DOGE Idiocy

gwb-trading · Apr 29, 2025 at 6:22 PM

Musk tried to claim that DOGE saved money.

The Reality - IT COST A TRILLION DOLLARS IN A MERE 100 DAYS.

100 Days, a Trillion Dollars: DOGE’s Costs Keep Adding Up
https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/04/29/100-days-a-trillion-dollars-doges-costs-keep-adding-up/

ipatent · Apr 29, 2025 at 10:53 PM

gwb-trading · Apr 29, 2025 at 11:11 PM

ipatent said:

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LOL. Here's the reality...

gwb-trading said:
"Despite claims of saving $160 billion thus far, the actual figure is likely well short of $10 billion."

DOGE gets downsized
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/commentary-doge-gets-downsized-163129763.html

Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk is stepping back from the government efficiency commission he helped create at the start of President Trump's second term. But not because DOGE, as it's known, has accomplished its mission.

DOGE, in fact, is getting its own wings clipped as the Trump administration tries to formalize the spending cuts DOGE has sought. Congress is now taking up a plan to cut $9.3 billion in spending on USAID, PBS, NPR, and a few other agencies DOGE has targeted. Those cuts are dramatically smaller than the DOGE commission's aims, and even those limited cuts could fail to materialize.

Musk started DOGE with a goal of cutting $2 trillion in federal spending over an unspecified time frame. As the work began, Musk lowered the goal to $1 trillion, then $500 billion. DOGE currently claims it has saved $160 billion in taxpayer money.

But federal spending cuts aren't real unless Congress, which controls the government's budget, either claws back spending it has already approved or cuts future spending. And that's where the DOGE actions are running into trouble.

"DOGE has been more bark than bite," budget analyst Jessica Riedl of the Manhattan Institute said. "Despite claims of saving $160 billion thus far, the actual figure is likely well short of $10 billion."

The House measure known as a rescission package would undo spending Congress has already approved, which is part of what Musk and Trump have been trying to accomplish. Mostly it would formalize the dismantling of the Agency for International Development, which DOGE has already neutered by firing staff, closing offices, and canceling contracts.

"These have been some of the highest-profile DOGE actions of the last few months, so the White House is putting them on paper and trying to get Congress to approve the cuts to make them official," explained Henrietta Treyz, co-founder of research firm Veda Partners.

The $9.3 billion rescission package will only get Republican votes. It could pass in the House, but analysts expect it to fail in the Senate, where some Republicans support USAID and robust foreign engagement. "A lot of the Republicans are proud of the spending they've gotten included in prior budgets across these items," Treyz said. "It's my view that while this bill can be passed in the House, I don't know that it has the votes in the Senate."

If this small package of spending cuts does fail, it will leave the Trump White House with no DOGE cuts formally enacted by Congress. That leaves a very peculiar situation at the agencies DOGE has targeted.

"Most of what the administration has done is stop paying for things, canceling specific contracts, or laying off specific workers," Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said. "What they don't have the ability to do is actually cancel the funding that is going to pay for these purposes."

As with many other issues in the Trump administration, DOGE has taken novel actions of dubious legality that have generated a flurry of litigation. The basic question is whether the Trump administration can refuse to spend money Congress has provided for specific purposes. Previous administrations broadly executed the laws Congress enacted, but Trump claims he doesn't have to. The Supreme Court may ultimately have to decide.

Meanwhile, the DOGE cutbacks leave some federal agencies heavily pruned or barely functioning — yet still funded. That raises the question of what happens to that money. Some congressional appropriations expire if not spent by a specific date, which can vary by years. Other congressional appropriations never expire. So, in some cases, depending on the outcome of litigation, the next president could reestablish agencies Trump has gutted, with the money already at hand.

Trump could also ask Republican allies in Congress to draft additional rescission measures seeking to defund other DOGE targets not included in the current $9.3 billion package. But it would probably only try to do that if the first package passes, because a series of failed spending cuts would only draw attention to DOGE's limited powers. Musk said he's backing away from DOGE to focus more on Tesla, but he may also be jumping ship right before the sailing gets rough.
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gwb-trading said:
So at first DOGE was going to save $2 Trillion, then it was $1 Trillion. Now Musk is claiming $150 Billion and most of that number is illusory. The real number is ZERO.

Actually as outlined below -- all the firings cause by DOGE will actually cost a minimum of $135 billion.

So in summary the DOGE efforts cost billions of dollars (not saved) in a mere 100 days. The biggest waste of U.S. taxpayer money in U.S. history.

What Musk's DOGE nerds never saw coming... and how it could cost Americans billions
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14646347/Elon-Musk-DOGE-firings-taxpayers-billions.html
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gwb-trading said:
Where is Captain Obvious when we need him?

Elon Musk's DOGE Has Been a Dismal Failure
"DOGE is not a serious exercise."
https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-dismal-failure
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gwb-trading said:
"THE BIGGEST FAILURE IN US GOVERNMENT HISTORY"

Musk’s DOGE accused of being ‘biggest failure in US government history’
https://www.indy100.com/politics/elon-musk-biggest-government-failure

Billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE department has been labelled the “biggest program failure in the history of American government” as the true impact is revealed.

The so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (aka DOGE) was created after Donald Trump became US president and he placed billionaire crony Musk at the helm.

The department’s mission, according to Musk, is to save taxpayer money, increase efficiency and reduce US national debt, but their actions, including mass firing federal employees, have left Musk a highly unpopular figure.

Not only has Musk’s popularity been left plummeting, but it has been revealed that DOGE has had a minimal impact on government savings and efficiency.

Reports suggest that a controversial “cruel and disrespectful” email sent to all federal employees demanding that they deliver weekly updates of five work accomplishments went largely ignored, according to the Washington Post.

The email threatened employees that failure to respond would be treated as a resignation, however, the publication found that officials across government refused to comply from very beginning.

They report that a meeting with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said it was a voluntary initiative and directly contradicted the email by stating that non-compliance would not be seen as resignation.

OPM leaders also revealed nothing would be done with any messages that were actually submitted. As it stands, a declining number of government departments are requiring the weekly updates and even fewer are monitoring or tracking compliance.

On X/Twitter, Musk’s DOGE campaign has been labelled “biggest program failure in the history of American government” as it was revealed the department has saved a minimal fraction of its promised savings.

Musk said the goal was to make $2 trillion in federal savings, but a screenshot taken from an MSNBC broadcast and shared on X/Twitter showed the department has had a minimal impact in terms of savings.

Using data and graphs, media commentator and investor Steve Rattner revealed that government spending has actually increased since the start of 2025, when Trump took office.

Rattner explained to MSNBC: “For all the commotion, all the layoffs, all the unhappy people, there’s very little to show for it.”
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gwb-trading said:
So in summary, DOGE saved zippo.

DOGE nailed by financial expert for having 'no impact whatsoever' on government spending
https://www.rawstory.com/doge-no-impact-rattner/

Moments after pointing out that stock in Elon Musk's Tesla is tanking, MSNBC contributor and financial analyst Steve Rattner laid waste to the efforts of Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE.

Pointing to reporting from the New York Times that claims made by DOGE don't add up, Rattner had the MSNBC producers put up a graph with a heading reading, "Budget savings are tiny."

Nothing the differences between DOGE "promises vs realities," Rattner explained to the "Morning Joe" panel, "There's been an enormous amount of commotion. You've had a bunch of people lose their jobs. You've had confusion all over the place. What do we have to show for it? Well, back during the campaign, [Donald ] Trump claimed that he was going to cut $2 trillion from our annual budget. And, by the way, our annual budget is 7 trillion, so you're talking he would have been talking, obviously, about a massive, massive cut."

Using his charts, he continued, "They quickly realized that was not successful. In January, they said, we'll cut a trillion out of the budget and, by the way, the government's fiscal year is now more than half over anyway. But then on April 10th, they lowered it to $150 billion."

Laughing he added, "So $2 trillion, $1 trillion, 150 –– but even the $150 billion, the New York Times did a very thorough investigation of this. $90 and $92 billion of it is unspecified. Nobody knows where that's coming from."

"So for all the commotion, all the layoffs, all the unhappy people, there's very little to show for it. And you can see that most clearly over here because this tracks federal spending month by month since the beginning of each year, back from 2022. And as you would expect, it went up a little bit in 23, a little bit in 24, but it's actually gone up a good bit in 25. So there's still no impact whatsoever on government spending from all of, as I said, the commotion that Musk has created in Washington."

You can watch below or at the link.
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DOGE Idiocy

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