(L) Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters outside the West Wing after doing a television interview on the North Lawn of the White House on March 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) / (R) Sam Corcos – DOGE advisor (Photo via: LinkedIn profile picture)
OAN Staff Brooke Mallory 4:08 PM – Friday, March 21, 2025
During a recent Fox News program, a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisor and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained that it’s “hard to really grasp the scale” of issues currently plaguing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) — as DOGE seeks to reduce waste and address “inefficiencies.”
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“A huge part of our government is collecting taxes. We cannot perform the basic functions of tax collection without paying a toll to all these contractors. We really have to figure out how to get out of this hole. We’re in a really deep hole right now,” DOGE representative Sam Corcos stated on Thursday on “The Ingraham Angle” program on Fox News.
Corcos is also the co-founder and CEO of Levels, a biowearable company that shows you how food affects your health using real-time biological data.
The DOGE advisor spoke about his efforts, alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, at the IRS to reduce the size of the federal government.
Examining the IRS modernization initiative, along with other operations and budgets, is one of Corcos’ top goals for his six-month schedule — he told host Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
“This is a huge program that’s currently 30 years behind schedule, and it’s already $15 billion over budget,” he said. “The IRS has some pretty legacy infrastructure…and the challenge has been how do we migrate that to a modern system?”
Many large banks that used comparable systems have already undergone modernization, according to the Levels’ CEO and co-founder. In comparison to industry standards, the IRS is more than thirty years behind schedule and billions over budget — he continued.
“We’re now 35 years into this program. If you ask them now, it’s five years away, and it’s been five years away since 1990. It was supposed to be delivered in 1996, and it’s still five years away,” he added.
Bessent, who was approved by the U.S. Senate as the new treasury secretary in President Trump’s administration, also chimed in.
“One of the biggest surprises for me is just seeing how these entrenched interests, they just keep constricting themselves around the power, around the money, around the systems, and nobody cares,” Bessent stated.
The secretary later brought the United States’ top taxation bureau’s attention to another issue.
“Many of the employees are fantastic. It’s this consultant group. They’re like a boa constrictor. They’re like a python,” Bessent continued. “[But] they’ve constricted themselves around our government, and the costs are unbelievable. They’re being passed on to the American taxpayer.”
According to Corcos, contractors and licenses receive about 80% of the $3.5 billion IRS operations and maintenance budget.
Meanwhile, DOGE is still investigating a number of federal offices and agencies, including the IRS. DOGE has worked to restructure federal agencies, cut regulations, eliminate unnecessary spending, and dismantle government bureaucracy since Trump has been back in office.
However, a growing number of Democrat officials and left-wing voters have continued to condemn recent DOGE measures.
“The entrenched interests, the consultants, the Democrats, mainstream media, they just want to blow this project out of the water,” Bessent told Laura Ingraham. “This is the opposite of government efficiency, not elimination, not extinction. Sam and his crew are making it more efficient to work for the American people. So what’s wrong with it working better, cheaper, faster, and with more privacy?”
“Collections, privacy, and customer service” are Bessent’s top three priorities for the tax collecting bureau, and he contended that “none of those are being well served.”
“We want people to feel satisfied that they are getting the service they deserve, that they’re paying their fair share and not more, not less. And that it’s done quickly, smartly and privately,” he concluded.
🚨 I LOVE THIS: Scott Bessent, Trump Treasury Secretary, went on Fox with DOGE employee Sam Corcos. pic.twitter.com/2ra44eZ8pB
“A huge part of our government is collecting taxes. We cannot perform the basic functions of tax collection without paying a toll to all these contractors.…
Many all-star engineers are taking major pay cuts (sometimes to zero) and suffering from harassment, including death threats, to help the country with @DOGE, because they love America 🇺🇸
