Government mascots, which have cost taxpayers significant amounts, could be eliminated under a proposal from a Republican senator aiming to reduce expenses during the government shutdown.

Senator Joni Ernst from Iowa is targeting characters such as Franklin the Fair Market Fox from the Department of Housing and Puddles the Blue Goose from the Fish and Wildlife Service. She urges Trump’s budget chief to find ways to cut costs.

Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, stated in a memo released prior to the shutdown that agencies should issue ‘Reduction in Force (RIF)’ notices for employees involved in programs that do not align with the President’s priorities.

Ernst, who chairman of the Senate DOGE caucus, plans to ask during a floor speech on Friday that riff-raff like government mascots and other ‘do-nothing bureaucrats’ be fired immediately.

A single outfit for a mascot at the US Embassy in Singapore cost taxpayers a whopping $22,000 in February, and the government spent a jaw-dropping $250,000 at a costume company in Ohio in 2019, according to Ernst’s office.

Ernst told the Daily Mail last week that keeping 750,00 non-essential workers on the government payroll costs $400 million every working day. 

The total cost of keeping these workers has crossed $2.8 billion since the government shutdown began, she said.

Ernst’s other potential cost-cutting measures include eliminating the positions of federal employees and contractors who were not even working before the shutdown, and others who have said that they get paid to take naps and watch Netflix.

‘Did nothing all day today over ten hours in here,’ read one journal entry shared by Ernst’s office with the Daily Mail.

‘I do hope to play another good game of chess,’ read another.

Before the shutdown, the senator introduced the Double Dippers Act to cross-check payrolls to identify and stop bureaucrats from billing taxpayers twice for work they’re not even doing. 

One full-time employee at the Department of Housing and Urban Development was found to have been simultaneously holding two additional full-time government contractor positions, sometimes billing for 26 working hours in a single 24-hour day, Ernst said. That cost the American taxpayers more than $225,000 over three years.

The senator’s push comes as air traffic controller shortages are causing flight delays, the Federal Drug Administration is not able to process applications for new drugs, and members of the military may miss out on their next paycheck, all due to the inability of Congress to pass a budget resolution.

House Republicans passed a budget bill and sent it to the Senate, where the funding legislation needs to overcome a 60-vote threshold. 

Republicans hold 53 seats in the chamber, and Democrats John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada, and Independent Angus King of Maine supported the GOP budget package. Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky has opposed it.