Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) didn’t hold back Friday night when he blasted the federal government’s fiscal mismanagement, describing wasteful spending as “spending porn” and joking it would’ve been better spent on “scratch tickets and blackjack.”
Appearing on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle with guest host Judge Jeanine Pirro, Kennedy fiercely defended Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — a special task force established by President Donald Trump to audit and slash bloated federal budgets.
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“Mr. Musk and his team’s efforts to control spending are the most important in the history of ever, certainly in my lifetime,” Kennedy said. “My Democratic colleagues would prefer that we ask, ‘Who needs to pay more in taxes?’ The American people want us to ask, ‘What the hell happened to the money?’”
Kennedy pointed out that while the U.S. population has grown only 2% since 2019, government spending has surged by 55% — a trend he blamed for inflation, national debt, and what he called a collapse in spending priorities.
In his characteristically colorful style, Kennedy lambasted government programs that he says provide little value to taxpayers.
“A lot of the things we’re spending money on are just money sucks. They’re spending porn,” Kennedy said. “We’d be better off spending this money on scratch tickets and blackjack.”
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He praised Musk and DOGE for exposing eye-popping examples of waste. One such case, according to Musk in a recent interview with Fox’s Bret Baier, involved the federal government spending nearly $1 billion on a basic 10-question survey that could have been completed using tools like SurveyMonkey for a fraction of the cost.
“It was a survey asking something like, ‘Do you like the National Park?’” Musk said. “And there appeared to be no feedback loop. It just went into nothing. It was insane.”
The Department of Government Efficiency — headed by Musk as a temporary “special government employee” — has made headlines for its aggressive audits and proposals to eliminate or overhaul programs across federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
DOGE drew fire earlier this year when Musk revealed plans to “upend” USAID, citing billions in waste and the agency’s controversial international programs. Since then, Democratic lawmakers have voiced strong opposition, with some declaring they are now at “war” with the Trump administration’s cost-cutting crusade.
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But Kennedy doubled down, saying the country won’t be able to tackle inflation until Washington gets serious about cutting costs, reforming taxes, and deregulating the economy.
“We will never get prices down and control inflation until we deregulate the economy so goods and services will cost less, until we design a tax code that looks like somebody designed it on purpose, and until we control spending. That’s just Econ 101,” he said.
As DOGE continues its campaign to eliminate waste and deliver Trump’s pledge to cut $1 trillion in government spending, the political divide over how best to manage the federal budget is intensifying. While Musk’s data-driven approach has won praise from fiscal conservatives, Democrats argue the task force is acting without adequate oversight or transparency.
Still, Kennedy is undeterred.
“We’re not here to write blank checks,” he said. “The American people deserve to know where their money went — and why Washington thinks no one should ask.”
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