Today, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) delivered the following remarks during a committee markup of H.Res. 127.

As prepared for delivery.

“Welcome to today’s markup of two resolutions of inquiry from committee Democrats. Democrats are attempting to undermine the critical work being done under President Trump to root out waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government. All in an effort to save taxpayer dollars and make important programs work better, more efficient, and more effective for the American people. My Democrat colleagues claim their concerns are about process and careful vetting, but the truth is that they have never found an ounce of government fat they were willing to trim. 

“DOGE has a clear mission: to end the rampant waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. At the Treasury Department, employees are cleaning the Do Not Pay list to ensure taxpayer money does not end up in the wrong hands. Surely, we can all agree that terrorists, criminals, fraudsters, and dead people don’t deserve taxpayer dollars.

“I would like to remind my colleagues of the facts. DOGE employees are government employees. DOGE was authorized by the Senate-confirmed Treasury Secretary to access certain Treasury payment systems on a read-only basis. Just last week, President Trump reiterated that department leadership has the final say over the makeup and activities of their agencies. This is not a case of DOGE employees running wild. 

“The Treasury Department and White House even signed a memorandum of understanding preventing DOGE from accessing personal taxpayer data. A DOGE employee can only see taxpayer data that is disconnected from any personally identifiable information. This is the same level of access already granted to some academic researchers and IT professionals. 

“At the IRS, DOGE is performing a similar mission of helping the agency get back to the basics. We must end the Biden Administration’s focus on auditing more middle-class Americans and shift back to administering the tax code. The agency has struggled for years to perform basic tasks like answering the phone. Every American who has interacted with the agency knows that. If DOGE can reform the IRS and make IT improvements to cut wait times, why is that a bad thing?

“My Democrat colleagues have also conveniently ignored long-standing concerns with the lack of guardrails surrounding IRS employees accessing the agency’s data systems. As of 2017, the IRS had been unable to produce a complete list of every agent who has access to the Integrated Data Retrieval System or Individual Master File systems. Where was the interest from my Democrat colleagues in taxpayer security then? 

No hard evidence has been presented that accusations of illegal access to taxpayer information by DOGE employees are true or based in fact. On the contrary, during a recent Oversight Subcommittee hearing, a witness testified there was no evidence for Democrat claims of illegal access or illegal disclosure of taxpayer data. All Democrats have are insinuation, rumor, and hearsay. For a party obsessed with ‘misinformation,’ it appears they don’t mind spreading their own.

“It seems Democrats are only interested in oversight when they are out of power. When Democrats are in power, they do nothing about taxpayer privacy. Instead, they are choosing to drum up false accusations.

“At its heart, this ROI is nothing more than a sad attempt by Democrats to throw sand in the gears of the Trump Administration’s important work to expose the waste, fraud, and abuse in our government. When Americans voted for President Trump, they sent a message that they want Washington to stop spending money on stuff that does nothing to serve the people. Every year, the federal government makes up to $521 billion in improper payments according to a recent GAO study. No one can argue that we don’t need to take serious and swift action to root out that waste. DOGE is fulfilling the mandate to rein in an unaccountable and bloated federal bureaucracy. This request for information is a nothing more than manufactured outrage that does nothing to serve the American people.”