{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/news/video-cornyn-highlights-doge-priorities-to-cut-federal-spending/", "VIDEO: Cornyn Highlights DOGE Priorities to Cut Federal Spending", "2024-12-12", "2024", "2024-12", "Republican", "Senate", "TX", "John Cornyn", "C001056", "www.cornyn.senate.gov", "cornyn", "https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Today on the floor, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) discussed the goals of President-elect Trump\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in conjunction with the Senate DOGE Caucus, of which he is a founding member. Excerpts of Sen. Cornyn\u2019s remarks are below, and video can be found here.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m very excited about [President Trump\u2019s] partnership with my fellow Texan, Elon Musk, who will help lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.\u201d\n\n\u201cOur nation\u2019s debt has skyrocketed to more than $36 trillion.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhere we spend what we spend is almost as important as how much we spend.\u201d\n\n\u201c[DOGE] can highlight ways we can cut waste and inefficiency, and whether it\u2019s the President through executive order, whether it\u2019s the Congress through Congressional Review Acts, or through other legislation, we can join them in cutting our spending.\u201d\n\n\u201cSimply preventing the implementation of President Biden\u2019s rule limiting vehicle carbon emissions\u2014effectively an electric vehicle mandate\u2014would save $150 billion.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnother simple but effective way of eliminating waste would be to eliminate COVID-era work policies for employees at federal agencies.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe people who rely on these agencies for services, the public, are often faced with extended wait times due to federal employees working remotely.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf federal employees don\u2019t want to show up for work, then American taxpayers should not have to pay them.\u201d\n\n\u201cI look forward to working with the DOGE Committee [on] all of our efforts to identify and eliminate areas of government waste, and rein in reckless and wasteful spending, and improve the lives of Texans and all Americans in the process.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:07:19Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/news/video-cornyn-highlights-doge-priorities-to-cut-federal-spending/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.402306068688631, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}