Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls Out CDC Purchase Of $238K Solar Powered Picnic Tables At DOGE Hearing

6 days ago

At a House DOGE Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) spoke about furniture purchases by the federal government under the Biden administration.

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00:00I now recognize myself for five minutes of questions and I thank the witnesses for their

00:05testimony. Mr. Maroney, the title of your testimony is reducing the government's holdings

00:11could generate substantial savings and I agree with that. And thanks to the Trump administration

00:16we're finally seeing some savings, $400 million on leases according to the administration.

00:22Do you think the government's excess properties exist in part because federal agencies

00:27and the bureaucrats who run them have no incentive to move or to give up their space?

00:33Just why won't these agencies co-locate and downsize?

00:37So there's a number of reasons but certainly cultural reticence to sharing space is something we've identified in the past.

00:43Also inertia for lack of a better word. It's a space you've already had and there isn't as much incentive to move.

00:49It costs money to move out of space at times and agencies haven't always put that up front.

00:53There's a number of other reasons possibly too but certainly those are both valid reasons that they've brought up before.

00:58Those are reasons that have been brought up before.

00:59Right, except their actions are different. They certainly were ready to jump out of this building

01:03and leased a very expensive building on Pennsylvania Avenue.

01:07Recent presidents couldn't overcome that bureaucratic inertia.

01:11Yet President Trump and Doge ended almost 700 leases in just a few months. That's unbelievable.

01:19Has any other administration acted so quickly to reduce the federal footprint that you know of?

01:26Not that I'm aware of.

01:28Yeah, much needed though.

01:32Mr. Moroney, your testimony states that a GAO covert operation last year was successful about half the time in sneaking prohibited items past the guards and into federal buildings.

01:44I'm really interested in that. What sort of items did you sneak in? What dangers does this vulnerability pose?

01:53Right. So we snuck in three different items, a multipurpose tool with a knife, a baton like a baton you could use to attack someone with, and pepper spray.

02:01All those are prohibited items. All those are things you could cause real harm if you wanted to.

02:06And like you said, about half the time we were able to get that through. So that raises concerns.

02:10We only did 27 tests and got through in half the time. That suggests other items could be getting through at a greater level.

02:17But you got through half the time in 27 tests.

02:20Correct. And that also comports with FPS, the Federal Protective Services' own covert testing program.

02:25Wow. That's definitely terrifying. Thank you for that. I have a lot of death threats and several people have been convicted and served time in prison

02:35for planning to murder me. So I always appreciate the efforts on every single aspect of security to make sure that people that work within the federal government

02:46and the capital and visitors as well are safe. So thank you.

02:50Mr. Hart, I appreciate the work your organization has done in making the American people aware how the government spends Americans' hard-earned money,

02:59including this chart behind me here, shows a disgusting amount of federal spending on furniture, which is what you talked about.

03:08So how did you go about finding the Biden administration spent about $1 billion per year on furniture,

03:16while federal buildings set empty during COVID and federal workers work from home?

03:22Yeah, what we do, Chairman, is we have access to all federal spending through USAspending.gov.

03:28And that's a bill that I helped pass back in 2006.

03:32So we're able to do keyword searches and look at furniture, look for vendors even, and identify and keyword search things like recliners

03:40to identify and understand how much the federal government is spending on furniture.

03:45And it's really a scope of government problem issue, as I mentioned in my opening statement, is that when we decide to have a large scope,

03:53there is going to be a big cost of furniture.

03:55But it's a very useful way to think about and assess whether we ought to have this number of federal buildings.

04:02Yeah, Mr. Hart, we appreciate those efforts.

04:04In 2021, the CDC spent almost a quarter million dollars on solar-powered picnic tables.

04:10The CDC at the time was telling people to socially distance with masks and basically forcing a vaccine that many Americans didn't want.

04:19So what use would its employees have for this new picnic table that has quite the price tag?

04:27Yeah, it's quite expensive.

04:29And, you know, the social distancing guidelines suggested they shouldn't be seated at that table while they were spending $237,000 on that.

04:37Look at those seats. Look at those seats. That's not social distancing.

04:41No, they're quite close. There's a close proximity of those seats to the other person.

04:44Yeah, real quick, I've just got a short amount of time yet.

04:47I'd like to ask, just basically, just for the general audience, is $238,000 spent on solar-powered picnic tables at the CDC appropriate?

04:58I think the American people think that's disgusting.

05:01Is $700,000 spent by the SEC for their New York regional office conference room appropriate of taxpayer dollars?

05:08I don't think so. What about $6.5 million spent on high-end furniture to redecorate the EPE office?

05:16No. And then $284,000 in Herman Miller furniture for FEMA's headquarters conference center and appropriate use of taxpayer dollars?

05:27I would argue not. I'm definitely over time, so thank you, gentlemen.

05:31Thank you, gentlemen.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls Out CDC Purchase Of $238K Solar Powered Picnic Tables At DOGE Hearing

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