Cuts for thee, but not for me: Those 'Savings' numbers continue to change
Republicans beg for DOGE exemptions.
For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law.
That’s an old diktat, usually attributed to an old Latin American dictator. But it could easily apply today, as cowardly Republicans beg President Donald Trump to spare them — and only them — from the DOGE chainsaw.
Trump and Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service are arbitrarily hacking away at critical government functions and services, including flight safety programs, cancer research, bird-flu tracking, food assistance and disaster aid. But when it comes to evaluating the wisdom of these cuts, the president’s allies appear less troubled by the merits of such decisions than by how they affect them personally.
For instance, Fox News anchor Jesse Watters recently pleaded during a segment on behalf of a friend laid off by DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency. Watters deemed the man worthy of his Pentagon post, unlike the rest of those good-for-nothing public servants working to keep Americans safe.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers — who possess actual power to set government spending — have been too cowed to rein in Trump and his unelected pal Musk. So, instead, they are soliciting special exemptions, while being careful not to sound like they’re criticizing the would-be kings.
For instance, as Trump works to slash biomedical funding for private research institutions, Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (R-Alabama) has praised his efforts: “Every cent of hard-earned taxpayer money should be spent efficiently, judiciously, and accountably — without exception,” Britt told AL.com when asked about the billions of dollars in cuts to National Institutes of Health grants.
Inconveniently, though, red-state universities and hospitals receive a whole lot of money from NIH, too. The University of Alabama at Birmingham, one of the largest employers in Britt’s state, is among several Alabama institutions that would lose about $47 million combined in annual funding under Trump’s decree. So Britt promised to sidle up to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and lobby for a reprieve.
“A smart, targeted approach is needed in order to not hinder lifesaving, groundbreaking research at high-achieving institutions like those in Alabama,” she said. She added, “State-of-the-art facilities, equipment, and technology — along with the best and brightest people — are needed to fulfill President Trump’s vision.”
(Britt needn’t push much harder than that for now, as a court has temporarily blocked the measure.)
Elsewhere, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia) petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to unfreeze funding for green school buses, which just so happen to be manufactured in West Virginia. Capito’s plea appears to be successful so far, as some of the money has been released.
Over in Kansas, Republican Sen. Jerry Moran is trying to restore an international food aid program that DOGE ended when it effectively shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development. Just coincidentally, dissolving this program hurts Kansas farmers.
But Moran has clarified that he is otherwise still on board with the DOGE agenda and its efforts to fix unspecified problems: “I’m pleased to help find ways to make our delivery of food aid more effective, more efficient and remove the challenges and things that we’ve seen that are so disturbing.”
Which “things” are so disturbing? Presumably, funds going anywhere but Kansas.
Meanwhile, as Trump gleefully grinds down funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, some Republican leaders have grown nervous about whether their own constituents could get shortchanged after hurricanes or other disasters. But many appear to believe Trump is sufficiently transactional that they can wrangle exemptions out of him, perhaps in exchange for fawning or favors.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), for example, has said he agrees with Trump’s approach to FEMA. “If it’s with an eye towards more efficiency and resiliency, great. If it’s an eye towards cutting funding to western North Carolina, not great,” Tillis told CNN.
As always, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) remains “concerned” — this time, about DOGE’s impact on her state “on everything from our national parks to biomedical research.” Of course, like the rest of her caucus, she voted to confirm nearly all of Trump’s Cabinet nominees implementing these arbitrary cuts.
So did her “moderate” Republican counterpart from Alaska, Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski is now asking “pretty much all the departments” to restore funds stripped from her state, as she told my Post colleagues. She called the administration’s responses “evasive and inadequate.” Good for her, I suppose. But even this is a milquetoast protest from someone whose branch, per Article I, is supposed to control the government’s purse strings.
Meanwhile, some lawmakers seem blissfully unaware of such powers.
At a recent open house in Fairbanks, Rep. Nick Begich (R-Alaska) told constituents that there was nothing he could do to stop DOGE layoffs affecting people in his state. He claimed he learned of budget cuts impacting Alaska “on Twitter” and “had no idea these things were going on” in advance — despite, uhh, being a member of the House DOGE Caucus.
Perhaps lawmakers should be required to read the Constitution before they swear an oath to it.
Catherine Rampell is an opinion columnist at The Washington Post. She frequently covers economics, public policy, immigration and politics, with a special emphasis on data-driven journalism. Before joining The Post, she wrote about economics and theater for the New York Times.