Ninth District Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, discussed government efficiency, the Department of Education (DOE), Social Security, and other issues at a recent Patrick County Republican Committee meeting.
Government Spending and Efficiency
Griffith said wasteful spending and unaccounted funds are worse than previously thought.
Griffith said he recently spoke to someone who expressed concern about the Department of Defense being unable to complete an audit.
“I’m perfectly fine accepting an audit that says, ‘This stuff is black ops, and you can’t see it.’ It’s fine, I don’t need to know everything, but you ought to be able to say the money’s here, the money’s here, the money’s here. Right now, we don’t know where our money’s going,” Griffith said.
Discussing the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Griffith said some funding is sometimes misdirected to places taxpayers would never approve of while others support projects that actually help — which he believes would win approval from taxpayers.
As one example of the latter, Griffith recalled that three years ago, he visited a Kenyan refugee camp, where USAID had created a nutrient-rich peanut butter-like food for malnourished children.
“If they got a kid there who was on the verge of starvation before the organs started to shut down, they could suck on this tube and get this peanut butter stuff out. They could turn that kid’s situation around in less than 24 hours,” he said.
“But making policy—and again, you could be on either side of the issue—having the taxpayers of the United States of America sending out, under our logo and our flag, policies related to the LBTG (Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Gay) issues… If you want to do that with your private money, I have no objection. That’s your right to make that decision,” he said.
However, he said taxpayer funds should not be allocated for such policies without proper debate in Congress.
“It’s just plain wrong, and we’re finding that with a lot of agencies. I got to tell you, it is a problem, and it’s going on in a lot of agencies,” Griffith said.
While he does not know when this practice began, he speculated it may date back to the Clinton or Bush administrations.
“It’s just that the agencies, and as Trump used to call them ‘the swamp,’ the elitists in Washington, D.C., have been hiding this money around for years. The only way to get to it is to kick in some doors and start finding out exactly what’s happening,” he said.
Griffith said he agrees with Elon Musk that mistakes will be made, but he believes this is a historic moment to push for change.
“I’m not going to stand by and let us settle for the status quo. I’m going to continue to fight, and I hope you all will join me in that fight, because we now know it’s worse than we thought,” he said.
With the midterm elections approaching, Griffith said changes cannot proceed slowly.
“Trump essentially only has a year until he could get blocked by Democrats. He’s got a year to get this done. If we don’t have this done by the end of September, it may never get done,” he said.
Department of Education (DoED) Reform
While he probably would not have abolished the Department of Education, Griffith noted that DoED has not existed for long.
“Trump hasn’t really abolished it. It’s mostly verbal stuff because the big programs—Title I, etc.—are still going to be run by the federal government. He’s turned a lot of it back to the states,” he said.
Griffith said federal oversight adds unnecessary costs at the state and local levels.
“It costs Patrick County a fortune, it costs the state a fortune, and we got a bunch of people with offices in Washington, D.C.—I don’t know if they’re there or not—but we’re paying rent for those offices, and that costs a lot of money,” Griffith said.
He argued that eliminating DOE expenses at the federal level could allow more funding to be allocated directly to state education programs.
Social Security Challenges
Discussing Social Security, Griffith said the recent requirement for in-person office visits has complicated the system in some cases.
“I just became Social Security eligible this year, and it took about six to eight weeks to get an appointment for a telephone interview with someone working from home,” he said.
While the appointment went smoothly, he noted there were interruptions.
“We had to stop a couple of times because the worker’s dogs were barking in the background,” he said.
Griffith said the return of in-person workers is essential.
“There’s absolutely no reason why I couldn’t go (to an office). Now, for somebody who’s got issues—maybe where they’re disabled—I agree we ought to have the ability to do tele-Social Security, just like I’m a big proponent of telehealth,” he said.
However, Griffith said the system must be fixed first to allow flexibility for remote Social Security appointments.
“We got to get the system working again because it has not functioned well over the last—at least the last four years, but I would say even the last five, six, seven years,” he said.
Privatization as a Solution?
Griffith suggested partial privatization could improve efficiency.
“If some of our folks would just realize—if you do one more finding of a document, one more check on the Social Security matter every day, our backlogs wouldn’t be nearly as great,” he said.
Griffith and Del. Wren Williams, R-Stuart, also spoke about solar energy, Medicaid, broadband expansion, and the latest legislative session.
