Marjorie Taylor Greene to head new government efficiency subcommittee

Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who last month suggested that the federal government can control the weather, has been tapped to chair a new panel in the House Oversight and Accountability Committee that will work in tandem with businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s government efficiency initiative. 

“This is the whole reason why I ran for Congress. I ran for Congress to gut the federal government of waste, fraud and abuse and get rid of the unelected bureaucrats and the horrible spending and ridiculous programs that have brought us to $36 trillion in debt,” Greene said Thursday on the War Room podcast which is hosted by Steve Bannon, who recently completed a four-month prison sentence for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena related to the investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.  

The Musk and Ramaswamy commission will operate outside of government and can only make recommendations. President-elect Donald Trump has said the initiative will issue reports with one large product due by July 4, 2026 — the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky. — who is expected to remain chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, which has jurisdiction over agency personnel and operations — said that he would assist Trump’s government efficiency effort, telling Government Executive that his initial focus would be on making it easier to remove poor performers in the federal workforce before eliminating entire divisions within agencies.

Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin, the Oversight panel’s ranking member, was quick to criticize the new subcommittee. 

“It’s hard to keep track of all the new departments and bureaucracies the Republicans are setting up to study the size and efficiency of government. But isn’t that what Chairman Comer and the committee on Oversight and Accountability actually said they were doing over the last two years? Where’s their report and recommendations?” he said in a statement on Thursday. “So now a noted student of American government, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, will chair a subcommittee to work with two unvetted billionaires who stand to receive billions more in government contracts and subsidies from the government under Trump.”   

Ramaswamy told Fox News on Sunday that the government efficiency commission plans to institute large-scale layoffs of federal employees and severely limit telework flexibility; although, such efforts are likely to run into legal obstacles and, in many cases, would require congressional approval. 

While Republicans will have control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in January, they lack a 60-person majority in the Senate that is generally necessary in order to pass legislation.