House Democrats used a DOGE subcommittee hearing to target President Trump on tariffs on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, Republicans in Congress want to debate office space and furniture while the president torches the global economy,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), flanked by a sign depicting a dip in the market with a picture of Elon Musk jumping.
In her closing remarks, the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), argued that DOGE’s approach is “troubling” because, like Trump’s handling of the economy, it does not have a plan.
“It goes along with the troubling theory of the case that Donald Trump seems to have about the economy overall because as my colleague pointed out, we’re sitting here talking about microphones and furniture in an office building while the economy is tanking and trillions of dollars in losses are happening and we know that a potential for both a recession and costs are going to go up which will cost the federal government more money,” Stansbury said.
“One of my colleagues quoted Milton Friedman which I found actually quite funny because Elon Musk himself has also been quoting Milton Friedman over the weekend because he thought that international trade was good and tariffs were bad,” Stansbury said. “Anybody? Anybody? Donald Trump is crashing the economy over tariffs.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) accused Republicans of being “hellbent” on firing government workers and setting fire to government programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.
“Instead what we need to light on fire are Trump’s tariffs,” Crockett said. “But if we are going to talk about efficiency and worry about some solar-paneled whatevers, let’s talk about that as of March 30, Trump’s golfing has cost us $26 million and the last time I checked, we’re not getting anything in return for that.”
At one point during the hearing, the subcommittee chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) responded to Democrats’ criticism over market losses by saying that “the market is up about 1,400 points.”
Greene hit back against accusations from Democrats that Republicans are seeking to cut programs like Social Security and Medicaid, and instead accused the bureaucracy of plunging the country into debt.
“Your Social Security is not under attack. Medicare is not under attack. Veterans benefits are not under attack, but our very existence is under attack,” Greene said. “And this has happened by dirty, greedy, lazy politicians and bureaucrats who have plunged you and chained you to $36 trillion in debt.”
Trump’s tariffs have rattled markets over the past week, but on Tuesday the stock market bounced back a bit at opening. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 3.4 percent at opening, the S&P 500 was up 3.2 percent and the Nasdaq composite was up 3.6 percent. The slight improvement comes as the administration has signaled it is willing to negotiate with some countries.
Tuesday’s hearing was aimed at discussing DOGE’s efforts to reduce the federal real estate portfolio.
“This is a bipartisan issue,” Greene said. “Selling federal property and returning the money back to the American people is the right way to protect you. And as Republicans we believe in this and we proudly stand with President Trump, Elon Musk and their DOGE efforts to reduce the size of the federal government.”
Stansbury described DOGE’s efforts as a “private equity model”.
“Buy low, sell high, make lots of money,” she said. “This is what the DOGE bros are all about.”