DOGE Cuts Now Into the Billions: White House
By Nathan Worcester for The Epoch Times
After three weeks, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has made over $1 billion in cuts, according to to numbers from the White House.
DOGE also ended a $748 million contract for a new embassy in South Sudan.
Smaller cuts hit subscriptions for the news outlet Politico from NASA—$500,000—and $26 million in contracts for “executive coaching” and “strategic communication.”
DOGE’s X account unveiled almost $1 billion in additional cuts on the evening of Feb. 10.
Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah), co-chair of the bipartisan House DOGE Caucus, told The Epoch Times DOGE was “going through and creating some waves—and they’re definitely creating some airwaves.”
Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) told The Epoch Times that DOGE was designed “to take from the poor to give to the rich.”
The DOGE Fight
DOGE is a time-limited organization repurposed from the United States Digital Services and situated in the Executive Office of the President. Before Election Day in 2024, Trump announced his intentions to create DOGE and place tech entrepreneur Musk, by that point a key campaign benefactor, at its helm.
Its interactions with other executive-branch agencies, including the Department of Labor and the Treasury Department, have sparked protests attended by Democrats from the House and Senate, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).’
DOGE and its advocates have toted up wins and losses in the courts, where litigation concerning the commission and its employees is proliferating.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for Feb. 14.
The cuts and legal maneuvers are playing out as Musk and DOGE’s engineers face threats, including on social media.
A review of material on the social media platform Bluesky by The Epoch Times found numerous posts naming and, in multiple cases, threatening Musk and DOGE staff. One anonymous user named various DOGE engineers, referring to them as “Nazi scum” before adding, “The only good nazi is a dead nazi.”
As Musk and his engineers surf a wave of reaction, economists concerned about the debt and deficit have responded to DOGE’s cuts with both enthusiasm and skepticism.
Ryan Bourne, who co-authored a report on DOGE for the libertarian Cato Institute, told The Epoch Times in an email that DOGE “could have a big qualitative impact, both on permanently changing the character of the civil service and undermining public trust in certain programs through a drumbeat of stories about wasteful spending.”
“You have to stop cutting taxes and then address Social Security, Medicare, defense, and a lot of other popular programs. Wake me when the GOP goes there,” Riedl wrote, adding, “Don’t brag about your coupon-clipping frugality at the same time you are buying a $250,000 Ferrari.”
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisc.), a retired Navy Seal, is handling the Veterans Affairs and Pentagon portfolios for the House DOGE Caucus.
“I could very, very reasonably cut tens of billions of dollars and improve veterans’ experiences, health care outcomes, education benefits. And we can do the same thing with the Department of Defense—get rid of these legacy programs that aren’t working, and then we’ll increase lethality and readiness,” he told The Epoch Times.
He would not comment on whether the outcome would be a lower overall Defense Department budget—a sticking point for many congressional Republicans seeking more money for the Pentagon.
Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), another pro-DOGER, said DOGE’s concern with Medicare or Social Security is confined to spotting “improper payments.” Medicaid, he told The Epoch Times, presents more opportunities for immediate reform.
“I think there are ways we can make these systems work and save quite a bit,” he said of the federal government’s large social programs.
“If we get to that point after we address the low-hanging fruit and we still have a problem, then at that point, we can address that,” Burlison added.
“The US does need that great reform. But this isn’t the time. Get through the first year, maybe build a record of success,” Cochrane wrote on his blog, The Grumpy Economist.
Bourne, of the Cato Institute, also sees DOGE as a potential on-ramp for larger changes.
“Some might argue that the only way to get buy-in for entitlement reform in the future is to show the public you’ve made every effort to root out waste, mismanagement, and non-priority spending areas from the budget already,” he told The Epoch Times.
He said he suspects federal lawmakers must act to shore up DOGE’s moves—a goal that could face resistance in a narrowly divided Congress caught in perpetual battles over funding.
On the other side of the aisle, Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) have introduced packages of DOGE-related bills. Ernst created the Senate’s DOGE Caucus, of which Lankford is also a member.
Moore said he had not recently communicated with DOGE, though there was some communication when it began.
In time, the parallel work in the executive and legislative branches “will converge,” Moore added.