(Originally published in The Dispatch)
The reported disbanding of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—eight months before the end of its scheduled term—is perhaps the entity’s only true conservative accomplishment. By having its activities subsumed into the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), DOGE has at least shown that the Trump administration can eliminate a wasteful and ineffective government program.
Earlier this year, DOGE tore through the federal government like a hurricane, with director Elon Musk promising to “move fast and break things” like a Silicon Valley disruptor. However, Musk’s exit in late May starved DOGE of the Trump support and MAGA voter credibility it needed to steamroll federal agencies and even Cabinet officials. The remaining remnant of tech bros simply lacked the needed expertise and institutional support to become a true power center to rival OMB.
DOGE fell victim to the absurdly unrealistic standards set by its leaders. Elon Musk originally pledged that his administrative actions to slash government waste could immediately save $2 trillion out of a $7 trillion federal budget. As Musk familiarized himself with basic federal budgeting, he quickly reduced his target to $1 trillion and then $150 billion. These ambitious goals reflected the long-held conservative fantasy that budget deficits are driven primarily by obvious waste, fraud, and abuse that any competent business leader could simply zero out, saving trillions of dollars. When that simplistic narrative was revealed to be false, conservatives such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blamed the Washington, D.C., establishment (“the swamp”) for aggressively sabotaging DOGE. In reality, DOGE was fatally flawed from the beginning. Its premise of trillions of dollars in easily cuttable waste was nonsensical, and DOGE further limited its own effectiveness through incompetence and attempts to bypass Congress illegally. DOGE’s failure was entirely predictable to anyone with a baseline understanding of the federal budget, public administration, or basic politics.
DOGE saved little money.
While DOGE never came close to saving even the latest target of $150 billion, its precise savings may never be known because it is impossible to measure exactly which spending was canceled, how much would have been spent otherwise, and how much of the canceled spending was reprogrammed into other uses. On a macro level, total federal spending rose by $275 billion in 2025, which was $18 billion below the level projected by the Congressional Budget Office. This $18 billion difference is not necessarily policy-based, as it is also within the margin to be expected from slight changes in economic or technical factors.
Treasury’s monthly budget breakdowns reveal that spending on the State Department and international assistance programs fell by $12 billion in the second half of FY 2025 (which ended September 30), while spending on public health, education, and other targeted programs did not show notable declines across the year. That $12 billion mostly overlaps with the $9 billion rescission savings bill signed by President Donald Trump plus $5 billion that the administration refused to spend in a “pocket rescission.” Moving forward, the reported reduction in the number of federal civilian employees from 2.4 million to 2.1 million may save as much as $40 billion annually. But even that figure assumes that none of the eliminated federal jobs are restored or replaced by contractors. Finally, DOGE may ultimately lose money when including the tax revenues lost from fewer audits and more tax evasion as a result of IRS staff layoffs. Whatever final savings figure emerges will be far less than the trillions originally promised.