By MARIANE ANGELA | DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION
Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds said on Newsmax that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is getting a taste of its own medicine as the Trump administration launches a full-scale audit.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency aide Gavin Kliger visited the IRS headquarters late last week to assess the agency’s operations and review future plans and risks of each business unit. In an appearance on “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Donalds said he applauds DOGE’s initiative as overdue accountability.
“If this is the only thing that gets accomplished, it’ll be mission accomplished for Donald Trump and for his team because for far too long the IRS has had no problem peering into the books of every American, rich or poor, middle-income America,” Donalds said. “They love doing this stuff. But it’s time for them to be held accountable to make sure that everything that they’re paying for is fully accounted for.”
Donalds also criticized the Democrats, suggesting they exhibit selective concern about bureaucratic overreach.
“Let’s be very clear to the Democrats who are all concerned about the bureaucratic state. Elon Musk is going over to the Department of Defense as well,” Donalds said. “President Trump has a mission, and that is to make sure that our government is efficient and that it gets out of the way of the American people so that our country can be great again, and so we’re going to examine everything.”
The comprehensive audit, Donalds said, is not merely about fiscal accountability as it aims to promote a leaner government.
“Unlike the Democrats, we’re not going to pick and choose what gets the spotlight. Everything’s going to be examined. Everything’s going to be addressed,” Donalds added. “And it’s to the betterment of the American people because if we have an efficient government that spends less money then that helps every American when it comes to price stability and being able to borrow money.”
Senior IRS officials received an email directive to pinpoint and terminate all contracts deemed “non-essential.” The General Services Administration (GSA) characterizes these non-essential contracts as those primarily producing reports, research, coaching, or other artifacts.
“Consistent with the goals and directives of the Trump administration to eliminate waste, reduce spending, and increase efficiency, GSA has taken the first steps in a government-wide initiative to eliminate non-essential consulting contracts,” the email said, according to Reuters.
A July Pew Research poll said that the IRS holds the lowest favorability rating among all agencies, with 50% of Americans expressing a negative view. This sentiment is more pronounced among Republicans than Democrats, partly because of ongoing allegations that the IRS has targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
The IRS under the Biden-Harris administration approved approximately $2.4 billion in automatic stimulus payments set for distribution to qualified Americans by late January. According to a Dec. 20 press release, the IRS is distributing these funds to Americans who failed to claim the Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 tax returns and did not receive the economic stimulus payments issued during the COVID-19 pandemic. This announcement was made as former President Joe Biden’s term neared its end.
Beautiful!
An interesting story. Thank you.
Now, would you kindly write about how DOGE is planning to layoff people in the FAA, thereby degrading aviation safety in Alaska and throughout the nation? Also include information about the firing of federal personnel working on nuclear weapons and nuclear safety, thereby further endangering our national security, and in fact, our own personal safety?
And please feel free to include any other mission critical positions being RECKLESSLY eliminated, such as pandemic preparation, that will damage the public.
We are all looking forward to reading this story right here on our hometown news source.
It’s like every position in the federal government is what keeps the zombies at bay, keep the sun rising in the East, and keep water wet. I wonder what we did before the federal government took over virtually every aspect of human existence?
Suffered a lot more, that’s for sure. Government does the things that need doing, but that private industry can’t or won’t. You benefit in ways that you don’t even realize. Sad.
But sure, go ahead and burn it down if it makes you feel better. Then you can live in a sh*thole country of your own making. No lack of irony there!
“Need” is a funny word that some people mistake for “want”. But yes, the government in fact does somethings that NEED done. Unfortunately many people who mistake the word need and want have confuse the two words so much that now government does things solely because people want them to.
What’s sad is the people who don’t realize the difference between the two words, or that cutting waste and graft and disease is how you grow things in an efficient manner that actually provides for the needs in a much better way than allowing waste and inefficiency to suck at the lifeblood.
When the chips are down, Government is the first thing you call upon for help. Earthquake? Government. Flood? Government. Pandemic? Government. Invasion? Government. Drug smuggling? Addiction. Border? Government. Wall Street crashing? Government. Pensions/401K failing? Government. PFAS in your water? Government. No energy? Government. The list goes on.
See? The Libertarians here trash it, yet they routinely call upon it for their salvation, and expect it to perform. Such hypocrisy!
Spoken like one who is truly in the pocket of the taxpayer and has not a care in the world about the $36 trillion national debt. Probably because you have no kids who will inherit the debt and be slaves to China once the house of cards collapses on this country. Why don’t you ever talk about all the cuts Clinton made to balance the budget and leave a surplus….because you just can’t ….
By the way, how much did Trump jack it up during his last Administration? That’s right – about $8.4 Trillion, or about 22%. But pretty on-brand for him, since he’s always been a profligate spender of other people’s money.
I’ve never called on government for my salvation, I’m not surprised that someone who worships government would though. The only thing on the list that you claim I’ve done is that I wholly expect the government to protect our borders. Most of the rest of your list government caused, made worse, or the response is worse than the private sector or charity provides.
While you leave no doubt about how your wants are filled, not much of your list includes actual needs.
Electric vehicles for Vietnam, not a need.
Funding tourism in Egypt, not a need.
Poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan, not a need.
Transgender comic book in Peru, not a need.
But you keep trying to defend the indefensible, because you want government to do something not because there is an actual need.
Those ” nuclear security ” people are a hide bound bureaucracy they impose requirements without considering the consequence they failed to show up for a long-scheduled event, costing my facility thousands of dollars, to have the certified service people fly back in after a week delay they caused. We were changing out an isotope source for a newer one for he change, they mandated heavily armed police standing by . and then they didn’t show up to remove a special interlock they had placed on the machine. Removal required a special only they have, that they didn’t bring in no no no!! The service guy was not permitted to remover theassembly of the machine the interlock blocked I lost 2 weekends off to babysit them AND the bored cops, since I was the ” authorized user” with the clearance to access the rooms containing the machines the room doors were keyed to my eyeball scan
The I.R.S. has a decades long tradition of losing track of billions in it’s budget. Can’t we all just moveon.org and hide the decline using Mike’s Nature Trick?
Ok, now do the Pentagon/DOD
President Trump is doing to the DC Swamp, what George Washington did to the King of England.
Felon47 is doing to America what he has done to his companies, sucking out all the money to put in his own pocket and then declaring bankruptcy.
NOBODY ELECTED MUSK & HIS CRIMINAL HACKERS!! THEY HAVE NO BUSINESS IN ANY GOVT DATABASES INCLUDING I.R.S ! MUSK IS CORRUPT!
Nobody elected fauci either.
Likewise nobody elected kamala.
Praise the Lord!! It feels so good to have someone in the white house working for Americans again.
The Lord is a figment of your imagination. Sorry.
Lmao, delusional Trump Supporters crack me up, you will still support him when he’s in the bunker.
Yes! Let’s find out EXACTLY how the IRS has been targeting conservative groups and conservative leaders (like Pete Hegseth). Bring the receipt and then name the bastages that did those dirty deeds, fire them and have them lose their pension for weaponizing the IRS. Any chance we can go back and include Lois Lerner?
When has DOGE or Elon produced any receipts from any of the alleged waste, fraud or abuse that they have found?
All they do is say they found it and spout off some good sound bites, but they have yet to show one shred of evidence justifying the cuts they want to make or are making
Here’s page after page of receipts for you to review
‘https://doge.gov/savings’
All it does is list things they don’t like. It doesn’t list fraud.
The dedicated servants of the inefficiency, the waste, the fraud, and the abuse of taxpayer funds have asked for receipts, when given a website with a section literally called “Wall of Receipts” with page after page of receipts the new talking point is that it doesn’t show fraud, even though they’ve spent zero time looking to see if it does or does not show fraud. So the left is now arguing that inefficiency, waste, and the abuse of taxpayer funds are perfectly fine just not whatever they deem to be fraud.
Do yourself a favor and read the top of the page where it says in part this “is a combination of fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings.” While you might be for inefficiency, the waste, the fraud, and the abuse of taxpayer funds this page isn’t just a “list things they don’t like”
I’ve taken the time to go through that website and found the following:
Website claimed to be saving the Government $55 Billion, but when I totaled up the “saved” amounts, the numbers are only $16.5 Billion. Kind of a big difference.
Then I looked at the single biggest line item which is a DHS contract listed at saving $8 Billion. Turns out when you look at it, it is only $8 million. So that drops the savings to an alleged $8.5 Billion.
The next three biggest line items are all USAID contracts listed at $655 Million each, so totaling to approx. $2 Billion. Turns out these are a single contract that is listed at $655 Million in total for a 5 year contract that is currently in year three of the five years. And in those three years, only $73 Million has been awarded.
The next biggest item, IT services for Social Security. An alleged $1 Billion in savings. Turns out this is a 6 year contract of which 80% has been spent already. So that comes to $80 Million per year savings over the next three years.
So checking the receipts doesn’t exactly support your claim
Classic government employees for you…
Seriously, you know it’s bad when a couple weeks on the governemnt payroll and these formerly proven businessmen already failing as bad as Anchorage Voter claims.
Let’s find out how Al Sharpton avoided prison. Let’s see who funds his National Action Network, and whether it really qualifies as a non-profit. Let’s look into all those “progressive” non-profits that get federal funds. Don’t lay off those auditors- tell them they work for us now. Expect indictments- those guys got Hunter- they can get some of these crooks if they want to keep their jobs.
The biggest audit of all. The I. R. S.
.
Put all of Biden’s proposed 80,000 new agents at the border and give them incentives to capture 20 illegals each, per day.
Yummy Yummy Uncle Sam’s teat.
Good, maybe they’ll be able to find my $138 refund that I never received, after they threatened to put a Lien on my home over $13 that I supposedly owed them, while they owed me the $138 refund that I never received. Not like you can argue with the clowns, when they have the power to confiscate your home, so you send them the damn $13. Bunch of thieving clowns, where’s my money now.