After a brief introduction, Moreno took questions almost immediately, encouraging a sold-out, standing-room-only audience to be tough in their approach.
“You can’t hurt my feelings,” said Moreno, an immigrant from Colombia and a Westlake Republican who built a group of automobile dealerships in the Cleveland area, among other business ventures.
Moreno assured listeners that Republicans and the Trump administration were focused not on cutting essential services and entitlements to Americans, but instead on cutting “waste, fraud and abuse.”
“The irony is that the first president who actually started a DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) was President (Barack) Obama,” Moreno said. “In 2008, you can watch the video clips — President Obama talking about the need to trim out the waste, fraud and abuse from government, and he put Joe Biden in charge. That’s a fact."
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
The Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce has created what one observer has called “the single largest mass layoff event we’ve ever had in U.S. history,” while creating uncertainty about the status of probationary civilian employees at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
DOGE has no authority to fire employees, Moreno said.
“When it comes to the firing of people, that’s a secretary-driven decision,” Moreno said.
The federal government posts a $2 trillion deficit every year, he said. “We have to figure out how to be more efficient.”
In fiscal year 2024, total government spending was $6.75 trillion and total revenue was $4.92 trillion, resulting in a deficit of $1.83 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury.
When it comes to possible new work requirements for Medicaid recipients, Moreno said those requirements would be decided by states, not the federal government.
Moreno also said Congress was working on allowing the Department of Defense to be funded on 10-year budgets, allowing for what he said would be wider periods of planning. He faulted Congress for relying on “continuing resolutions,” which fund the government for increments of weeks or months. The most recent continuing resolution will continue government operations until the end of September.
“What we’re working on is creating a 10-year budget for the military that’s locked in for 10 years, and then we budget everything else annually, but leave the military alone — ten years. Allow them to plan it all out. You don’t have to use the money for that year or lose it," he said.
He also expressed confidence that he and Husted would be able to persuade Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to visit Wright-Patterson.
“The plan is to bring as much as humanly possible out of D.C. and plant it right here at Wright-Patt — purchasing, advanced purchasing, advanced programs, so we take this base and we absolutely take it to the next level," he said.
Wright-Patterson is home to the headquarters of Air Force Materiel Command and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, among other crucial missions, making it the center of Air Force research, development and planning.
Sign-toting protestors lined Dogwood Trail, on the road leading to country club property, before Moreno’s address. Many of the signs expressed support for Ukraine in its war against the Russian invasion that began in early 2022.
“History has its eye on you,” one sign read.
“Moreno knows that taking Medicaid away from Ohioans is unpopular, but his votes so far prove that at the end of the day he’ll vote in favor of billionaires like Elon Musk and Donald Trump over what Ohioans actually want,” said Katie Seewer, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Democratic Party.
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