Government Watchdog Bites DOGE on Exaggerated Savings Claims

GAO analysts couldn't verify many of DOGE's claims.
Reuters
By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey

It's Thursday evening and the Senate hasn't left town yet! Senate Majority Leader John Thune had quipped to reporters yesterday morning that the week was turning out to be "kind of a train wreck." Republicans are still working to get things back on track. As senators look ahead to a scheduled five-week recess, they are sorting through internal squabbles and procedural hurdles that have held up progress on a list of agenda items, including a landmark Russia sanctions bill, Todd Blanche's bid to be attorney general, a package of 74 other nominations and a stopgap bill funding the government from October 1 through December 11. "It's starting to come together," Thune told reporters Thursday afternoon.

Here's what else is happening.

Government Watchdog Bites DOGE on Exaggerated Savings Claims

It's been clear for some time now that the Department of Government Efficiency fell well short of its target, coming nowhere close to the $2 trillion in savings that were envisioned by tech mogul Elon Musk in the early days of the second Trump administration. Even the more modest $215 billion in savings proclaimed by the cost-cutting effort has come into question, and a new analysis by a government watchdog indicates that DOGE's numbers are riddled with errors and unverifiable claims.

In a report published Thursday, the U.S. Government Accountability Office took a close look at the claim made by DOGE on its "Wall of Receipts" that it had saved the federal government $110 billion by canceling or otherwise modifying specific contracts, grants and leases. GAO analysts could not verify many of the claims, citing several persistent issues:

  • DOGE did not explain how it calculated its claimed savings. For grants, GAO was unable to verify 96% of the savings claimed by the agency.
  • DOGE claimed millions of dollars in savings for lease cancellations that had been initiated before the agency was established.
  • DOGE mixed potential savings in contract cancellations with realized savings. "For example, DOGE reported $1.7 billion in savings on the Department of Defense's Defense Health Agency contract for IT services at more than 700 military treatment facilities worldwide," the report says. "While DOGE initially identified the contract for termination, in the end, no action was taken to terminate the contract, or to reduce scope, value, or funding. Thus, no savings were achieved."

Although DOGE formally closed up shop in July, as originally scheduled, its webpage is still live and some of its employees have remained in the federal government. While in operation, DOGE officials refused to answer questions about their methods or to provide public notification of the limitations of the quality of their data, GAO said.

GAO recommends "that the Executive Office of the President, through the U.S. DOGE Service, should ensure that known data quality issues and limitations are prominently displayed on the Wall of Receipts."

Democrats bash DOGE: Sens. Gary Peters, the senior Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Richard Blumenthal, the senior Democrat on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, requested the GAO analysis, and on Thursday highlighted the findings.

"Everyone supports rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, but DOGE was a slapdash and deceptive effort that misled the American people while doing real damage to the government's ability to serve them," Peters said. "Elon Musk and the Trump Administration claimed billions of dollars in savings it could not substantiate, took credit for work already underway, and refused to show its work, all while putting Americans' sensitive data at risk and hollowing out critical agencies."

Blumenthal said that, according to a separate analysis he conducted, DOGE was ultimately a waste of more than $20 billion in taxpayer money that harmed ordinary Americans.

"The Trump Administration has used DOGE to recklessly slash government programs, ransacking critical services and resources and proudly displaying supposed 'savings' on its Wall of Receipts," Blumenthal said. "GAO's report, though, reveals data quality concerns and a lack of clarity regarding how savings were calculated, making DOGE's findings unreliable and unclear."

What comes next: Probably nothing. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought recently said he has "no plans to do kind of a closing DOGE report," indicating that there will be no final accounting for the ill-fated cost-cutting effort.

Quotes of the Day: Dueling Realities

"It's outrageous how you see the cost of living and the cost of homes and it is terrible how they made it so difficult, if not impossible, for young people to own a home."

− Las Vegas resident Richard Gatti, speaking to reporter from USA Today before a Trump rally Thursday night.

"The economy is the greatest economy we've ever had."

− President Trump, speaking at that rally.

Trump Admin Spending Nearly $4 Billion to Kill Wind Energy Projects

The Trump administration is continuing its not-quite-quixotic quest to do away with offshore wind energy. A German wind company called RWE U.S. Offshore said Thursday that it has entered into a $1.22 billion settlement agreement with the Interior Department to give up plans to build wind farms off the coasts of New York, California and Louisiana. The wind power leases involved reportedly could have provided enough energy to power more than 5 million homes.

The agreement with RWE would reimburse the company for roughly the cost of leases it obtained under the Biden administration. It is the Trump administration's fifth deal of its kind so far this year. In all, the administration has spent about $3.9 billion to get companies to terminate 12 offshore wind leases.

President Trump has long criticized wind energy and his administration has stopped federal permitting for offshore wind development.

"After careful consideration, it was determined there is no path forward to permit these projects in the U.S. for the foreseeable future," RWE said in a statement, which noted that the company will continue to invest in U.S. projects involving natural gas but also remains focused on offshore wind development globally.

Critics of the Trump approach warn that it will result in higher energy costs for consumers in addition to the environmental impact of increased reliance on fossil fuels. Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told the Associated Press that the lease buybacks also serve to redirect taxpayer money to Trump's energy industry donors. "There's method here, and it's a real scam," Whitehouse said.

Seven Democratic-led states have sued over one of the earlier deals.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the new agreement. "Americans deserve an energy system built on common sense, not one dependent on costly subsidies or technologies that can't meet our country's current demand," he said in a statement. "We welcome RWE's agreement and voluntary investment in projects that strengthen our nation's energy security, provide dependable baseload power and help keep electricity affordable for hardworking Americans today while supporting our country's long-term energy future."

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