MUSK AND DOGE ARE FAILURES
Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are failures. They haven’t even managed to reduce federal spending, let alone reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, or increase government efficiency – according to Jeff Jacoby, a quite conservative columnist for the Boston Globe.
(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)
Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are failures. Don’t take my word for it, according to Jeff Jacoby, a quite conservative columnist for the Boston Globe (with whom I almost never agree) they have failed at the most basic of their goals: reducing federal government spending. [1]
It may be debatable whether Musk and DOGE had any intention of reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, or of increasing government efficiency, or even just cutting government spending. However, the results are clear: they accomplished none of these things. (See previous posts about their successes in benefiting Musk and his companies, as well as their failure to focus on the places where waste, fraud, abuse, and inefficiency are widespread, namely the Defense Department and private, for-profit government contractors.)
First, Jacoby recapitulates Musk’s own statements. Initially, Musk said he would cut at least $2 trillion in government spending. In March, he said DOGE would deliver $1 trillion in spending cuts by the end of May. At an April 10 cabinet meeting, he said he was anticipating savings of $150 billion. The DOGE website lists only $71 billion in spending cuts.
However, the Treasury Department’s report on federal spending says that spending in February and March was $86 billion MORE (up 7%) than in the same months last year. Jacoby notes that Musk and DOGE have not touched programs that account for three-quarters of the federal budget: Social Security payments (as opposed to staff), Medicare and Medicaid health care, the Defense Department, veterans’ benefits, and the interest on the national debt. The Congressional Budget Office reported separately that the federal budget deficit for this fiscal year has increased by about $200 billion in the first seven months of the year.
Although DOGE appears to have reduced or planned reductions of 121,000 federal employees, the cost of the entire civilian workforce of the federal government is only $336 billion. Given that there were three million government employees when Trump took office, assuming these reductions occur, this would reduce the workforce by only 4%. Ignoring severance and any other separation costs, this would save only about $13.5 billion – nowhere near the $2 trillion of promised savings.
Jacoby states that Musk and DOGE have “not made a dent in the vast amount of money the government annually loses to fraud and abuse – as much as $521 billion … It has not clawed back any of the improper payments disbursed by Medicare and Medicaid, which amounted to $101 billion in 2023.” (My bolding.) Trump, Musk, and the Republicans in their party platform, in the campaign, and once Trump was in office promised to slash wasteful government spending. Jacoby closes by noting, “That’s a promise the GOP always makes when it’s out of power and never keeps when it regains control.”
I couldn’t have said this better myself!
[1] Jacoby, J., 5/18/25, “Why Musk flopped,” The Boston Globe