Navy Veteran Rep. Franklin: DOGE Should Look at Department of Defense

Representative Scott Franklin (R) spoke to The Floridian regarding the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk under the direction of President Donald Trump (R), to cipher through the Department of Defense (DOD) for potential waste, fraud, and abuse.

Rep. Franklin, a 26-year Navy aviator, provided examples of some of the areas in which the military can be less wasteful and more careful with taxpayer dollars. The Floridian Publisher Javier Manjarres caught up with Rep. Franklin and asked him about how Elon Musk and DOGE should approach the Department of Defense.

"Everything ought to be looked at. I spent a whole career in the military. There's certainly a lot of waste there," said Rep. Franklin.

When asked if there should be a lot more oversight on the civilian contractors that deal with the DoD contracts, Franklin said he's in favor of digging into the financials for everyone to see.

"When was the last time the Department of Defense passed an audit? Like years and years and years. I think we need to do that," said Franklin. "But there's absurd waste even within DOD. And I can say that as a military guy, and even worse, in the military, it's not just a year-to-year process, but military budgets by quarter. And if you don't spend your money, a lot of money in a quarter, in many cases, you're not even allowed to carry it over to the following quarter."

The Florida congressman continued, providing an example of some of the waste he encountered while he served in the military.

"And I would tell you, I know back 30 years ago, I remember when the end of a quarter would come and people would take loads of gas up, dump the gas and come back down and land, refuel, go back up again, dump the gas again because it was the end of the quarter, and if you didn't use it all today, you wouldn't have it next week if it was a new quarter," said Franklin.

Rep. Cory Mills has also expressed his support for auditing government  agencies like the DoD, where there has been widespread misuse of taxpayer dollars at the Department of Defense (DoD) the need for a complete overhaul of the government agency is due after the apparent practice of issuing no-bid contracts to vendors, and in some cases, the appearance of solely using certain vendors over others.

Franklin represents Florida's 18th Congressional District.