David Valadao Said DOGE Was Working To Make The Government As Efficient As Possible And Had Been More Effective Than Past Congressional Efforts

VIDEO: When Asked About DOGE’s Cuts And Firing Of Workers, Valadao Said “We Need To Get Past This And Try To Get Our Government As Efficient As Possible.” REPORTER: “When it comes to DOGE, as far as Congress and being informed of exactly what’s going on. And everything we see in the headlines about this is being cut and this department’s being cut. How much of that is actual reality?” VALADAO: “I don’t know. That’s a good question. Because they put out so much so fast and then it gets a lot of headlines for a day or two and then a lot of it gets pulled back in. Because what ends up happening is they’ll put out ‘we’re going to shut down this department’ or ‘we’re going to shut down… fire these people.’ And then people from the community will reach out to the White House, reach out to us. We’ll reach out to the Administration say ‘hey, this person at USDA served this purpose, this person at this department sent this purpose and this is why we need them.’ And they end up usually getting hired back usually with backpay from their time off. So, how much of the savings? It’s hard to argue. I assume there’s some departments out there that no one called and defended that have probably stay shut. And those are probably the departments that needed to go anyways. But those of us who are up there, in our communities, making sure that we’re advocating for the departments that make the most sense, those departments for the most part have been opened back up and are continuing to operate, probably with a worker morale issue- I imagine this isn’t the best way to treat employees. And they’re not going to be happy in that role but we need to get past this and try to get our government as efficient as possible and serving the American people as well as they possibly can without being a huge burden on the taxpayer because we are 2 trillion dollars in the hole on an annual basis and that needs to be addressed as well.” [ABC Bakersfield, 3:05, 4/23/25]

VIDEO: Valadao Said DOGE Was “Trying A Different Path” And That Congressional Efforts To Make The Government More Efficient “Haven’t Been As Effective” As DOGE. REPORTER: “So, in an overall view, this audit for the lack of a better word, was needed but now we need to look at it in a more realistic fashion?” VALADAO: “I think us paying attention to and being good stewards of the taxpayer dollar is always needed. We’ve been going at it from many different approaches for a long period of time. DOGE comes at it from a different angle and they’ve approached it in a way that’s raised a lot of alarm bells and gotten a lot of activists really fired up. But in the reality, does it actually end up with a lot of these Departments being shut down? No, not ultimately. A lot of them are opened back up. Especially the ones that we know provide a service to the American people. I mentioned a few of those earlier but yeah it’s important to make sure this government is as efficient as possible. They’re trying a different path than what we’ve tried in the past and other efforts we’ve made haven’t been as effective.” [ABC Bakersfield, 4:30, 4/23/25]