Political attacks on waste and fraud have been a part of the US experiment since the founding of the republic.  Alexander Hamilton was famously required to provide detailed reports to Congress on his spending (back in the day when Congress provided legitimate oversight on the Executive – so quaint a thought, isn’t it?).  This evolved over time to its wide spread invective as a critique of government spending – pork-barrel spending became a commonly used phrase over 150 years ago.  Some politicians were so persistent in their harangues on waste that they issued awards for the most egregious – Senator William Proxmire’s Golden Fleece Award was issued each month during a 13 year stretch, often picked up by the news media and frequently resulting in legislation that culled the waste.  

In its early days, Congress relied on the Executive Branch to report on its own wasteful spending and report back – I’m uncertain which President was looking to step up and show all of the ways they were misspending the public’s dimes.  Eventually, audit functions were added to the government, as a control mechanism, and finally in the late 1970s the Inspector General Act was passed to prevent and detect waste, criminal fraud and abuse.  Each year, the Office of Inspector Generals reports to Congress on areas of efficiency and savings they’ve found – over $82B in their last report, plus over $10B in investigative identified from criminal referrals they initiated.  Their overall return on investment – over $20 for every dollar spent on OIG offices.  Now that’s a great investment of the American taxpayer’s dollars!  It’s a shame that one of the first things that the new administration did was fire nearly all of the inspector generals in the government (at least the one’s that were filled) with no replacements nominated.

But that’s OK, they said – we have DOGE to come to the rescue!  With about 100 people with no experience in auditing or working in government, they will accomplish even more than the 70+ independent Inspectors General accomplish (with their $3.5B annual budgets).  They (and by they I mean Elon Musk) talk a great game – loads of fraud, waste, corruption found.  Rather than sign on to savings already identified Inspector General findings, they take their own indescribable approach. Their website proclaims that they’ve saved $55B already from downsizing federal employment, terminating leases, cancelling DEI contracts, etc.  All for a budget of only $40M (money largely absconded by the administration from technology upgrade appropriations).  Yet for all of this bluster, and a ‘transparent’ disclosure of savings, the actual accomplishments of this group has proven to be miniscule when compared to even our federal budget deficit of $1.9 trillion dollars.  They claim $55B on their website, but numerous detailed examinations of the supporting data has shown the number to be far short of that – only $7.2B as of this writing.  And not one criminal referral to the Justice Department – where’s all the fraud they are stopping?

And what of the government layoffs?  The DOGE approach appears to be little more than the budget cutter’s version of pin the tail on the donkey – blindly indiscriminate layoffs with no assessment of their value. Probationary employees (essentially anyone that hasn’t been in their position for 18 months to 2 years) have been fired, with letters going out to them indicating that their performance was inadequate.  What has that included?  Five percent of the National Park Service, resulting in closures of parks and popular trails all over the US as well as long lines to get into the ones that are open.  Layoffs of people manning the VA crisis line, of immigration judges (you know, those folks employed to largely reject asylum claims), OSHA employees responsible for ensuring firefighter safety, FAA employees responsible for air navigation maps (just following 2 airline collisions) and even firing people that accepted the ‘severance’ package offered a couple of weeks ago – this is the waste they are finding?  How about the firing of the employees responsible for investigating the bird flu, or the employees responsible for managing our nuclear arsenal, or the folks managing the World Trade Center health compensation program – all dismissals that the government is attempting to rescind following the embarrassment and uproar over their firings.  Not to mention the fact that 30% of the federal workforce are veterans – yes, it is likely that a third of the layoffs are coming to those who honorably served this country and decided that they wished to continue to serve it through government service.  Frankly, I can’t describe the idiocy of these actions as well as Senator Angus King’s speech on the Senate floor this week – it is worth listening to every minute!

But this administration is not one to let incompetence and embarrassment get in the way of their point.  They’re most recent idea to promote DOGE savings is to rebate 20% of it to taxpayers.  And 20% would pay down our national debt!  But with our deficits approaching $2 trillion annually, we would need to take out a loan to pay for it – nothing accomplished.  Except a fraud on the American people.

And the national disgrace continues…