Checking DOGE's math

Are Elon and company really saving as much as they claimed?

Earlier this week, I hosted an American Enterprise Institute panel that looked at some of the work of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It was a nonpartisan gathering of experts that focused primarily on the cuts that DOGE has made.

My colleague Nat Malkus had a VERY interesting presentation. You can watch a short clip of it above. (And please do!)

Nat’s a guy who thinks there is plenty of waste to be trimmed, and he gave DOGE props a couple of times for its efforts. Nonetheless, when he analyzed the DOGE receipts for contract cancellations and found three issues:

(1) The claimed cost-savings are way higher than the actual savings;

(2) the errant numbers flow from an errant definition formula for calculating the savings; and

(3) in some cases the DOGE’s method for determining cuts was inconsistent.

You can watch Nat Malkus’s full presentation, which was superb, below. It is very worth your time.

Nobody on the panel could give an estimate as to how much savings might have been achieved through the downsizing of federal employees. In part, that is due to the fact that some of the firings are being challenged in court, and some workers have been restored to their positions. In part this is due to nobody outside the Donald J. Trump administration knowing who has been fired and what their compensation was. Getting those numbers will take a while.