AOC Lampoons Greene’s Plan to Lead “Government Efficiency” Subcommittee

Within the next congressional term, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) has said that she will lead a House subcommittee on “government efficiency,” coordinating with the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” project that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will run under the incoming Trump administration.

Both the agency and the subcommittee — set to be called the “Delivering on Government Efficiency” subcommittee, which will operate within the purview of the House Oversight Committee — will share the “DOGE” initials, a reference to a cryptocurrency product that Musk once promoted.

A GOP source with knowledge of the subcommittee’s creation told The Hill that it will be tasked with “investigating wasteful spending, examining ways to reorganize federal agencies to improve efficiency, and identifying solutions to eliminate bureaucratic red tape.”

Greene confirmed her designation as the head of the future subcommittee on social media, and suggested that her background in business made her a good fit for the role. She also said that her goals would include firing supposed “bad employees” within the federal government — alluding to complaints made by president-elect Donald Trump about workers who are disloyal to him.

“In the private sector, if you’re not doing a good job, you get fired. But for some reason, in government, bad employees — whether they’re failing to do the job they were hired to do or working in roles that are no longer needed — never get fired,” Greene claimed in a social media post announcing her new assignment.

Greene’s complaints are exaggerated, as federal government employees can, in fact, be fired for poor performance. It is more likely that Greene’s grievances (as well as those from Trump and other Republicans) are over the process of termination for federal roles, as workers are given due process to ensure that their firings are because they are incompetent at their jobs, rather than for political reasons.

Responding to the news that Greene would be leading the subcommittee, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) suggested that Greene’s incompetence would actually be a positive thing for people concerned about how far the “government efficiency” project might go.

“This is good, actually. She barely shows up and doesn’t do the reading,” Ocasio-Cortez said of Greene’s performance in Congress. “To borrow a phrase I saw elsewhere, it’s like giving someone an unplugged controller.”

“Absolutely dying at those two [Musk and Ramaswamy] now getting assigned the ‘privilege’ of ‘working’ with MTG,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “That is actually hilarious. Enjoy, fellas!”

Greene’s statements about workers imply that she and other Republicans will implement a major part of Project 2025 under a Trump White House — the elimination of civil service protections for federal workers, allowing Trump to fire employees without cause or due process. During his first term in office, Trump lamented how such employees supposedly undermined his far right agenda, making baseless claims that they were part of a “deep state” conspiracy working on behalf of Democrats.

During his presidential campaign, Trump tried to distance himself from the unpopular Project 2025, but his campaign promoted elements of the far right manifesto, including eliminating workers’ protections. Trump’s “Agenda 47,” for instance, states that he will issue an “executive order restoring the president’s authority to fire rogue bureaucrats” — in other words, government employees who, in the course of their work, may perform functions that he disagrees with.

The “government efficiency” agenda that Greene, Ramaswamy and Musk will undertake may also threaten Americans in other ways, including by dismantling social safety net programs. While discussing what a government efficiency commission might look like, now-vice president-elect J.D. Vance indicated on the campaign trail that no program was off limits.

“It’s going to look much different in, say, the Department of Defense versus Social Security,” Vance said in September, indicating that Musk and his crew would examine ways to cut Social Security.

Musk’s selection to lead the commission is itself problematic, as he is an untrustworthy figure who has peddled false conspiracy theories.

Since his purchase of Twitter (and its transition into “X”), Musk has allowed the platform to become a bastion of far right, extremist viewpoints — and despite his claims that he’s a “free speech absolutist,” numerous progressive voices and journalists have been censored on the platform.

Musk himself has repeatedly peddled extremist views, including antisemitic beliefs. He has, for example, boosted posts denying the true cause of the Nazi Holocaust, and has published racist content alleging that most migrants coming to the U.S. are “criminals,” a claim that has been thoroughly debunked.

Ironically, Musk’s own AI program on X has recognized him as a purveyor of falsehoods — one of the worst offenders, in fact, on the platform.

“Based on various analyses, social media sentiment, and reports, Elon Musk has been identified as one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X since he acquired the platform,” the AI program said in a post, adding, “Musk has made numerous posts that have been criticized for promoting or endorsing misinformation, especially related to political events, elections, health issues like COVID-19, and conspiracy theories.”