DOGE's wild, unverifiable savings claims discredited in US government report

Trump and Musk claimed that DOGE would cut government waste, but its whirlwind approach resulted in what one Brookings researcher called “cut[ting] muscle, not fat.” The researcher found “25,747 occasions where the Trump administration abruptly fired people and then hired them back.” The GAO analysis examined a portion of the claimed savings, specifically $110.3 billion related to contracts, grants, and leases. Besides the $49.2 billion in claimed savings in grants, DOGE claimed $61 billion in savings from contracts and $113 million in savings from leases. DOGE reported making cuts affecting 15,887 grants, 13,440 contracts, and 264 leases. DOGE scaled back some of its claims in the year before GAO’s report. As of March 30, 2025, DOGE “reported 679 leases as terminated, totaling approximately $400 million in reported savings.” After that, “145 of the leases DOGE reported as terminated—accounting for about $346 million in reported savings—were removed from the Wall of Receipts because the leases were no longer being considered for termination,” the GAO report said. The GAO recommended “that the Executive Office of the President, through the US DOGE Service, should ensure that known data quality issues and limitations are prominently displayed on the Wall of Receipts.” The GAO also issued a separate report this week on DOGE’s personnel and ethics activities. The GAO identified 206 DOGE personnel in the Executive Office of the President (EOP), many of whom also were detailed to other executive-branch agencies. “EOP officials told GAO that DOGE personnel within EOP receive the same ethics and records management training as other EOP personnel,” the report said. “However, EOP did not respond to GAO’s requests for access to training records and financial disclosures for DOGE personnel. As a result, GAO could not determine all DOGE personnel who received training or completed financial disclosures with EOP.” When contacted by Ars today, the White House press office said “the Trump Administration told GAO numerous times that all employees, whether in DOGE or not, are required to complete ethics training and follow financial disclosure requirements.” The White House did not provide us with any statement on the GAO report examining DOGE’s alleged savings. Trump’s DOGE executive order in January 2025 established a temporary DOGE service and renamed the US Digital Service to the US DOGE Service. The temporary DOGE service had a mandate that expired on July 4, 2026, and said on that day that “the formal mission of DOGE has come to an end.” But the US DOGE Service doesn’t have an expiration date, the GAO noted. “We agree that the USDS temporary organization terminated on July 4, 2026, pursuant to the terms of the EO [executive order] that created it. However, the EO did not terminate the broader USDS entity within EOP,” the GAO said.