Elon, Vivek Say DOGE Will Cut Funding for ‘Progressive Groups like Planned Parenthood’

Federal funding for the nation’s largest abortion provider could be on the chopping block under the direction of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

In a joint op-ed in the Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday, Musk and Ramaswamy laid out their plans to cut federal overspending and to return power to the “people we elect [to] run the government” rather than unelected bureaucrats. Part of this plan involves slashing millions in funding awarded to “progressive groups like Planned Parenthood,” they wrote.

“Skeptics question how much federal spending DOGE can tame through executive action alone,” they wrote “They point to the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which stops the president from ceasing expenditures authorized by Congress. Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question.”

“But even without relying on that view, DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood,” they continued. 

President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America Alexis McGill Johnson responded to the op-ed in a press release on Thursday calling the men “unqualified fanboys and agents of chaos.” 

“We’ve been here before — we are not new to shutdown and ‘defund’ fights. We fended off a number of these attacks during Trump’s first term — and Planned Parenthood health centers are still there serving millions of patients across the nation,” she said in part.  

The op-ed was published the same day 82-year-old Catholic President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, who oversaw an estimated nearly 4 million abortions while heading the organization between 2006 and 2018. 

President-elect Donald Trump announced his selection of Musk and Ramaswamy to lead DOGE on November 12, noting that “Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of ‘DOGE’ for a very long time.”

“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the ‘Save America’ Movement,” Trump said.

Planned Parenthood’s 2023 annual report reveals that taxpayer funding in the form of government grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements hit $699.3 million, and made up 34 percent of Planned Parenthood’s overall revenue.

Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding has increased by 43 percent since 2010, according to an analysis by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute. The institute noted that Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding is reported by its affiliates, whose information lags behind the national office and covers fiscal years ending in 2022. 

Planned Parenthood also reported $997.5 million from private contributions, up 44 percent from the previous report. In total, the abortion giant reported nearly $2.1 billion in income and more than $2.5 billion in net assets. 

The same report shows that Planned Parenthood peformed 392,716 abortions in 2021-2022, a 5-percent increase from the previous year and a 20-percent increase over its past ten reports, according to the institute. Total services were down 17 percent.

“In 2021-22, abortions made up 97.1 percent of Planned Parenthood’s pregnancy resolution services, while prenatal services, miscarriage care, and adoption referrals accounted for only 1.6 percent (6,316), 0.9 percent (3,604), and 0.4 percent (1,721), respectively,” according to the institute’s analysis. 

At the same time, American Life League’s STOPP International 2023 Report on Planned Parenthood CEO Compensation shows, using the latest available data, that the total compensation paid to all Planned Parenthood affiliate CEOs increased from $13.3 million in 2015 to $16.8 million in 2020 — a 26.3-percent increase.

The average compensation for a Planned Parenthood CEO rose from $237,999 in 2015 to $317,564 in 2020 — a 33.4-percent increase in five years, according to the report.

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.