Pete Ricketts Asks OMB Nominee Dan Bishop If He Is 'Committed' To Increasing Government Efficiency

3 days ago

At a Senate Budget Committee hearing earlier this month, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) questioned OMB nominee Dan Bishop about government efficiency and saving American taxpayer money.

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Transcript

00:00Great, well I am sitting in for Chairman Graham and so I get to go next on

00:06questions as well so I'll pick it up from there but I want to thank the

00:10ranking member here and the chairman for holding this hearing and Mr. Bishop for

00:14your willingness to serve in this role for our country. We had a great

00:18discussion when you're in the office last week and when director vote came

00:22before this committee we talked a lot about the consequences of Biden

00:25administration's flood of federal regulations and the reckless spending

00:28I think you've talked a little bit about that. Last week I actually joined Elon

00:33Musk and a number of my colleagues talked getting an update about what the

00:37Doge has been doing and one of the things that he talked about was making

00:43sure that we were doing what you said a little bit earlier is if we got things

00:46we don't need we shouldn't pay for them. For example he used the fact that one of

00:49our agencies we have 13,000 employees and 37,000 software licenses. The center

00:56from Virginia just referenced Social Security but I think he Mr. Musk in that

01:00meeting said we have 22 million people that are on Social Security that are too

01:04old to be alive and I think that's what the president was highlighting last

01:06night in his State of the Union address and the fact that we've got 4.6 million

01:10credit cards out there but not that many people work for the federal government

01:14all those things leave open the opportunity to be able to find ways to

01:18do a better job and in fact it's that kind of business approach and frankly

01:23common sense I think it's so refreshing about having Elon Musk and the Doge

01:26there. One of the things we discussed was Lean Six Sigma which is what I

01:31implemented at the state of Nebraska and it's a process improvement methodology

01:35we discussed about how you can actually have fewer people and do a better job

01:39providing services because you leverage better process and better technology.

01:43That's what we did to be able to reduce about we did about a thousand projects

01:48save about nine hundred thousand hours of our teammates time we got a hundred

01:51billion dollars in hard savings that way and now part of the Doge caucus I'm

01:56excited to bring some of those process improvement ideas to how we run the

01:59federal government the bottom line is this we need to make sure that we're

02:02doing a better job providing services that we're doing a better more effective

02:07and that we're increasing the efficiency and saving taxpayers dollars to get at

02:11that goal of the President Trump laid out last night of balancing the budget

02:15which is you pointed out earlier very very important that we get to a balanced

02:19budget week it's not sustainable we're continuing to do when your interest

02:22payments are more than what you spend on national defense you've got a problem we

02:28need to acknowledge that and we need to address it Elon Musk in our meeting said

02:33he wants to cut a trillion dollars out of the federal budget by fiscal year on

02:36a run rate fiscal year 2026 so I look forward to continuing to work with Elon

02:41Musk and President Trump in the Senate Doge caucus and you Mr. Bishop to

02:45replicate what we did in Nebraska at the federal level so Mr. Bishop are you

02:49committed to increasing government efficiency and saving American taxpayer

02:54money I certainly am senator great that was easy question that is easy all right

02:58good will you commit to work with me on bringing process improvement

03:01methodologies like the one I described with you lean Six Sigma to the federal

03:06government so we can improve our services while keeping our costs down

03:09yes senator and in our meeting I was intrigued by the lean Six Sigma idea and

03:15one of the things I could say quickly is that you know you hear a lot of ad-hom

03:18anum attacks on Elon Musk but people rarely want to engage with the merit of

03:23what he's actually saying that the what makes sense and by the same token what

03:28that lean Six Sigma recognizes that you're actually empowering employees

03:32when you when you elevate them to make process improvement recommendations and

03:38and that's exactly what you know there's a notion that isn't it that they're

03:42trying to set up an antagonism between Elon Musk and employees what Musk has

03:47done in his in his businesses if reason biography is he has shown that by being

03:53ready to make significant change you actually bring out the most the

03:57superlative employment or performance out of people and they actually can

04:01improve things beyond that you might expect by just adding numbers and I

04:05think it's a similar concept yeah you're exactly right there mr. Bishop at the

04:09state of Nebraska we lean Six Sigma engages frontline people in making their

04:13jobs better because they see the ways the number of steps that we try to cut

04:16out they see that duplication and wonder why we do it they don't feel

04:20empowered to change it lean Six Sigma actually give them the opportunity to be

04:23able to change those processes that not only do a better job providing services

04:26keep our costs down but actually make their jobs easier as well quickly since

04:30I'm running out of time here as well when director vote was here I asked him

04:34about his commitment to helping ensure the timely issuance of renewal volume

04:39obligations or RVOs biofuels industry is very important to Nebraska's farmers

04:44it's our number one industry in the state of Nebraska and of course to the

04:47energy industry as well the 2026 RVOs were obligated to be filed by November

04:521st 2024 but will not be filed into December 2025 so a year late time the

04:57RVOs are critical not only because it's law because by our nation's farmers rely

05:01on RVOs to inform planning decisions and of course as you know businesses want

05:06certainty so mr. Bishop will you make the same commitment to me today to help

05:10expedite this process and ensure the timely issuance of RVOs yes senator at

05:15it director vote it makes clear that he wants to move processes on time one of

05:20the did and that's a discipline he brings and so I can't speak with great

05:23specificity to that that particular situation don't have the knowledge of it

05:26yet but certainly look forward to working with you and with director vote

05:29to accomplish that objective great Thank You mr. Bishop and mr. podium

Pete Ricketts Asks OMB Nominee Dan Bishop If He Is 'Committed' To Increasing Government Efficiency

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