DOGE was created by Executive Order on January 20, 2025. The initial responsibilities for DOGE included "modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity," the co-creation of a plan for the reduction of the Federal Government workforce, and the co-creation of a Federal hiring plan based on "merit, practical skill, and dedication to our Constitution."

In the weeks following, DOGE's responsibility and influence expanded to include:

DOGE claims they saved 115B. Their Wall of Receipts only totals 65B.

As of March 18, 2025, DOGE's estimated savings are $115B. However, the total of the data on claimed savings that they post is only $65B.

$48B in cancelled contracts + $17B in cancelled grants + <$1B in cancelled leases = $65B

See our daily summary of DOGE data in the Spotlight on DOGE dataset to see for yourself.

DOGE Transparency Request: Publish the details showing how the $115B estimate on doge.gov was made and include supporting detail data.

DOGE implies that downsizing the Federal Workforce will balance the budget. It will not.

The 2024 budget deficit was 1830B. Spotlight on DOGE estimates the downsizing done so far will save ~20B / year. There are 2.2M employees in the Federal Workforce. The target percentages for the downsizing have not been published by DOGE. However, even if DOGE cuts 25% of the Federal Workforce, it will only save ~50B / year. They need to find a lot more to balance the budget.

DOGE Transparency Ask: Please publish your target overall percentage cuts by agency and reasoning. If this is considered confidential unclassified information, then at least publish the exact number of people terminated by agency, the total of their compensation. Please publish your estimates of attrition and the number of employees each month that quit.

According to Multiple Federal Contracting Experts, DOGE is Calculating Savings Incorrectly.

Many Federal Contracts are like the limit on your credit card. They are a maximum that you can spend and you will likely rarely reach that limit. Imagine if you opened a credit card with a $10,000 limit, but you did not use it. Then someone told you they saved you $10,000 by canceling your credit card for you. That is how DOGE calculates their savings on many canceled contracts. This is not correct and is very misleading.

Besides this, there are many other nuances in how Federal Contracts work that bring DOGE savings claims into question. Spotlight on DOGE is working with Federal contracting efforts to update our DOGE datasets with accurate estimates. Results will be posted as part of our datasets very soon for the community to review. If you would like to join the analysis, click Get Involved.

As DOGE makes little cuts, the deficit problem grows bigger.

The new budget resolution proposes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest 5% of Americans (see chart below). On the House floor, Representatives say they believe there are Trillions in fraud in the government which they say DOGE is uncovering and they imply will pay for that tax cut. However, DOGE claims to have saved $115 billion which covers less than 3% of the tax cuts and it will likely be far less once we have finished our analysis. So how do you pay for the difference? Yet again, increase the deficit and cut more programs.

In other words, while DOGE is making tiny cuts that seem big, Congress is spending big based on savings they do not have.

None of DOGE's receipts show evidence of fraud or abuse.

DOGE claims that they are revealing fraud, but the government contracts they have published have always been freely available public records. These records were not hidden or falsified. All spending was legally authorized by Congress.

DOGE Transparency Request: Provide the list of contract identifiers that show fraudulent spend and the law that was broken.