Republican senators told tech billionaire Elon Musk at a closed-door meeting Wednesday that his aggressive moves to shrink the federal government will need a vote on Capitol Hill, sending a clear message that he needs to respect Congress’s power of the purse.

Musk met with Republican senators at a luncheon to give them an overview of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team’s work to root out waste, fraud and abuse across an array of federal programs.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who largely supports Musk’s mission, told him DOGE’s efforts to cut spending and reduce the federal workforce reductions won’t pass muster with the courts unless Congress codifies them by passing a spending rescission package.

“To make it real, to make it go beyond the moment of the day, it needs to come back in the form of a rescission package,” Paul said after the meeting, pointing to 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning rejecting the Trump administration’s argument that billions of dollars in foreign aid should remain frozen.

“I love all the stuff they’re doing, but we got to vote on it. My message to Elon was: Let’s get over the impoundment idea and let’s send it back as a rescission package,” he said.

“Then, what we have to do is get to 51 senators or 50 senators” to vote “to cut the spending,” he added. “We talked a lot about, how do we make these things permanent? Rescission was a big part of the discussion.”

Paul and other Republican senators said Musk appeared open to the idea but didn’t seem to expect DOGE’s cuts and workforce reductions would need to come back to........

© The Hill