Let’s do some fact checks on DOGE claims and reality.
Image above is a composite from the MuskWatch DOGE Tracker last updated April 1. The latest DOGE unverified claim is $150 billion.
See How Government Spending Is Up Even as Musk Touts Savings
The Wall Street Journal reports See How Government Spending Is Up Even as Musk Touts Savings. That’s a free link to lots of charts.
A Wall Street Journal analysis of daily financial statements issued by the Treasury Department found government spending since the inauguration is $154 billion more than in the same period in 2024 during the administration of former President Joe Biden.
DOGE claims cuts of $150 billion so far, but the Journal analysis found those efforts have yet to affect the bottom line.
And while the government’s income—taxes and revenues including tariffs—is also up, it isn’t enough to keep pace with higher spending.
Fiscal Year 2024 Budget
Medicare and Medicaid
This year Social Security payments are $32.7 billion higher since Trump took office.
The increased costs are driven mainly by nearly 1.3 million new beneficiaries in the past year and a mandated 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment. DOGE says it is rooting out fraudulent claims and cutting staff, but Trump has promised to leave benefits untouched.
Medicare and Medicaid spending are similarly outpacing levels from a year ago, growing by about $29 billion since the inauguration. Increased enrollments and rising healthcare costs are helping fuel this growth. Combined, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid accounted for roughly 43% of federal spending in the last fiscal year.
In addition to not touching Medicare and Medicaid, Trump promises to not tax Social Security and he wants to offer no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and restore deductibility of State and Local Income Taxes (SALT).
All of those items will add to the budget deficit and are not yet included in the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) deficit models.
Interest on the National Debt
Rounding out the mandatory spending increases is the rapidly growing cost of interest on the national debt, which DOGE chief Elon Musk says could eventually consume the entire federal budget if unchecked.
The U.S. has paid out $25.5 billion more in interest since Trump returned to the White House than in the same period in 2024. Rising interest rates and a growing national debt contribute to higher interest costs.
Thanks to Trump’s inane tariff policies, yields on long-term treasuries are rising.
Stalled Efforts
DOGE launched its cost-cutting with a shock-and-awe campaign terminating at least 25,000 probationary federal workers and slashing funds for foreign aid. Some laid-off government workers have gotten their jobs back, and the termination of probationary employees is currently being litigated.
Federal salary payments are $2.8 billion higher than a year ago in part because of a Biden-approved 2% pay raise in January. Additionally, thousands of other employees who took buyout offers remain salaried through September.
There is a chance that the buyout offers actually increased salary costs this year, said Martha Gimbel, executive director and co-founder of the left-of-center Budget Lab at Yale. Some employees who had planned to retire or leave the federal government may have instead accepted a buyout and remained on payroll.
USAID
Small DOGE Wins
DOGE notched a few victories in a handful of the more than 100 spending categories tracked in the daily Treasury statement.
Spending by the Transportation Security Administration nearly flatlined for several weeks in February and March. Since Trump took office, the agency spent $22 million less in part by delaying spending on new uniforms, as well as curtailing travel and training costs, said Joe Shuker, a regional vice president for the American Federation of Government Employees TSA Council 100. In March, the Department of Homeland Security canceled the union contract that protected TSA airport security workers’ benefits.
Holy Fraud
DOGE is Careless in Operation and Reckless in Reporting
On February 18, I commented DOGE is Careless in Operation and Reckless in Reporting
Let’s discuss viral nonsense on alleged Social Security fraud and a simple explanation.
Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the Convention du Mètre.
These systems default to the reference point when a birth date is missing or incomplete, meaning all of those entries in 2025 would show an age of 150.
Musk could also have simply looked up the SSA’s own website, which explains that since September 2015 the agency has automatically stopped benefit payments when anyone reaches the age of 115.
However, on Monday morning Musk doubled down, posting a screenshot of what he claims were figures from “the Social Security database” to X, writing that “the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE!”
The figures suggested that over 10 millions people aged over 120 were collecting benefits.
“Maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security,” Musk wrote.
“DOGE going into all these agencies with largely unfettered access with a wrecking ball and no understanding of the business logic and structure behind the code, database, and configured business logic, related payment systems, and integrated decision trees, poses real risks to the privacy and persona-level data of millions of people across all of those records,” Thomas Drake, a former National Security Agency executive-turned-whistleblower, tells WIRED.
Impossible to Believe
I find it hard to believe given the discussion of COBOL dates that Townhall can be that ignorant of what’s going on.
I find it impossible to believe Musk and DOGE do not by now know this is a COBOL date issue.
New Acronym PABS
PABS is Purposely Amplified BullShit
Musk makes these idiotic posts, knowing they are false, then places like TownHall purposely amplify the BS and the BS goes viral.
Not only did it happen with Social Security on February, where one might claim it was careless, but when it happens again on April 10, the only conclusion is PABS.
What We Don’t Know
What I don’t know is how much PABS is in the alleged $150 billion in savings. But we do know that of the claimed $150 billion, only $11.7 billion is verified.
Looking ahead, I estimate the USAID saving to be $9 billion. I am willing to assume verified saving will grow and some of the savings will be annual, at least for a few years, but not permanently.
Place a number on that. How will it be spent?
Musk’ Ridiculous and Contradictory Claims
Recall that Musk proposed finding $2 trillion in waste. He later dropped that to $1 trillion.
It’s now at a claimed $150 billion, including PABS.
Musk claims he will use the money to pay down the deficit. Hells bells, the increase in military spending alone eats up more than $150 billion even if you are silly enough to believe that number.
More Musk Magic
Please consider this bit of PABS. James Fishback, CEO of Azoria makes the case for a DOGE Dividend Check.
Not only will Musk pay down debt and help balance the budget, he also proposed $5,000 dividend checks to taxpayers to distribute the savings.
Fishback is a proud sponsor of PABS.
But for those who believe in magic, DOGE will save $2 trillion, take $400 billion of that and give DOGE Dividend Checks.
Musk signed on to this nonsense of giving away $400 billion of $150 billion of which only $11.7 billion is verified.
That’s PABS at its finest.
Related Posts
December 18, 2024: Do You Have Any Faith that Sheriff DOGE Will Reduce the Fiscal Deficit?
Before you answer, we need to define the word “faith” and the word “reduce”?
December 27, 2024: Can DOGE Cut $2 Trillion Out of $1 Trillion? What About Revenue?
The answer to the first question is obvious. So let’s discuss what’s reasonable.
January 10, 2025: Elon Musk Admits DOGE Can’t Find $2 Trillion In Budget Cuts
Anyone with an ounce of common sense knew that wasn’t possible. He won’t find $1 trillion either.
February 17, 2025: DOGE Makes Huge Mistake Firing Nuclear Workers, Now Seeks to Rehire Them
When you fire people without understanding what they even do, you make big mistakes.
March 30: Politically Clueless DOGE Disrupts the National Parks
After the fiasco with nuclear workers, one might have thought DOGE would think about needs before more mass firings.
Musk’s Claim: Democrats gave Millions of Illegals Social Security Numbers
Finally, since I was directly asked, please consider Musk’s Claim: Democrats gave Millions of Illegals Social Security Numbers
I go over point-by-point why the claim is at a minimum, mostly PABS.
To the extent Musk puts a spotlight on issues, fine, but I a tired of his needless lies, exaggerations, and reckless processes.
I fully support the idea of DOGE. I encourage states to do the same. But I draw the line and reckless processes and PABS reporting.
Addendum Hoot of the Day
The issue more so than the claimed “null values” problem is that many Cobol applications used 6-digit dates: YYMMDD or MMDDYY. When 1999 rolled over to 2000 the 99 became 00.
Oops. Date difference calculations became nonsense.
Depending on how the code was “patched” instead of fixed, you could get very young or very old people collecting benefits.
It appears the Government patched different system, different ways, resulting in different types of date nonsense.
This is how you get 150 year-old people and 5-year old people collecting benefits.
There was a mad-dash in banking applications to change code and files to fix this and I had a lead technical role.
I am not anti-Trump.
I am anti-stupidity and non-partisan.
I defended Trump at least a dozen times on Tax charges and other stuff.
And I blasted Biden countless times.
Few people actually look at the issues and I am one of them.
I have been accused 4 times, in the same day, of being Extreme Right and Extreme Left.
I am a Libertarian and don’t like any of them. I support policies, not parties.
The party in power tends to get the most blasts, and Trump Deserves them. No mor no less.
Biden is past, Trump is present.
On that topic of ideology only, Libertarianism is great if all people and all countries are non-cheaters. And if all conditions are pretty much the same.
But I’m still unclear as to “how much” libertarianism a country can accept before it disintegrates. (i) Either because some people will abuse the concept, (ii) or because another country with a completely different mindset will destroy yours, (iii) or because if something goes wrong, nobody will be able to fix it without betraying the principles of libertarianism itself. Or because the public tends to see only black & white when they vote (no shades of grey).
What if the Trump admin collapses and you get AOC (current democrat “rising star”) all of a sudden, because of a huge Bernie population among the Z gen and the Millenials? Will you then say “Well I didn’t mean that, I only meant shades of grey, I’m an intellectual“. Good luck explaining that after the elections.
DOGE is not perfect (it’s the first attempt, right?), but it brought up the issue that some kind of DOGE is needed once in a while.
Let this sink in: Except in cases of national security – the US is a huge beneficiary of cheap goods from China.
It would be idiotic to try to manufacture clothes, shoes, etc here.
Idiotic – for obvious reasons.
why is it the job of US to police the 7 seas and all continents? could we just go back to policing the americas, and maybe after that, just north america. we can respond to any real threats to usa or allies by being much stronger from being more solvent and less despised. i’m dreaming i know. only the libertarians and greens get this.
Wealthy Americans have trillions of dollars invested all over the world in all kinds of enterprises. That must be safeguarded. They also have trillions invested in the American military- industrial complex. Which provides good-paying jobs to millions of hardworking, patriotic Americans.
<<Except in cases of national security>> This includes a lot of factories. Russia was able to re-purpose such factories and exceeded the weapons-producing capacity of the entire West! I agree about shoes etc., though India is a candidate producer for those too.
Keep in mind that the Chinese are not libertarians, they’re the opposite.
I get so tired of identity politics…I’m with you Mish, let’s debate actual policies not the latest identity politics amplified BS.
Chuckling at the latest Bernie tour where everybody with TDS can go feel like they are doing something. Bernie is the only populist slightly on the left with any kind of popularity and I don’t think AOC has the populist cred and has to take over the Bernie bros folks and build it into a maga like movement more to the left..
What we really need to do is get a whole lot of money back outta politics
Bernie is not “slightly” on the left – he’s a full blown socialist. He’s also a pushover, and under a Bernie regime he’ll be the only one not governing (instead you’ll get the most radical democrats actually governing).
They tried it in Vermont, but if they get presidency, they’ll have the federal credit card to play with: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/why-vermonts-single-payer-effort-failed-and-what-democrats-can-learn-from-it/2019/04/29/c9789018-3ab8-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html
Thanks for this article Mike. Good write up!
NY Times analysis shows much of DOGE’s “savings” claims are unsupported by evidence at best, most likely fake: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/us/politics/doge-contracts-savings.html
DOGE is a sideshow
No money is being saved .
Government spending is 7% over last year .
Good soundbites for the Trump cheerleaders but it’s not true.
Also, with all this fraud being revealed , where are the arrests?
11.7 billion…..pretty close to the trillion goal if you were an ant. I have become sick and tired of Trump’s blowhard presidency. We will will release the Epstein files…..the JFK files (note if the JFK files had nothing in them they wouldn’t have fought for 70 decades to keep them confidential….we’ll tariff all our partners…..well we’ll make announcements about tariffs but never actually implement them….etc etc, a clown show.
DOGE is run by a serial liar that reports to the Liar-In-Chief so the report from the Elon is GIGO (garbage in garbage out). DOGE has been run by rank amateurs that decided to use a meat axe instead of a scalpel at the revenue, investment and expenses of the federal government while not consulting with those that have much more knowledge about the funding and spending.
Musk was ridiculed by Rubio at one cabinet meeting.
Where there is smoke there is fire so how many congressional representatives, agency and department heads have also questioned Elon’s magical cuts?
The DOGE process has been a distraction and an attempt to justify the renewal of the billionaire tax cuts, raise defense spending, and increasing tariffs (a tax increase on those buying sales taxed merchandise from abroad).
Trump has broken the international trading system with no reflection or analysis of the impact on the bond, energy, car, stock markets; trade and financial flows, derivatives, national security and loss of allies at worst and at best the lack of trust in the US going forward due to the chaos the Trump administration has sown.
The people being terminated are given quite generous severance packages, so there is no up-front cost savings. It is actually the opposite.
I live next to Kennedy Space Center. Neighbor across the street was going to retire in May. Took the payout to retire early and is now being paid through the end of the year. Still wanting to work, he took a consulting gig with a different branch of NASA locally for $200/hour. The consulting job came open because the employee who had it was on probation and had to be cut. Pure shit show. One instance where Doge is claiming cuts but actually increasing spending. Amateurs.
zero. its all hearsay being paraded as fact with not one iota of proof.
What do you expect from grifters who manipulate stocks and coins for their own profit…
Musk is yesterday’s news.
He actually hasn’t been in the news much, since Trump told him to start wearing a suit.
And he’s not being allowed to touch Defense – heard that from DOD employees.
Too bad. DOD is where the real money is. Lost $12 trillion. That looks like the obvious place to start.
And get rid of some of those foreign military bases.
Carney’s Checkmate: How Canada’s Quiet Bond Play Forced Trump to Drop TariffsCarney, Japan And The EU proved America’s Idiot Emperor Has No Clothes https://deanblundell.substack.com/p/carneys-checkmate-how-canadas-quiet?utm_source=publication-search
The one part of government spending that, AFAIK, DOGE has not touched is the largest and, I would bet, the most corrupt, the Pentagon. I will put no credence whatever in anything DOGE or Trump say or do about government spending until I see some serious efforts on the Department of Defense.
the department of war and her contractors will not be trimmed a penny. it is going to be increased per the Rs budget
Of course not. And that is why DOGE and the entire Drumpf administration are non-serious undertakings.
DOGE is just getting started. Savings cannot begin until expected Democrat obstructionist court challenged are squelched by the Supreme Court. Entire departments and agencies can be eliminated.
Democrat or Republican. Matters not. The government is going to spend to oblivion.
Oblivion =Bankruptcy
Our children and grandchildren will be the beneficiaries.
Next round of QE coming right up.
“Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the Convention du Mètre.”
I see no problem there, as there are about 10 retired COBOL programmers in their 80-tees as they work from Caribbean islands. A really stable future proof system.
And don’t let me start about the default date falling back to the Convention du Metre of 1875. Brilliant idea.
Mitch, why don’t you do an article on the two years of crisis spending Biden did of 8%? During the great recession they did 10% crisis spending.
I hope they cut to the bone. You were anti Trump last time and I see you have resumed your biased opinion.
I am not anti-Trump.
I am anti-stupidity and non-partisan.
I defended Trump at least a dozen times on Tax charges and other stuff.
And I blasted Biden countless times.
Few people actually look at the issues and I am one of them.
I have been accused 4 times, in the same day, of being Extreme Right and Extreme Left.
I am a Libertarian and don’t like any of them. I support policies, not parties.
The party in power tends to get the most blasts, and Trump Deserves them. No mor no less.
Biden is past, Trump is present.
who or what processes enforces collects all of this confusing tariff/doge mess A! or ANOTHER behemoth bureaucracy ??
When does the USG’s credit rating drop?
Donald Trump’s erratic tariff rollout seems likely to deepen the world’s dependence on China and scare off investment in US reindustrialization, undermining his own administration’s stated goals. There’s no art to this incoherent, self-destructive deal.
The COBOL date thing is indefensible and yet you have people that have zero comprehension of software design acting like it’s no big deal. In a system like Social Security, where it is driven by the age of the recipient, this should be a required field. In other words, there should never be a null value that would cause COBOL to drop to the default. That is pure s*** design if that was allowed it renders the entire application worthless. Imagine a speed detector that when it gets a bad read, assigns the highest possible speed to the target instead of ignoring or discarding the read. Then imagine the police officer pulling over the person and writing them a ticket based on the faulty.read. Only instead of a ticket a ss check is issued. What musk should have done, but, probably wasn’t allowed to is search the transaction db for the bad date accounts from the reference db.
And just as an FYI, the reference database was probably kept to verify and set up a payee accounts in the treasury system, So if the data is bad in the reference db, it probably is bad in the payment system.
The issue more so than the claimed “null values” problem is that many Cobol applications used 6-digit dates.
YYMMDD or MMDDYY.
when 1999 rolled over to 2000 the 99 became 00. Oops. Date difference calculations became nonsense.
There was a mad-dash in banking applications to change code and files to fix this. It was a huge problem. Social Security and other government programs never fixed the issue.
This is how you get 150 year-old people.
If this system was allowed to go on is enough justification for DOGE.
It’s not the details, it’s the whole idea or allowing it to be on a dead programming language.
When COBOL was king, relational databases didn’t exist. Wonder how the data is kept.
What percentage of the population doesn’t know their actual birth date? Small, sure, but what is your design solution that still guarantees they get a SS check?
You obviously have no clue what you’re talking about. The date issue has nothing to do with the field being required or not. Sure, you can make a field required, but what do you do if you don’t know what value will go in the field for whatever business reason, required or not? You then need to mark the field as a null. Since COBOL doesn’t have the concept of nulls in date fields you must choose some date value to indicate “unknown value”. In the SSA’s system that date is 1875-05-20. Musk’s and his minions appear to not be familiar with this concept, nor do they seem to be interested in having someone explain it to them either. This is not surprising given their general level of incompetence.
DOGE is not about money – it’s about surveillance and control.
FREE SNOWDEN!
Zero its all hearsay numbers to hoodwink the uneducated sheeple
Trump backing off electronics tariffs….more winning please….strategy going exactly as planned.
All kidding aside, anyone that doesn’t understand that this country is financially doomed should just go back to watching TV and eating chips.
There is no solution — there is no hope — this was all underway long before Trump.
Will Trump be the final bag-holder? Maybe, maybe not. My guess is the Establishment would love that to be the case, it would put an end to this populist movement that had been a thorn in their side since Rick Santelli’s rant on CNBC that kicked off the Tea party.
There’s a plan?
Yes…and you need to trust it.
Just trust the plan.
It’s like trusting in G0D – in that it’s trusting in something that doesn’t exist
Printed right there on the back of all US currency
The original currency said payable on demand or silver certificate.
Edgy
Just back from the last Kamala rally?
Show me the plan … And I’ll show you G0D.
We have to destroy the government to save it.
“this country is financially doomed”
In the last 2 years there’s a 500% or more spike in my translation work of resumes of new migrants coming here from Europe. As a former European myself, with regular contact with old friends (Greece and Italy) and family (Greece and Germany), and travelling there once in a while, even the current situation in the US looks a lot better than in Europe. I think it’s more healthy to see things comparatively.
I agree 100%
UK is toast….Europe proper is in collapse…and the EU is bankrupt.
But hey, at least every street corner has kebabs!