Politics
DOGE
Two trillion dollars floated. A receipts wall that shrank under checking. About 328,000 fewer federal jobs. And total spending went up.
The argument
The federal government is large, and much of it is wasteful. Wanting to cut it is a serious conservative position, and this page does not argue with it. It compares what the Department of Government Efficiency promised with what the government’s own numbers show.
Elon Musk floated $2 trillion in cuts, then $1 trillion, then claimed about $160 billion, and the itemized receipts behind even that shrank when reporters checked them. The federal workforce fell by about 328,000 jobs. Total federal spending did not fall. It rose.
1. The promise and the walk-down
During the 2024 campaign Musk said DOGE could cut $2 trillion. By early 2025 the figure was $1 trillion. By the start of June 2025, CBS News reported, DOGE claimed to have “saved the government $175 billion so far” (CBS News). Musk left at the end of May 2025, and has said the effort cut “around $160 billion” (CBS News).
2. The receipts
DOGE posted a public “wall of receipts” to back up its claims. When CBS News checked it, the itemized total dropped from $16.6 billion to $9.6 billion after corrections. One contract listed as saving $8 billion was actually worth $8 million, an apparent typo. Another, worth $25 million, had been counted four times (CBS News).
The nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service projected that DOGE’s actions, including tens of thousands of federal employees on paid leave, rehiring workers who had been fired by mistake, and lost productivity, would cost taxpayers about $135 billion that fiscal year, not counting legal costs or lost tax collections (CBS News). That is a model, not an audit, but it is the best available estimate of the other side of the ledger.
3. What was cut
- The federal workforce. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted about 3,010,000 federal employees in January 2025 and about 2,682,000 in September 2026, a drop of roughly 328,000, or 11% (BLS, via FRED).
- Foreign aid. Most USAID programs were cancelled in 2025, and the agency stopped operating that summer. Researchers writing in The Lancet projected the cuts could lead to more than 14 million preventable deaths by 2030 if they continue. That is a projection, not a count, and it depends on the cuts staying in place.
- Sensitive data. In a January 2026 court filing, the Justice Department confirmed that DOGE members had accessed and shared sensitive Social Security data, and that one DOGE employee had signed an agreement with an outside advocacy group to analyze voter rolls (PBS NewsHour).
4. Did spending fall?
By the Treasury’s own monthly statements, the government spent about $258 billion more in fiscal 2025 than in fiscal 2024, an increase of about 4%, depending on which version of the prior year is used (Treasury Fiscal Data). Most federal spending is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense and interest, none of which DOGE touched much. That is a big part of why a $2 trillion promise was never realistic.
5. The money behind it
Musk spent about $277 million supporting the president and other Republicans in the 2024 election, more than any other donor to either party, according to federal filings reported by CBS News (CBS News). He then ran an effort with access to federal agencies, including ones that regulate his own companies. No court has found that he used that access for his companies’ benefit. He and the president fell out publicly in June 2025, and later partly reconciled.
What is true on the other side
- Some cuts were real savings, and some programs that ended had critics in both parties.
- A smaller federal workforce is a legitimate goal, and it was achieved.
- Spending is driven by programs Congress controls, so DOGE could never have cut the total much on its own.
The common rebuttals
“Even $160 billion is a lot of money.”
It would be, if it held up. The itemized receipts shrank under checking, and an independent estimate put the cost of the effort near $135 billion. The number that cannot be argued with is the Treasury’s: total spending went up.
“It was never about the total. It was about waste.”
The promise was a number, $2 trillion, and it was made to voters. Cutting waste is worth doing. A savings list that has to be corrected by billions is not proof it happened.
What this means
It floated $2 trillion. The government spent more the next year than the year before.