(The Center Square) – Illinois U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is targeting President Donald Trump and Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk with various criticisms of their efforts to cut waste and fraud.
Speaking on the Senate floor in Washington this week, Durbin blasted the Trump administration’s proposal to shift student loan cases from the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration.
“I want to make sure the Department of Education is efficient. I want to make sure that it’s responsive, but the notion that we’re going to shift all the student loans to the SBA is an example of someone who didn’t think it through. With fewer employees at that agency, they’ll be unable to do the the job which they were assigned the responsibility in doing and change the lives of a lot of American students in the process,” Durbin said.
Musk said in an interview with Fox News that the Small Business Administration was giving out loans to babies, and the loans were fraudulent.
“They do terrible things. They actually will see that a kid’s been born. They will steal that kid’s Social Security number, they’ll take out a loan and then leave that kid with a bad credit rating,” Musk said.
The fiscal year 2025 budget request for the Small Business Administration is $971 million in discretionary budget authority.
Durbin also blasted the Trump administration Wednesday at a Senate forum on the National Institutes of Health. Trump and Musk have moved to reduce spending and cut personnel at the NIH.
“Think about that moment, which many of us have faced and others have heard about over and over again, when the doctor says, ‘And here’s the diagnosis.’ And you gulp and you say, ‘Is there anything we can do? Is there a medicine, is there a surgery, is there a treatment?’ And you pray to God that some researcher at NIH found a breakthrough that’s gonna give you or someone you love a chance,” Durbin said.
The NIH had a budget of more than $47 billion in fiscal year 2024. The agency faced scrutiny after the COVID-19 pandemic due to allegations of taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research in China.
