With billionaire Elon Musk admitting to Donald Trump's Cabinet that the $1 trillion in government savings he had promised will be closer to $150 billion, an 85 percent reduction, fans of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are quickly losing faith.
According to a report from the New York Times, an analysis shows that even the $150 billion promise may be a pie-in-the-sky boast.
And that has led to skepticism from conservatives who were thrilled with the idea of government cost-cutting and now are pointing out that more than a few successes that Musk's people have promoted turned out to not save any money at all.
As the Times' David A. Fahrenthold and Jeremy Singer-Vine wrote, "...when Mr. Musk’s group tallies up its savings so far, it inflates its progress by including billion-dollar errors, by counting spending that will not happen in the next fiscal year — and by making guesses about spending that might not happen at all."
That led to Romina Boccia of the libertarian Cato Institute to complain, "They’re just spinning their wheels, citing in many cases overstated or fake savings. What’s most frustrating is that we agree with their goals. But we’re watching them flail at achieving them.”
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Nat Malkus of the conservative American Enterprise Institute agreed and said the bogus claims have become de rigueur from DOGE.
“It’s like if your kid drops out of college, and you tell your wife, ‘Whoa, we saved money on medical school!’ Well, that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s the same idea. How do you call it savings?”
The Times report added DOGE officials also announced canceling a contract that did not, in fact, even exist.
"The Office of Personnel Management declined to release the request, or say what it had planned to spend on the contract, nor would the office say when it planned to choose a contractor," the report states. "Despite that uncertainty, Mr. Musk’s calculated the savings involved in that cancellation down to the cent. (It later rounded the claim to an even dollar: $318,310,328.)"
That led Steven L. Schooner, a professor who studies federal contracting at George Washington University, to label the boast "garbage."
The Times report added, "H [Schooner] said it was far too early to know for sure what the government was going to spend — especially in the year that Mr. Musk had targeted. What if the bidders competed to drive the price lower? What if a losing bidder protested, and then the whole thing got canceled?"
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