As he watches his Tesla revenues and profits sink like the Titanic, Elon Musk is slinking away from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in order to see if he can clean up this self-inflicted wound. DOGE will continue under new mis-management. This is a good time to assess its performance to date.
Saving $2 trillion. This was the publicly announced boast when DOGE launched. Once these inexperienced examiners and their leader realized how unrealistic this goal was, they quickly cut it back to $1 trillion. At this juncture, the Muskrats claim that they have saved $150 billion. That too is a ridiculously inflated figure. If you take a magnifier to their claims, you find numerous instances of double-counting (triple-counting in one case) as well as the addition of a bunch of zeros to certain numbers. One such claim of $8 billion turns out to actually be $8 million. Even if you give them the benefit of the doubt, you come up with a bottom line substantially south of $150 billion from slashing approximately 200,000 federal jobs and decimating important agencies with impunity.
But, against these purported savings, outside organizations such as the non-partisan Yale Budget Lab have examined these claims and concluded they are bogus. Actual “savings” amount to $95 billion (probably less, say many of the outside experts). However, offsetting these alleged savings is the actual cost of implementing these job cuts and agency closures, which amount to $135 billion. Bottom line: DOGE’s reckless actions have cost the government $40 billion. Any so-called savings are a chimera.
Ferreting out fraud. This was the other primary goal of Musk’s and DOGE’s mission. Here this misguided enterprise does not even claim to have found anything. It is silent about its unearthing of anything remotely definable as fraud. Musk’s shouting about fraud at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was all just hot air. There wasn’t any. The corruption was all internal, at DOGE. Musk used this appalling vehicle to enhance his own companies “in” with the U.S. government. He and DOGE elevated the terms “conflict of interest” and “self-dealing” to new heights.
Even the lily-livered Republican Congress finds itself repulsed by DOGE’s own waste, fraud and abuse. So far, of course, they are treading lightly, terrified of being primaried by Musk money next year. Some few Reichstag Republicans, however, have retrieved a handful of vertebrae from the lockbox where their spines repose and meekly inched forward to whisper that all does not seem hunky-dory with DOGE. The jury remains out, however, when it comes to whether they will vote to endorse DOGE’s agency closures and federal job cuts. Don’t hold your breath.
So, all DOGE has been is yet another Trump performance art production, albeit one that has destroyed careers and lives around the world. Several hundred thousand government workers lost their jobs and incomes and must dramatically readjust to their strained circumstances and constrained future aspirations. Millions of desperate people around the world who depended on U.S aid in order to eat and be healthy now find themselves starving and dying. The daily food aid that kept them from starvation is gone. The HIV/AIDS drugs that kept them alive are gone. Already, babies born with HIV/AIDS have died due to the termination of this program that saved 25 million lives in the last 20 years. This is a human tragedy that Trump and his DOGE minions have purposely executed to their eternal condemnation and shame. Too bad that the shameless cannot be shamed.
Dick Hermann
May 9, 2025
Saving $2 trillion. This was the publicly announced boast when DOGE launched. Once these inexperienced examiners and their leader realized how unrealistic this goal was, they quickly cut it back to $1 trillion. At this juncture, the Muskrats claim that they have saved $150 billion. That too is a ridiculously inflated figure. If you take a magnifier to their claims, you find numerous instances of double-counting (triple-counting in one case) as well as the addition of a bunch of zeros to certain numbers. One such claim of $8 billion turns out to actually be $8 million. Even if you give them the benefit of the doubt, you come up with a bottom line substantially south of $150 billion from slashing approximately 200,000 federal jobs and decimating important agencies with impunity.
But, against these purported savings, outside organizations such as the non-partisan Yale Budget Lab have examined these claims and concluded they are bogus. Actual “savings” amount to $95 billion (probably less, say many of the outside experts). However, offsetting these alleged savings is the actual cost of implementing these job cuts and agency closures, which amount to $135 billion. Bottom line: DOGE’s reckless actions have cost the government $40 billion. Any so-called savings are a chimera.
Ferreting out fraud. This was the other primary goal of Musk’s and DOGE’s mission. Here this misguided enterprise does not even claim to have found anything. It is silent about its unearthing of anything remotely definable as fraud. Musk’s shouting about fraud at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was all just hot air. There wasn’t any. The corruption was all internal, at DOGE. Musk used this appalling vehicle to enhance his own companies “in” with the U.S. government. He and DOGE elevated the terms “conflict of interest” and “self-dealing” to new heights.
Even the lily-livered Republican Congress finds itself repulsed by DOGE’s own waste, fraud and abuse. So far, of course, they are treading lightly, terrified of being primaried by Musk money next year. Some few Reichstag Republicans, however, have retrieved a handful of vertebrae from the lockbox where their spines repose and meekly inched forward to whisper that all does not seem hunky-dory with DOGE. The jury remains out, however, when it comes to whether they will vote to endorse DOGE’s agency closures and federal job cuts. Don’t hold your breath.
So, all DOGE has been is yet another Trump performance art production, albeit one that has destroyed careers and lives around the world. Several hundred thousand government workers lost their jobs and incomes and must dramatically readjust to their strained circumstances and constrained future aspirations. Millions of desperate people around the world who depended on U.S aid in order to eat and be healthy now find themselves starving and dying. The daily food aid that kept them from starvation is gone. The HIV/AIDS drugs that kept them alive are gone. Already, babies born with HIV/AIDS have died due to the termination of this program that saved 25 million lives in the last 20 years. This is a human tragedy that Trump and his DOGE minions have purposely executed to their eternal condemnation and shame. Too bad that the shameless cannot be shamed.
Dick Hermann
May 9, 2025
RSS Feed