Waste, fraud and abuse, thy name is DOGE

So far, the only “efficiencies” realized by DOGE have been (1) keeping Elon Musk’s name and image in the news and (2) the systematic destruction of federal programs and the expertise to run them efficiently. Like Elon’s SpaceX rockets, DOGE has mostly failed on the launch.

“On the first day of his second term, President Trump signed an executive order to establish the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)–which he immediately set loose to cut billions of dollars of critical programs without regard for the devastating and chaotic impact that those sudden cuts may have on Americans’ wellbeing. CREW’s review of some of the programs targeted for cuts by DOGE and the Trump administration found that the elimination or reduction of these government agencies have directly cost over 50,000 people their jobs. DOGE’s cuts at these select agencies and programs could result in a loss of over $10 billion in U.S.-based economic activity and the shuttering of programs that have put over $26 billion in funds directly back into the pockets of taxpayers. Moreover, many of these affected programs have both economic and less quantifiable social benefits.”

 

Of course, many of the agencies targeted by DOGE were regulatory and oversight programs. Gutting these agencies opens the door to more waste, fraud and abuse that these agencies had been preventing. So far, there’s not an atom of evidence that DOGE has saved taxpayers a dime.

It will be months before the damage wrought by Musk and DOGE works its way into the US economy, but it will take years to fix it.

https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/doges-big-illusion-the-heavy-costs-of-the-trump-administrations-so-called-efficiency/

  

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