For all the hoopla, countable savings are slim pickings, so far.
Where’s the Savings?
Please consider DOGE Claims It Has Saved Billions. See Where.
That’s a free link to the WSJ. It has additional charts.
The Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency touts cuts of $55 billion in federal spending, often citing canceled DEI and climate contracts. However, a Wall Street Journal analysis of government contract data showed a much different picture: “Woke” cuts were a tiny fraction of the total, and many claims of savings were overstated.
While DOGE hasn’t offered details about all of the stated savings, it has posted a list of more than 1,100 canceled contracts to its website. As of Friday, it said the savings from these contracts amounted to about $7 billion.
The Journal analysis projects the actual savings could be closer to $2.6 billion over the next year if spending levels remained constant—and about 2% of the funds would have gone to contracts related to DEI.
Research-focused agencies were among the top targets for cuts, including the Education Department and the Department of Health and Human Services, where DOGE terminated contracts costing the government more than $900 million last year.
DOGE terminated more than 60 Health and Human Services contracts including a clinical evaluation of an Alzheimer’s and traumatic brain injury drug and a study of smokers with chronic lung disease. DOGE described these as “administrative expenses.”
An administration official said many contracts were canceled for waste, fraud and abuse. They added that DOGE’s estimations of its savings are conservative and that no funds for Alzheimer’s were canceled.
Many of the Education Department’s canceled contracts funded research on college costs, student career paths and early childhood development. DOGE said one $1.4 million contract funded “mailing and clerical operations.” The contract was used to mail surveys to respondents participating in studies and was nearly complete when canceled, creating no savings for terminating it.
To assess the impact of the cuts, the Journal analyzed federal spending data from Deltek, a government contracting specialist and data provider. Deltek matched the canceled contracts listed by DOGE to their actual cost in fiscal year 2024. To categorize the contracts, the Journal used information about vendors, industry sectors and keywords like “diversity” and “climate change.”
In all, government contracts with more than 500 companies were posted to the DOGE website. Leidos, the company whose canceled contracts were worth the most in 2024, had part of its contract to modernize the Social Security Administration’s technology canceled. DOGE said this would save about $230 million. “Our work supporting the Social Security Administration, and the millions of Americans it serves, is on contract and ongoing,” Leidos said in a statement.
Two contracts also disappeared from the site Thursday because DOGE counted the same $665 million USAID contract three times, the Journal found.
Even as DOGE edited the numbers, the total savings listed on its site remained overstated, experts told the Journal. Agency contract amounts are often akin to credit card limits, said Deniece Peterson, senior director of federal market analysis at Deltek.
“If I have a credit card with a $30,000 limit and I have a $2,000 balance and I cancel the credit card, I’m not saving $28,000,” she said. “What I’m seeing in many of these transactions is not savings.”
But more than 50 of the contracts listed on DOGE’s website list virtually all of their maximum as savings, a number rarely hit, according to Nat Malkus, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “The totals [DOGE] put up as receipts on their website raise basic questions about how well these receipts were prepared and what they actually capture.”More than a quarter of the contracts listed by DOGE were actually already paid, the Journal found, saving no money. For instance, DOGE listed $168,000 in savings for terminating a contract with HHS for an Anthony Fauci museum exhibit. It had already been fully paid.
I am sure this number will grow, But by how much?
One of the problems is finding and doing are two different things/
DOGE Finds Billions in Wasteful Spending but that Was a Known Problem
On February 20, I commented DOGE Finds Billions in Wasteful Spending but that Was a Known Problem
Agencies already self identify billions in improper payments. Doing something about it is the hard part.
The benefit to yelling is the stench is now so bad that perhaps we fix something.
My interpretation is that this is all good, but likely not as significant as it looks at first glance.
Much of it is one-time or at least diminishing savings given that pandemic-related fraud has already stopped.
On top of that, clawbacks recovered about a third of what did go out.
February 20, 2025: How Will 77,000 DOGE Terminations Impact Unemployment and Jobs?
As of Feb. 13, 77,000 employees accepted the offer, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Here’s some math, assuming $150,000 per job.
77,000 * $150,000 = $11,550,000,000.
These people will get paid for 8 months. If none of them are hired back then we will have a savings of $11.6 billion, assuming Congress comes up with matching cuts. Don’t count on it.
I am rooting for DOGE, but I would like to see the real numbers. I suspect the WSJ is low and DOGE very high.
Let’s start looking at weekly Treasury funding figures. “Real” savings would reduce funding needs. But in reality, the “savings” will have a small or no impact on funding needs and the national debt.
$2 trillion deficit each year, about 7% of GDP.
Completely unsustainable yet weeping and gnashing at the teeth to cut even a few billions.
Discussed willingness of boomer generation with fellow boomers to sacrifice a few percent of Social Security and Medicare over the next few years to benefit next generations – response, they best not cut a penny of my benefits. No one paid in even close to what they now are “entitled” to receive.
The most selfish generation not giving a damn while watching the fall of the great experiment in self rule.
I’m sorry, but there’s a certain irony in the ruse of billionaires consolidating their power under the pretense of “reducing deficits” when it’s exactly the massive deficits of recent years that have boosted their income, profits, and financial market “wealth.” There’s a certain irony to see foxes with mouths full of feathers claiming that they’re defending the henhouse; minding the store while their fingers are deep in the cookie jar of government contracts and foreign quid pro quo. They’re selling a house of cards, and everybody’s merrily picking out furniture. John Hussman
It adds insult to injury to propose that corporate taxes should be reduced even further, despite the fact that higher corporate profit margins in recent decades have been associated with decidedly lower net business investment as a percentage of revenues. I’ll leave it to conscience to justify it as reasonable to cut meager support for humanitarian aid, social services, medical research, students with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations in order to finance further tax reductions, disproportionately for the wealthy, when 67% of U.S. net worth is already held by the top 10% of Americans and only 2.5% is held by the bottom 50%. Meanwhile, 50% of U.S. equities are held by the top 1% of income earners, with 87% held by the top 10%. Only 1% of U.S. equities are held by the bottom 50%. John Hussman
That’s not to say that there isn’t fraud in government spending. Indeed, confirmed fraud, as reported by the Office of Management and Budget, amounts to several billion a year: $7.3 billion in the pandemic year of 2020, $4.5 billion in 2021, and $4.4 billion in 2022. Given federal outlays on the order of $7 trillion, much more likely goes undetected. That’s certainly a reason for careful accounting and auditing. It’s not a justification for slash-and-burn by a brigade of drunk guys from the end of the bar ranting about the guvmint. I’ll say this – if one is looking for waste in government, the place to start would be billion-dollar government contracts with corporations, not experienced, career federal workers that comprise less than 1% of the population and less than 2% of the civilian labor force – half the 1950 level and close to the smallest share in U.S. history. The point of the firing isn’t to save money, it’s to install loyalists. John Hussman
And with respect to Social Security, there may not have been overpayments made to dead people( either there kids or some foreign saboteur )
The file DOGE may have been looking at is called a Numident file, which is obviously not being maintained. They are separate files not used in the calculation of benefits and a death might not have been updated.
Needs further analysis to verify if dead people are actually getting paid.
Tom Margenau over at Epoch Times has an article on that
Let’s see how much they raise the debt ceiling by, eh?
They need to start cutting government contracts. $4 billion has been spent for Boeing to build just one Air Force One plane, for instance.
Doge can find, and cancel or drive-down contract $ by going after the companies that donate a lot to Washington politics.
Doge wanted the federal employees to justify their work load each day. I’m sure Congress wasn’t included, and should have been.
Doge should be going after (and publishing the data) for the labor unions that donate to Washington politics
Musk is a complete fraudster. No wonder Trump loves him.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/author-upcoming-elon-musk-biography-040538098.html
the spirit and stated mission of doge couldn’t be more appropriate for this time and place. the nature of that mission lends itself to imperfect execution, however. but if perfection is the enemy of good enough, then I say plow ahead.
Doge has “saved” this money, then where is it? In the Treasury? In an untraceable Cayman Islands bank account? My guess is Doge’s little Muskrats are pulling off a giant heist.
I doubt they are heisting it. More like claiming savings that don’t exist.
This looks like a real bread and circus Pied Piper type of operation to me.
Leading the ignorant masses to believe that by cancelling contracts that (a) had a credit line that hadn’t been fully used or (b) under which the fumds had already paid out, that they saved the taxpayer the full potential value of the contract. That is the circus part.
Then, they keep the circus going by floating the idea that they will give taxpayers up to $5000 from the “savings.”. That’s the bread drop.
Like almost everything in the Trump admin, it’s bullshit.
I suspect most of the employees that took the buy out made at most 75K. That would be about 100K each considering overhead and benefits.
The probationary employees are usually lower pay level GS-5 or 7 grades as well.
Mothers are plentiful. Fathers are rare commodities these days. Trump is a father to millions in the US. They love him.
Everyone?
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/at-testy-town-halls-republicans-take-heat-for-trumps-bold-moves-e711a799
Trump does have a lot of children, some of which he knows about. Elon has, what, 13 now? 13 children fathered by a deadbeat weirdo.
I don’t see why someone would downvote this. There is certainly a father figure aspect to the psychology of some of his supporters.
Yes, the weak minded and the miscreants.
The problem with staff cuts is the approach. Buy- outs lead to the best and brightest leaving. The lazy and fearful hang on to their jobs by their fingernails. Cutting employees on initial probation just means you’re cutting your youngest and hardest workers. You need to review processes and the labor requirements of those processes. But that requires hard work and intelligence.
Because we want really bright, motivated people working for USAID.
Exactly. Get rid of the laws Congress passes to carry out these processes, and the jobs are then by definition not needed to fulfill the laws.
They haven’t the patience for that.
They just want Fed. employees to disappear.
Come talk to me after you cut the DoD budget in half. The bare minimum of what needs to be done.
That would save so much money beyond what was explicitly cut.
The pipeline of patients into the VA system.
The share of the debt.
Avoided Pensions and benefits.
Avoided wars of choice.
Avoided importation of refugees from wars of choice.
Avoided homeless.
Avoided PTSD loose in the population.
Sale of assets that can be put to productive use.
If we would stop trying to be the world policeman and exert hegemony, and defend our own borders, then we could seriously cut DoD.
Trump’s FBI Director Tells Workers To Ignore Elon Musk’s Job Ultimatum
That ultimatum is retarded. Per Zerohedge, Musk is now claiming that there is immense fraud wherein there are dead workers still collecting a paycheck or who otherwise do not check their email.
I call bullshit.
All this is going to do is waste man-years of labor responding to a stupid tasker. Not responding equals resignation? Good luck with that in court, retards. Employees who are on approved sick leave, maternity leave, or PTO shouldn’t have to respond. This isn’t Twitter. You don’t get to change/make up rules and then say no response means you’ve resigned. Absolutely retarded.
DOD has likewise directed all its employees to not respond.
“The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures. When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you received from OPM. For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled “What did you do last week ”
This stunt will have wasted man-years of labor just within DoD alone, as some services mandated supervisors execute recall rosters to contact all employees this weekend to ensure they do not respond until higher headquarters direction is provided.
To paraphrase Papa Dave, enjoy the DOGE schadenfreude.
I look forward to the falling out that Elon and Trump are likely to have before too long.
Long popcorn.
Who in DC profited from this corruption?
For years, thousands of Americans who suffered debilitating side effects after getting the mRNA Covid vaccine were told there was no evidence the shot was linked.
On Wednesday, a team from Yale University known for their rigorous work revealed the mRNA shots can cause a previously unknown condition known as ‘post-vaccination syndrome.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14421799/yale-scientists-covid-vaccine-study-message-victims.html
Sorry, Mish, I’m not going to believe anything about DOGE sourced from the WSJ.
Call me in denial. Call me close-minded. Or label me TDS Type 2.
The WSJ is ENORMOUSLY biased against Trump & can’t be trusted.
Well don’t keep us in suspense. Give us YOUR definitive list of “truthful” news.
Let’s not act like every source of information is fully “truthful”. A willingness to think outside the box is a better guide, IMHO, so here’s my generally conservative minded list of news sources.
Wolfstreet (he’s a censor prick but knows his stuff and is very apolitical)
American Thinker
American Conservative
Truth in Media
The Daily Signal
WorldNetDaily
Epoch Times – would ready more of their stuff but they’re too big into paywall
Just The News
The Daily Wire
The Daily Caller
Breitbart, especially John Carney for economic news
The Gateway Pundit for lots of stories the MSM don’t write about, but they can be conspiracy theory at times.
The NY Post keeps a good eye on sanity with some eye candy from Page Six.
And again, I respect Mish’s attempts at covering lots of topics, and he’s more than capable of dishing it out to both sides.
Thanks for asking!
“IMHO, so here’s my generally conservative minded list of news sources.”
You’ve just contradicted your stated position. You can’t only hang out in conservative echo chambers and then claim you are thinking outside the box. If you are not willing to consider contrarian inputs, you aren’t open minded.
Oh, yes I can! Watch me, because even across the conservative spectrum, there’s still sources that think outside the box more than others. The American Thinker is a great example. And, I certainly don’t need to WSJ, MSNBC, CNN or other liberal sources of information to think outside the box. There’s thinking outside the box and then blowing the box up which is what the left does, again IMHO.
Cash for Ukraine anybody?
Jeffery Sachs speaks at the EU Parliment about the corruption in DC.
“These are not very bright people, and I have dealt with them for more than 40 years. They talk to themselves and they don’t talk to anybody else. It is unilateral, non cooperative non negotiation theory.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD_KEFpuIro
Ukraine’s war corruption scandal deepens as French authorities reveal that
stolen defense funds were even higher than reported.$46 million laundered into luxury villas, vineyards, and land. Ukrainian officials had
siphoned off money meant for wartime munitions.
Elon Musk slammed Kyiv, calling it ‘just the tip of the iceberg,’ while Slovakia’s
PM Fico accused Zelensky of using the war to dodge accountability. As investigationscontinue, concerns grow over Ukraine’s misuse of Western aid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ1AUePTfOY
Trump will be a good president. His fear of another assassination attempt will haunt him until he dies. He will manage this country without breaking it apart and without unleashing deadly forces as Biden did that caused assassination attempt #1 and #2.
Trump will be a good president.
Agreed! MAGA!
Only time will tell if Trump 2 will be a success. He was a train wreck the first time. Still waiting for all those beautiful tariffs to bring in the Golden Age. I will measure his success based on his ability to deliver the Golden Age as promised.
DOGE is just schadenfreude for the MAGA crowd.
I agree. Golden age it is.
Had to look up your German term. Made me laugh. The Dems are just as capable of division & taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.
But to close a $2T annual deficit, there’s going to be a lot of misfortune, PapaD. Legit.
This is what US politics has become. Both sides are guilty. Which is why I try to avoid politics as much as possible. It just enables the “Hatfields vs McCoys” syndrome, hatred, and schadenfreude. Which is a total waste of time and divisive for the country.
It’s hard to experience a Golden Age when 40% of the populace hates the politically opposite 40%.
“DOGE is just schadenfreude for the MAGA crowd.”
Well said. You should copyright that.
Lol! Thanks.
In the long run cutting the Rent-A-Riot function AKA USAID will have the biggest impact.
Real cuts will come by voting in more Rand Pauls and fewer Lindsay Grahams. DOGE is a warmup act.
The privileged DC and DEI elite will fight back against the gov if woke cut will be too deep. To reduce a breakup risk, – a civil war risk – Trump sooth his voters and the blacks elite. The last thing we need is a black/white armed conflict. The black elite control DC, most major cities, police chief and the military. They dominate top posts for decades. His fight against NFL kneeling failed.
I want a breakup. These reforms, while a step in the right direction are probably too late.
I’d like to see a return to something closer to the Articles of Confederation which was supposed to be amended, not tossed out in closed sessions.
THIS. It is precisely because the articles of confederation were so weak that the centralization of power could not be carried out and the Leviathan could not emerge. What happened in the summer of 1787 was a coup.
Early days boys…
How USAID squandered billions in Haiti and around the globe
“I’ve had first-hand experience with USAID and other international aid organizations, such as the World Bank, UNESCO, and the Red Cross.
And I’ve seen how USAID, along with other NGOs, delivered on very few of their promises, failed to coordinate relief activities, and skimmed money off the top.
Of the at least $2.13 billion in contracts and grants for Haiti-related work, less than $50 million, or 2% went to Haitian organizations or firms. By comparison, $1.3 billion, or 56%, has gone to firms located in or near the US capitol.
Little wonder USAID and the left is so threatened by the sudden scrutiny.
The US provided $72 billion in aid to 180 countries in 2023, with USAID serving as its lead agency. Attention to USAID and other NGO’s is much deserved and long overdue as taxpayer goodwill and generosity have been repeatedly squandered.
Leftist staffed governmental agencies such as USAID and their NGO partners and collaborators act as if they are sovereign nations — accountable to no one.”
https://nypost.com/2025/02/22/opinion/how-usaid-squandered-billions-in-haiti-and-around-the-globe/
Reminds me of the scene in Zootopia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHKwnUa3txo
DOGE reminds me of ancient Rome and the Coliseum. It’s political propaganda; entertainment for the masses; and satisfies a rabid thirst among MAGA supporters for revenge and retribution as they literally want to see harm done to others.
But it won’t reduce the deficit.
Enjoy your schadenfreude.
It’s too bad that I can only up vote this once.
It’s still in the early stage but I am amazed at the progress already made in collating all the data of where the money is going and what it is used for. An audit like this has never been done in my lifetime. Hopefully it will immediately get rid of the waste but more importantly it looks like they are putting in systems that will lower the cost of government functioning. The government as it is run now is based on outdated operational principles most of which come from the mid 20th Century and have not been updated since. It’s time to reengineer how government operates and we now have the people who know how to do it.
Birdbrain Biden spent about $47 billion per year for student loan forgiveness.
So there is savings there as far as cutting back on that or completely eliminating student loan forgiveness.
Also $50 billion per year went to Ukraine, so if they cut that by half there is $25 billion per year savings compared to Biden’s spending baseline (which resulted in $1.9 trillion in 2024 and $1.65 trillion in 2023 for annual deficits).
The $370 billion for green energy and climate change initiatives as part of Birdbrain Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act are already sunk costs.
I want losses in the Student Loan program made up by clawing back the money from the colleges who profited from price gouging and misleading claims. That should be the final task of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency or whatever it is called.
No, the final task for CFPB should be to expire. As in, die.
The WSJ is mistaken (lying). DOGE has been accurate in its reporting so far. Why the hell would anyone trust leftist media anymore?
I’d much rather trust you.
Lol, what happened to trusting the govt?
WSJ is a right-wing newspaper. It’s owned by Ruper Murdoch’s company, the same guy who owns FOX.
I went to an event earlier today and a wide range of people were in attendance so I asked around if anyone had been impacted by DOGE.
Several people worked in private healthcare, no impact to anyone but the fear was if medicaid is cut, it would impact the medical hospital systems they work at and there may be layoffs. Another person concerned about cuts to research with the new worm-brain guy in charge of NIH.
Several people worked for various state and private universities, no impact but one person mentioned that many of their students go there on PELL grants so if those are cut the University would be hurting. Another mentioned many faculty also have research grants so if those are cuts they would be hurting at some point and research would stop.
Law enforcement – Asked if police had been impacted and response was no or at least not yet.
Most of these people work in the private sector so I didn’t expect to hear any major changes but it was interesting that some were expecting some kind of impact.
I went to an event last night and everyone was high fiving each other with how pleased they are with Trump. It was awesome! Yet, there was this honest recognition that government needs to be more efficient / smaller and genuine concern for those who will be affected by layoffs.
Not everyone….
https://preview.redd.it/leopards-ate-my-face-v0-467uw4e2wvke1.png?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=12ad2be5922dc124b3003e63bf57ee12c59a3330
Poor fool doesn’t understand the irony.
She must be one of those unfortunate, probationary government workers. FIFO type of situation. Hopefully, she’ll be rehired once someone doing her role takes a buyout & opens up a slot for her, but there’s going to be a lot of pissed off people once we really start to roll on $2T in annual budget deficits.
BTW, DOGE is just the messenger. Trump / Vance / DeSantis / GOP will be the ones to either prosper or suffer as we move into 2026 & eventually 2028.
But again you can keep pointing out all THE BAD or focus on the BIG PICTURE:
The old way of kicking the can down the road is gone. It’s time to act & go big. We’ve only got about 5-7 years to make a meaningful course correction.
By 2050 (and that’s probably being generous), 50% of revenue will go towards paying interest on the debt.
According to the media, the sky is falling and that asteroid is going to hit us. If climate change doesn’t get us first.
No one with half a brain believes these charlatans are saving anything. The nationwide denial of what is in the Federal budget makes it impossible to cut the Federal budget. Like this week with Repubs coming out of the woodwork asking/begging that THEIR Federal employee doesnt get cut tells you all you need to know. Nothing of substance will get cut for the same reason Libertarianism will never succeed: people will not cut their own benefits. We have seen the enemy and it is us!
Then burn the mother down!
The whole thing is designed to allow Republicans the fake number to pass more tax cuts for corporations and top earners. They don’t care if it true anymore than every tax cut back to Reagans and between paid for themselves. 4 more years of Trump and we’ll hit close to $50 Trillion in debt.
Reagan rescinded a good deal of those tax cuts (really deferrals) the following years. A lot of good that did for the deficits.
Disappointing. But what you get from Trump is a lot of upfront hoopla and never much in tangible results.
What kind of results are you expecting after less than 1 month?
He IS from NYC. The city of big talkers.
Actually it is a lot. These are on going programs. You kill a program, get unencumbered funds back and you free up all the follow on funds.
Nonsense. You know how to add.
Okay your solution is to continue to cut nothing and expand all these programs by 5-8 percent every year… spending a trillion a year more than tax revenue certainly can continue forever. /sarc…
The problem is revenue not spending and how would you explain the relative peace in the US since the 1990s when the whole debt thing started? How about Japan, which is way more in debt than even us? No body is exploding.
‘Revenue not spending.’
This is the mind of the parasite.
There’s always someone ELSE to steal it from.
NO. The problem will always be spending. Without limits any and everything will destroy itself.
Japan? Shirley you jest.
You’ve got it ass-backwards.
DOGE is likely meaningless. Sure, there will be cuts. But there will be no net savings. It’s just a show to distract the faithful.
I will wait to see the overall results. Will the deficit go up or down, and by how much?
If Trump truly wants to reduce the deficit he will need to collect a crap load of tariffs.
Still waiting on him to follow through on his tariff promises. Hope he stops wimping out soon.
The mere fact that GOP congress wants to raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion tells you everything you need to know.
If Trump/Doge is saving trillions why does the debt ceiling need to be raised and by $4 trillion?
If Trump’s tariffs are going to pay for themselves why raise the debt ceiling?
The answer is obvious, it’s a dog & pony show. Are you not entertained?
Yeah, Im clapping my butt off. Only good news is that all the Federal debt will be bought by the newly minted billionaires to defend their stashes.
Dude, Trump & Congress aren’t going to make nearly $2T deficits go poof in 4 years.
Expect zero accomplishment.
DOGE will not be meaningless. They’re going to eventually produce a lot of compelling data that will force Congress to make real changes to appropriations. I think this is one of the reasons they’re going so hard is to get a lot of waste identified as we head into the 3/14. Be that as it may, we’ll know in about 3-4 months how likely Trump 2.0 will or won’t be able to cut into spending.
As for real cuts, I think what it will come down to is how broadly Trump / Congress passes tax cuts. There’s a level of tax cuts that will make real savings over the next 4 years near zero as you predict.
IMHO, I think extending the 2017 tax cuts for incomes below ~$400K then double the SALT limit to help higher incomes. Then, lower SS tax to 50% and eliminate tips tax on the first X thousands of dollars. Eliminating the tax cuts above $400 would probably pay for the other two cuts. I think these are middle of the road positions.
Either way, it will make for an interesting first 6 months for Trump. The show continues.
Nonsense. If the deficit keeps rising, then DOGE itself is meaningless financially.
However; it does have a purpose.
It’s like ancient Rome and the Coliseum. It’s political propaganda; entertainment for the masses; and satisfies a rabid thirst among MAGA supporters for revenge and retribution as they literally want to see harm done to others (schadenfreude).
But it won’t reduce the deficit.
With some luck, the tax cuts will be limited to extending the 2017 cuts. If that’s the case, then Trump will have a chance at making meaningful cuts.
But again, THE BIG PICTURE is recognizing that the old way of kicking the can down the road is not possible.
I would expect Trump may be able to cut $500B off the deficit in his 4 years. I’d say that’s about 50/50.
Time will tell even for your schadenfreude prediction.
At this point in the process, I’m more interested in the exposure than the savings.
Exposure is the only way to get congress critters into the game to start codifying in law. Public opinion.
I guess we should just admit that the left has gotten to Mish. It now seems he thinks if the savings aren’t massive, corruption should be ignored, and if there might be lower sales at Walmart for a quarter or two then all manner of immoral activities should be allowed.
His tone is awful and discouraging. Anyone with a bit of parenting experience knows that you support a good effort even if you aren’t going to see big results right away.
Did you not read the entirety of Mish’s post? The last paragraph states
“…I am rooting for DOGE, but I would like to see the real numbers. I suspect the WSJ is low and DOGE very high…”
How is that awful and discouraging when he says he’s rooting for DOGE?
It seems to me that you (and many others here) are the biased one. You can’t take any criticism of Musk, Trump, DOGE, or anything MAGA related. You now identify with your political ideology. Any attack on the ideology is taken as an attack on you personally. Any criticism cuts you deeply to your core because you can’t reconcile the contradiction between your ideology and valid criticism against it. You’ve crossed over into cult follower status.
Think critically. It’s not hard when you toss religious like thinking to the curb.
I’m just to not going to accept criticism from the WSJ. Unfortunately, Mish seems to love using their data with is OFTENTIMES extremely biased to the point of making you wonder if these “journalist” are just AI bots. Granted at times Mish does a good job of qualifying his positions as it relates to the WSJ. While I disagree with Mish on many things, I do like & respect his broad coverage of topics.
And as to Nonpulsed main point, it’s just stunning at how quickly the left and some from the right are willing to pull out the daggers to fight against the core tenant of DOGE:
Find & cut waste, fraud & abuse
And we’re not a cult, Woodsie. We’re concerned Americans who recognize how badly the federal government is failing its citizens across almost any measure you’re want to evaluate. The 4 years under Biden were the worst in modern history, so there’s a lot of clean up to do.
The real problem is that it makes no economic sense to spend billions of dollars to save nickels and dimes. That’s the part you don’t get.
If you own a store and an employee steals $5.00 from the till you can’t expect anyone to take your seriously if you call the police and demand prosecution. The fastest and easiest thing to do is fire the employee and move on.
The risk to the owner is that you better be damn sure you have evidence of theft or you could end up in a liable lawsuit and YOU end up losing big in the courts.
The child-like mentality of so many commenters here is flabbergasting. The world doesn’t work the way you think it works.
Rudy Giuliani would mention the broken window theory 🙂
Coming from the guy with no real plan to save America other than to profit off its downfall.
Ironically, you just answered the question about how to save America in your own comment but you’re not intelligent enough to understand it.
Hint: Profits.
I’m giving you a thumbs up for acting like you really think you’re the smartest guy in the room.
Hint: You’re not ; )
Waste fraud and abuse were being hunted down and probably the bigger stuff at least was exposed long before Elon Musk created a whole bunch of unusable junk that we all got to pay for.
“I guess we should just admit that the left has gotten to Mish.”
Truly monoenoic
I am a solid Libertarian and would cut more then these clowns, Watch em increase military spending and the defect and you morons cheer.
And there you have it. Please get treatment.
You know, simply adhering to their principals without considering the circumstances doesn’t make you a very good libertarian.
I must say Mish, one concern we share is more Military Spending. If I am not mistaken, didn’t Trump bring the Military up to par in his last term in office? I also laugh at the notion of needing more weapons. This of course, after they left Billions of dollars worth of Weapons in Afghanistan. Gave away Billions worth of Weapons to other Countries (Ukraine a Huge One Obviously), as well as Oil from Our Own “Strategic Reserves” which tells you how strategic they must be… I would want to see a very strong case for more and more money thrown at our Military…
Mish is very good with numbers and stirring the pot with politics, which is why this site is so good.
Yes, this is about stirring the pot.
Libertarians will follow the GPS directions provided by their ideology over a cliff.
Their ideology is 100% logical and therefore never wrong. It’s the world that’s wrong. I used to be one of them. And I still agree with a lot of their views. But when the facts change, I change my mind.
It is not just the money saved, but the fact that DOGE cuts are cutting off funding to the myriad Left entities that live off this grift.
So only left leaning entities suckle from the sore chapped teet of the taxpayer? Got it.
DOGE cut off payments to farmers for not growing anything while Americans are dying for lack of affordable fruits, nuts, vegetables, and greens.
Major Major’s father, see Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. Grew rich as the biggest farmer in his midwestern state by NOT growing alfalfa.
Major major is my idol.
Correct sir…at least overwhelmingly…see usaid beneficiaries…
1) A penny saved is a penny earned. Every billionaire that I’ve ever worked with is a penny pincher. Along with buy low, sell high. Keep it simple. 2) A thousand mile journey begins with a single step. Some Asian shit, but it makes sense.
Sounds more like old wives tales
How do you think old wives became old wives? It is not by economic hedonism.
Or by sucking hind tit ; ) They are doers just like Trump & DOGE.
Go Doug!
Maybe RFK will introduce treatment for TDS and end the suffering.
Humorously that’s pretty much the opposite of Musks own path to success.
Kind of non sequitur no?
We won’t know whether Doge has saved any money until all the court cases are finalized. Some people who’d been laid off might get back pay. USAID contracts might have to be paid. Who knows? They certainly shouldn’t be mailing out $5,000 “Doge savings” checks.
I agree with your last sentence. Passing out money that had to be borrowed to be passed out?
Ye of little faith. I give you this. As reported by The Hill, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who was appointed by Barack Obama, ruled that the labor unions which filed the lawsuit against the government layoffs had to take their case before the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) rather than a federal court.
$55B / 155M (tax filers) is only $71, but I agree entirely with your point.
Eliminate the annual deficit as quickly as possible without causing a depression.
This will take years, but it has to start somewhere.