WASHINGTON—As Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy begin work on their Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, Rep. Greg Lopez (R-Colo.) is drawing their attention to government spending on “zombie programs” as areas to cut.
Zombie programs are federal government initiatives that were once authorized by Congress but for which authorization has expired—meaning that they can no longer operate.
An investigation by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that in fiscal year 2024, Congress had allocated $516 billion of taxpayer funds to such unauthorized programs. Lopez, in a letter to Musk and Ramaswamy obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times, has petitioned them to expose such programs and recommend the termination of their funding….