Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency originally promised to save the government $2 trillion in waste.
That target quickly dropped to $1 trillion. Then in April, Musk started intimating that the savings would only be in the region of $150 billion, making it clear to all but his most diehard supporters that DOGE was failing on its own terms — even going by its own dubious estimates of its progress.
Now, it's looking like those purported "savings" are somehow even more pitiful than once believed.
A new investigation by Politico found that of the $52.8 billion that DOGE claims it's saved by cancelling federal contracts through July, its actual savings were closer to a paltry $1.4 billion — which is barely two percent of what it's boasting to the public.
The books, it seems, have been well and truly cooked — but how? According to Politico, DOGE is using the maximum spending possible allocated for some of the 10,000 contracts it axed as of last month, a "ceiling value" that's often way higher than what the government ends up spending.
"That's the equivalent of basically taking out a credit card with a $20,000 credit limit, cancelling it and then saying, 'I've just saved $20,000,'" Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law studies at George Washington University Law School, told Politico. "Anything that's been said publicly about [DOGE's] savings is meaningless."
DOGE took a "move fast and break things," take-no-prisoners approach to gutting the federal government. It gleefully pushed for firing tens if not hundreds of thousands of federal employees, demanded access to sensitive and private data, hollowed out the Social Security Administration, and targeted funds for science, education, and healthcare.
This plunged Washington, DC, into chaos, sparked waves of protests nationwide, and helped Musk become one of the most hated men in America.
For all the drama it caused, you'd at least expect dramatic results. What we've actually gotten is some clumsy accounting sleight of hand.
When DOGE isn't outright cancelling federal contracts, it's lowering their ceiling value and basically calling it a day, Politico found. This only changes the potential price tag and doesn't reflect how much will actually be spent in the future.
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