GOP senator blasts ‘amateurish’ DOGE work, lack of detail on savings
As the so-called Department of Government Efficiency fades into the federal rearview, a Republican senator on Thursday railed against the White House’s budget chief over the group’s “amateurish” practices and the lack of documentation of its supposed savings.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., grilled Russell Vought about DOGE’s impact near the end of a Senate Banking Committee hearing about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which the OMB director has led on an acting basis since February 2025.
Vought previously told House lawmakers that there would be no after-action report on DOGE’s performance ahead of its July 4 sunsetting. But Tillis asked him to share one initiative that was the “best example” of what the Elon Musk-created group accomplished.
Vought pointed to governmentwide reductions-in-force before Tillis pressed him for specifics, telling the OMB head that he wanted something more concrete than a “word salad” given White House budget claims of $150 billion in DOGE savings.
“I’ve worked in the business world. My understanding is the last time you worked in the business world was at B. Dalton Books when you were putting yourself through law school. Good on you,” Tillis told Vought.
“But you don’t have this experience, and a lot of people that were involved in this do not have this experience,” he continued. “I love the idea of DOGE, but what I don’t love is the idea of DOGE shit that we’re picking up because people did it wrong.”
Tillis highlighted DOGE-induced staff cuts that were later reversed, pointing specifically to scientists being erroneously fired from the National Institutes of Health only to be brought back later.
“All that stuff is amateurish stuff that would have gotten me fired in my job at Price Waterhouse in a week,” Tillis said.
The North Carolina Republican asked Vought to deliver a briefing to the Senate Banking Committee “on the extraordinary work” he saw from DOGE, with specific details on identifying a target, hitting that target, booking the savings and then informing the appropriations process.
Tillis was also open to a consultation with a federal agency “that had the most documented and sustainable savings.”
“I’m willing to be open to it,” he said. “I love being proven wrong when I’m coming out and saying something I’m very disappointed with.”
Vought, whose time at the CFPB is up Aug. 1, also faced plenty of criticism during the hearing for the Trump administration’s treatment of federal workers. Democratic Sens. Mark Warner of Virginia and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland led that chorus, with the latter characterizing that treatment as “absolutely evil.”
The OMB director took comparable levels of heat Wednesday in his appearance before the House Financial Services Committee, where Democrats grilled Vought on everything from DOGE’s access to CFPB data to the cancellation of enforcement settlements.
