Ten months after the launch of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, one thing is clear: no one can agree on how much money it saved—or, in fact, whether it saved any money at all—and, if there were savings, what happened to them.
What if DOGE were done right? Here something else is clear: we have had the Government Accountability Office, founded as a green-eye-shade operation back in 1921 to audit every single government transaction. It’s grown into the indispensable watchdog on the federal government’s spending and operations. It’s what DOGE done right looks like.
At first, Musk promised to find $2 trillion in savings. Then the pledge dropped to $1 trillion. Then he struggled to document any savings at all.