DOGE Disbanded: Elon Musk’s Cost-Cutting Project Quietly Ended

[-]

Popular_Temporary_33@reddit

Can we shut down more departments while we are at it?

[-]

Popular_Temporary_33@reddit

I would say no. But we would all be better off if it was.

[-]

SockPrestigious9732@reddit

Didn't they have some success?
Wasn't DoE dismantling one of their wins?

[-]

Trump was compromised about 30 days in. Something happened that he can never go back on that was greater. I have been voting R for the last 20 years, even after gaining a heart for Ron back in my college days. It was always the least of the winning evils. I will never vote the mainstream ever again. It’s a circus. The only exception would be is Massie runs. Outside of that, I’m voting independents every time.

[-]

chekhovs_rum@reddit

Had to double check I was in the right sub here. I'll say it again:

Cut all the waste. Disband all the stupid unelected hall monitor organizations.

Fire all the white collar Karen bureaucrats who expect taxpayers to fund their pensions and retirements. I didn't know it was our sacred duty within the private sector to provide jobs

[-]

Live_Guidance7199@reddit

Absolutely. Can admit that even as a fed that we can EASILY slash and consolidate 50% of our federal agencies and workforce.

The problem with DOGE is they didn't touch ANYTHING outside of USAID that should've been removed and did remove a SHIT TON of mission essential stuff.

All you had to do was empower offices/commands and remove some worker protections, boom - all the bad seeds, Peter Principle management, useless bureaucrats get steadily phased out. Instead we've brought back more than half of the people DOGE RIFed and the shutdown exposed even more - emergency excepting RIF or probation dead men walking because shit doesn't function without them.

Scapel >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> chainsaw when national defense is on the line. Never thought I'd say I'm thankful to Liberal overreaching courts, but had they not stopped/delayed a lot of DOGE shit China/Russia/Iran could have struck and we would have been fucked with entire massive logistics systems completely shut down in both Europe and the Pacific.

[-]

chekhovs_rum@reddit

100% agree. I would have preferred a scalpel, forethought, and a lot of planning. Also would have preferred that someone not-Elon be in charge of it. But an easy counter to that is: who in their right minds would do something thar would alienate and piss off a very large horde of people?

I think a lot of people like myself settled on a chainsaw wielding Elon because it seemed (especially now) like that was the only person who was willing to do it.

But I very much agree that entire middle managements could have been cut, empowering people underneath to rise (new blood etc) and get shit done.

It's funny. I have a lot of family that works/worked in government. Before Elon, they joke that you could cut 70% of their coworkers and work would get done faster. After the Elon cuts started, and suddenly every single soul is essential.

Yeah, I don't see any future candidate from either party ever attempting to do something that we want. Especially in the way that you describe, which I again agree with and would have preferred. It has to be an outsider

[-]

majoroutage@reddit

You're telling me DOGE was a distraction by the Trump admin all along? Inconceivable!

[-]

TheHatTrick@reddit

Hijacking the top comment to say this:

U of Penn provides a tracker that shows spending at a per day level across the federal government.

https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2025/4/3/real-time-federal-budget-tracker

There's no point on this chart where you can see any dip, because DOGE was never about actually reducing spending.

Never

[-]

zekesnack@reddit

Billions in reductions do not even register against our insane budget... Sad

[-]

Both_Soup@reddit

what was it about?

[-]

Worrywort___@reddit

Elon Musk's personal gain most likely.

[-]

jimmytheeel@reddit

How much did all of that shit cost us, not just monetarily, but in skilled individuals, experience, lawsuits, and information? Also, did "big balls" download everyones tax information?

[-]

Justo1987@reddit

Yes DOGE accessed SSA and uploaded the information of over 300m people to their own unsecured cloud servers. It was probably the plan all along with the "savings" simply a distraction.

https://whistleblowersblog.org/government-whistleblowers/whistleblower-warns-of-possible-doge-related-social-security-data-leak/

[-]

Stormy_Kun@reddit

So, what was the point of ruining all those lives ?

[-]

chekhovs_rum@reddit

They exposed a lot of government waste and silly spending. Cutting that waste means the bureaucrat loses their jobs. I'm okay with it

[-]

coconuty04@reddit

Its a good thing we saved all that money and waste so we could deploy the national guard repeatedly and turn ice into a new military branch

[-]

chekhovs_rum@reddit

Elon and DOGE didn't do that. Stay on topic.

[-]

coconuty04@reddit

The topic was the successful elimination of government waste. Im. Not gonna praise the government creating a department to eliminate waste in one hand while absolutely bloating it in the other, especially when one dude is responsible for both ends of it.

[-]

JBCTech7@reddit

Im. Not gonna praise the government

Yes you would. If it sent money to fund gender affirming care in afghanistan or something.

or allowed illegal immigrants to continue to siphon billions in tax revenue without contributing back.

ICE arresting illegal migrants is inherently not libertarian - but you know what else is anti-libertarian? Taxes. My hard earned money being stolen to fund these illegal migrants. So that makes the fact that ICE is arresting illegal migrants ok with me. Less migrants mean less wasted tax revenue.

[-]

JestFlamez@reddit

Love the knee jerk strawman segwaying into soapboxing. I'll never be bored with you guys.

[-]

chekhovs_rum@reddit

Seriously. Of course the Libertarian sub is inundated with limp-wristed leftists that never actually address the topics or any arguments

[-]

JestFlamez@reddit

Is this limp-wristed leftist in the room with us now? You are putting words in people's mouths and inventing opposing arguments lol.

[-]

JBCTech7@reddit

blah blah blah. glad you're having fun.

[-]

coconuty04@reddit

I mean if we're just gonna spew shitty fox news/ msm rage bait, then you love sending billions to Isreal blah blah.

Most of the immigrants I know are hard working, under appreciated and taxed on the day to day like anyone else. Sales tax, property tax, income tax, etc. They make less money in general cause their bosses can get away with treating them like shit, thanks to their status. Most of em would love to be citizens and gain all the benefits that come with it, but the process to gain citizenship is quite difficult. A friend of mine for example has been trying for years, has paid thousands in necessary legal fees, risked going back home and re- entering the country as required, and he still hasn't finished the process. He probably knows more than most born Americans about the government and how it functions, since he's tested on it.

In any case, I don't know how much of your taxes aren't getting spent on immigrants, other than kicking them out, but im almost positive most of them are contributing the same, if not more to this Country than you, and taking or benefiting less.

[-]

JBCTech7@reddit

fox news/ msm

Oh, you're one of those.

ou love sending billions to Isreal

I hate israel. I hate the boot sucking that our gov't does to israel. If it was up to me, I'd withdraw all foreign aid to every country. E-fucking-Specially if it was to wage a war that has literally no bearing on my life or my family's life or my community's life.

Most of the immigrants I know

Are 99 percent legal work visas. Illegal fighting age male migrants do more damage to our country than billionaires.

[-]

Derp_a_saurus@reddit

Nothing was cut. We're spending more now than we ever have before, and making less. This was 100% in the wrong direction.

[-]

chekhovs_rum@reddit

Yes I know. I didn't think Trump admin had the stomache to go through with the hard task of dong it.

Your disappointment is but small sliver of my own.

[-]

Derp_a_saurus@reddit

You're also delusional if you ever thought Trump would be better. Democrats are the only party in the past 40 years that have actually done anything to reduce the deficit, and they don't bring back economic policies that caused 40 year economic slowdowns.

[-]

MortalGodsofVarathia@reddit

Democrats are the only party in the past 40 years that have actually done anything to reduce the deficit,

Wow, a rational statement in this subreddit that isn't just posturing based on vague principles and ideas totally detached from reality? What're you doing here?

[-]

OppositeRock4217@reddit

Also looking back, Trump administration has never succeeded at cutting government spending

[-]

qthistory@reddit

Very interesting that the first cuts made were to agencies investigating Musk's companies for legal violations.

[-]

a_litt1e_stitious@reddit

Did they though? From what I saw it was more about political theater. Everyone knows there government waste and I feel they did little to actually stop any

[-]

chekhovs_rum@reddit

Everyone knows there government waste I disagree. Most people are completely oblivious. Some have inkling that maybe, just maybe the government is misconstruing how the funds are being used.

Hey, I was never optimistic that Trumps flirtations with cost cutting would amount to anything. Elon was shoved aside relatively quick. But, suddenly a whole new swath of the general public had the opportunity to ask, "Why are we sending these funds to this country? For what cause?" Before DOGE went in, that wasn't really possible at a mass scale. The people didn't know what they didn't know

You're right that it became political theater... but i did use the word "expose". And I am really disappointed nothing real came of it. And frankly, as long as the boomers are alive and kicking and young women continue to vote with suicidal empathy, I don't think we will ever get a chance again.

[-]

maverick615@reddit

Ironically, it's actually harder to ask the question "where are we sending this money", cause many of the things that were shutdown were websites reporting how money was being spent so there is less transparency than there was before.

[-]

chekhovs_rum@reddit

Agreed, i was disappointed how the supposed tech bros of DOGE handled any data migration and integrity. Even if they called the older data into question, it's good to have as either a comparison or evidence of malfeasance

[-]

Acrobatic-Dinner-112@reddit

? Such a silly statement - we are wasting money on ice, national guard, jets for noem, the amount of corruption here is unprecedented and in your face. Weird that you focused on bob from accounting losing his job at the federal government

[-]

chekhovs_rum@reddit

Where did I say I supported any of those? I dislike all waste

[-]

Acrobatic-Dinner-112@reddit

You know what, that was a fair answer.

[-]

PhilRubdiez@reddit

Any step in the right direction is good.

[-]

finetune137@reddit

Did someone die?

[-]

White_C4@reddit

This is not surprising because the only way DOGE cuts were going to happen on scale is by Congressional involvement.

Republicans don't hold the super majority. An even bigger problem is that even if there is a super majority in the senate, purple state senators would be hesitant to make major cuts.

[-]

TheHatTrick@reddit

Yeah but they didn't even make minor cuts. They increased spending.

This fiction that Rs are trying to reduce federal spending needs to be stopped.

You're spreading a myth.

Source:

https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2025/4/3/real-time-federal-budget-tracker

[-]

JBCTech7@reddit

What he said didn't contradict what you said. Read it again. I believe in you.

[-]

TheHatTrick@reddit

Bless your heart.

[-]

natermer@reddit

Administrative State vs The People: 2-0.

[-]

NathanDrakeOnAcid@reddit

2? Add a few zeroes to that one.

[-]

kasmackity@reddit

Can we get the salaries refunded then and maybe get some of that tax money back

[-]

BIGGREDDMACH1NE@reddit

Red hats get conned again for the 7000th time

[-]

JestFlamez@reddit

In other news, the sun rises in the east. More at 11.

[-]

tastykake1@reddit

Sad

[-]

Halberd96@reddit

The Department of Government Efficiency claimed to have slashed tens of billions of dollars in expenditures, but it was impossible for outside financial experts to verify that because the unit did not provide detailed public accounting of its work.

[-]

lmea14@reddit

A government department to ensure less government departments. It should be an outside organization…

[-]

White_C4@reddit

If DOGE was an outside organization, wouldn't it have even less authority over investigating other government agencies?

[-]

Joel_the_Devil@reddit

So congress?

[-]

lmea14@reddit

Do they do anything efficiently?

[-]

Joel_the_Devil@reddit

Failure

[-]

TheHancock@reddit

I feel like that used to be a “we the people” thing but we kinda let it go.

[-]

seagulledge@reddit

It was pointless to cut government spending without having non-profits ready to replace those services. The next administration will just turn the gov spending back on.

[-]

OppositeRock4217@reddit

Plus Trump administration didn’t cut government spending at all at the end of the day

[-]

HAIKU_4_YOUR_GW_PICS@reddit

The problem is, as we learned from this experiment, many of those non-profits are quasi-government angencies that rely on tax money funneled to them. And that’s just the one fulfilling their stated purpose, not the ones that are blatant money laundering

[-]

KoalaGrunt0311@reddit

People don't understand the process when any foundation, business, or government says that they're contributing X amount to whatever cause. It's all trickle down, with several layers of administration costs eating away at those dollars.

[-]

onymous-sandlapper@reddit

incredibly partisan and counter-productive, not to mention the corporatism and conflict of interest with literally the richest man in the world. I'm basically glad it was predictably ineffective, I'm definitely glad they're gone.

even if it was well intentioned, it was a dinky EOP White House Office group, not anything with real independence (nor accountability aside from the president's inner circle) like actual departments. Taiwan has an entire auditory branch of government in the Control Yuan (a lib can dream). unfortunately I think the Government Accountability Office is the closest thing we have.

obviously it depends what kind of "efficiency" is going on, efficiently screwing people over and getting in the way as usual, or anti-corruption, accountability, minimizing budgets, et cetera.

[-]

scb0121@reddit

The mission was accomplished…

[-]

jwfowler2@reddit

All for nothing

[-]

Bagain@reddit

Regardless of any outcomes… If you don’t put forth a plan to deal with them (the outcome) you’re just shuffling money from one crooks pocket to another. They had no plan to deal with any of it, no plan as to what they would do with all this “saved” money IE: they were just going to keep it anyway.

The only value this had was right wing statists dunking on the left. It was my hope that it would inspire the left to do the same when it was there turn in the chair. God I would love to see both sides just calling out each others corruption, with proof, for four years straight.

[-]