Many posts have discussed federal deficits and the federal debt. Like previous efforts to reduce the deficit by cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse," DOGE was a failure.
The Trump administration’s claim that it is saving billions of dollars through DOGE-related cuts to federal contracts is drastically exaggerated, according to a new POLITICO analysis of public data and federal spending records.
Through July, DOGE said it has saved taxpayers $52.8 billion by canceling contracts, but of the $32.7 billion in actual claimed contract savings that POLITICO could verify, DOGE’s savings over that period were closer to $1.4 billion.
Despite the administration’s claims, not a single one of those 1.4 billion dollars will lower the federal deficit unless Congress steps in. Instead, the money has been returned to agencies mandated by law to spend it.
DOGE’s latest figures on contract cuts ticked up to $54.2 billion in an update posted on Tuesday.
POLITICO’s findings come on top of months of scrutiny of DOGE’s accounting, but the magnitude of DOGE’s inflated savings claims has not been clear until now.
The U.S. government's budget deficit grew nearly 20% in July to $291 billion despite a nearly $21 billion jump in customs duty collections from President Donald Trump's tariffs, with outlays growing faster than receipts, the Treasury Department said on Tuesday.
The deficit for July was up 19%, or $47 billion, from July 2024. Receipts for the month grew 2%, or $8 billion, to $338 billion, while outlays jumped 10%, or $56 billion, to $630 billion, a record high for the month.