Peter Welch: “I totally support the comments of the minority whip. It is 100 days, and it is time to assess. Whatever you may say…”

“I totally support the comments of the minority whip. It is 100 days, and it is time to assess. Whatever you may say about President Trump and the stated goals, there is an obligation to act functionally to achieve those goals. Stating you want an outcome is a long way from implementing a plan and executing a plan to achieve it. And there is no plan. There is absolutely no plan. Let's talk first about DOGE. DOGE is about, supposedly, getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. Now, there is not a single Member of this Congress who is in favor of waste, fraud, and abuse, but if you are going to do that, you look at a Department: What is its goal? How is it achieving it? Where is it coming up short? You do an assessment, and you do a plan. What DOGE did was essentially get the personnel list and then send out emails to every fifth or sixth person saying: You are fired because you did a lousy job. So it is not at all on the level. It is not at all on the level. And as a result, the real goal becomes revealed. It is not to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. It is, say, to eliminate USAID. It is to eliminate the Department of Education. It is to eliminate the Social Security response team. That is what is going on. And the challenge for us--and this is bipartisan--is whether we, as an independent branch of government, want to look at what is before our very eyes and address it or simply ignore it.…”