DRAIN THE SWAMP Act seeks to move DC bureaucracy ‘out of crazy town,' House DOGE leader says
EXCLUSIVE: House DOGE Caucus founder Aaron Bean, R-Fla., will put forward the DRAIN THE SWAMP Act this week as part of continuing legislative attempts to target government waste.
The bill aims to require that federal agency heads relocate about one-third of headquarters-based employees "outside the Beltway" while finding ways to save taxpayer money through moves like selling underused Washington, D.C., office space.
Bean, who launched the bipartisan DOGE caucus in November, said his bill, which stands for the Decentralizing and Reorganizing Agency Infrastructure Nationwide To Harness Efficient Services, Workforce Administration and Management Priorities Act is what is needed to bring more accountability to Washington's bureaucracy.
"The swamp is thick and deep here in crazy town, and I'm here to drain it," Bean told Fox News Digital Wednesday.
"It is time to remind Washington that our duty is to serve the American people," the Fernandina Beach lawmaker added.
Agencies exempt from the legislation include the Pentagon, DHS, CIA and NSA, which is based at Fort George G. Meade near Glen Burnie, Maryland.
The remaining 70% of the federal workforce allowed to remain in and around the district would be required to work in person 100% of the time under the legislation.
The Office of Management and Budget, an executive cabinet agency, would then be directed to work toward selling — or not renewing leases on — office space vacated by the relocated bureaucrats, saving taxpayer funds.
Bean quipped that the DRAIN THE SWAMP Act will ensure the federal government works for the people "and not the other way around."
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, Bean's DOGE counterpart in the upper chamber, also put forward companion legislation, which helps speed up the process of reconciling House and Senate versions of a bill to make it to the president's desk.
"The federal workforce has shown they clearly don't want to work in D.C., and I am going to make their dreams come true," said Ernst, who previously highlighted waste, fraud and abuse through her "Squeal Awards" that root out government "pork."
Since founding the DOGE caucus, Bean has added two GOP co-chairmen to the ranks — representatives Pete Sessions of Texas and Blake Moore of Utah.
Sessions, chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations, previously highlighted the $2.7 trillion in reported fraud and improper government payments over the past 20 years.
"This is an absolutely unacceptable misuse of taxpayer dollars. Hardworking Americans deserve a government that works efficiently and effectively," Sessions said at the time.
In that regard, the executive branch's DOGE leader, Elon Musk, said Tuesday from the Oval Office that finding and ending improper and sometimes anonymous payments will save U.S. taxpayers a lot of money.
Musk added DOGE oversight led to the discovery that, in at least one instance, Social Security payments were being made to people recorded to be 150 years old.
Moore holds key roles on the Budget and Ways & Means Committee.
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