was the only 2016 Dem presidential candidate to publicly criticize Disney for replacing its U.S. workers with H-1Bs. His framing is exactly right. CEOs are trying to pull a fast one."
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