#162: Break The System - Representative Jake Ellzey (TX-6)

Congress holds the power of the purse. The United States Government is the largest business in the world, but to conduct business - and national security - Congress has to approve the funds and the money. 

Representative Jake Ellzey is now a 3-term Congressman representing Texas’s 6th District. He’s a Naval Academy graduate, a helicopter and fighter pilot, and a member of the House Appropriations Committee, where his decisions determine what the government funds and what it doesn’t. He’s also the co-chair of the bipartisan military Veterans alliance, the For Country Caucus. 

With the American government changing at lightning pace, Fran Racioppi asked the Congressman how the Appropriations Committee is prioritizing funding, what that means for national defense, rooting out fraud, waste and abuse; and if there’s ever a way for America to balance the budget and stop overspending. 

Representative Ellzey also shares why we need to clearly define America’s next battlefield, funding military readiness and innovation to combat both nation-state adversaries and terror groups, and the critical role he sees our Special Operations Forces playing in the grey war the United States is now in. Plus he shares his leadership lessons from the cockpit and the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan to the halls of Congress.

Watch, listen or read our conversation from Congressman Ellzey’s office. Don’t miss our full coverage from Capitol Hill. Special thanks to For Country Caucus for setting up this series. 

Highlights

• 0:00 Introduction
• 6:20 Veterans in Congress
• 9:12 Why the Navy?
• 10:50 The Appropriations Committee
• 14:45 Funding Executive Orders
• 17:24 DOGE’s impact
• 22:41 Funding Military Readiness
• 25:35 Role of SOF in the next conflict
• 27:20 The sentiment of America
• 31:50 Shout out to Green Berets
• 34:08 Defining the Battlefield
• 38:18 Why Was There An Open Border Policy
• 39:44 Can America Balance The Budget?
• 40:42 Is America Ready?
• 42:41 Military Lessons Taken To Congress

Key Quotes:

• “There’s a thing about veterans: it really doesn’t matter which era, what your uniform, or how well you know somebody who’s a veteran…Nobody else gets into that world.”
• “With SEALS, Green Berets, most pilots; tell me I can’t do something, and then watch.”
• “CR’s are bad. Year-long CRs are terrible. Specifically for defense.” 
• “Once we know what the priorities of the President are, we’re not going to put something on the floor that ultimately he’s not going to sign.”
• “It’s broken. So let’s break it. Let’s break the whole thing.”
• “There’s not enough money to do everything we need to do to be completely ready.”