This is a total disaster
What an incredible waste of time and money DOGE turned out to be. When Elon Musk came barreling into D.C. with his outlandish claims of making our government more efficient and cost-effective, he was merely blowing smoke. Not only has Musk not delivered on his promise, but he has cost the government money in the process. All those people lost their jobs for nothing. Musk originally claimed that he would take the U.S. spending down by $2 trillion, which quickly changed to $1 trillion, and which he now claims to be $150 billion. Even if he saved the final claimed amount of $150 billion, MSNBC reported that the cost of creating these “savings” is larger than the savings.
The New York Times reported that an expert on the federal workforce estimates that the cost of saving $150 billion is $135 billion. Not a very good return on investment. Considering all the chaos, jobs lost, and money spent, the alleged savings are worthless. As has been repeatedly said, Musk had no idea what he was doing when he went to cut federal agencies, and that lack of knowledge has cost us far more than the purported savings. Musk spent much of his time in Washington trying to gain access to things to which he had no right. He behaved in such a way that many believed he was merely trying to gain access to the monetary portions of the system or perhaps he really didn’t have a clue what he was doing. In fact, NYT investigated DOGE’s work and found multiple egregious errors. When they pointed this out to DOGE, NYT Investigative Reporter David A. Fahrenthold said that DOGE responded by making their work less transparent, which in turn made it more difficult to find their errors, but Fahrenthold said: “We found them anyway.” For example, DOGE’s “wall of receipts” claimed to have saved taxpayers billions of dollars on grants, but Fahrenthold pointed out that they gave only minimal information and would not provide details that would allow others to figure out for themselves what the agency saved.
They tried embedding information into a code system, which Fahrenthold was able to decipher and prove that they were not only continuing their earlier errors but were making false claims about the money they saved. For example, they claimed to have saved $1.75 billion by cutting US Aid, but people inside of US Aid said that DOGE’s numbers were “wrong twice over.” Who do you believe? The people who have been working inside this agency for decades or some fool who claims to be doing something he is not doing. The US Aid people said that the contract was never cancelled, and if it had been, they had already been paid. In other words, DOGE saved nothing, though they cost many people much, including their livelihoods. There are also the numerous lawsuits pending against DOGE, which the U.S. government will have to defend. Considering what DOGE’s work has and will continue to cost the federal government, it was a waste of time and resources, and we’re left to pick up the pieces.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years