@twenty call it whatever you want. What's the number?
The number of what? I don't know what question you are even asking.
DOGE went into Federal agencies and reviewed basically every open service contract. If they hit key words in the searches in the procurement database (basically whatever they considered DEI or "waste") they would terminate the contract. But most were contracts that had already had been mostly executed. And had limited ceiling left.
They quickly hit the realization that there wasn't much that they could do that would be impactful.
Example... One of the biggest spending blocks is DOD procurement, and those are multi year procurement plans. If you want to meaningfully cut spending you do it in the planning stages... Which means 3 to 4 years out, minimum before you really start to see an impact.
There is still some remnant of DOGE that reviews new acquisitions. But it's basically just another layer of buercracy at this point.
This idea that there is just all of this fraud within direct Federal spending executed by Federal Depts isn't grounded in reality . The controls are too tight for actual fraud of substantial scale.
When you get into block granting money to states for Medicaid, Transportation, Medicare reimbursement, etc... That's where things can go off the rails.
"Waste" well that really just comes down to the eye of the beholder. I don't like this, so it's wasteful, etc....
@aloha-hoosier no it's not. According to some people the number was 150+ billion. I just listened to Joe Lonsdale say 160 billion and he is a little closer to the situation than you😉 So we have numbers ranging from 0 to 160 billion. According to you and @twenty you think they found less than 1% waste and fraud.
@aloha-hoosier no it's not. According to some people the number was 150+ billion. I just listened to Joe Lonsdale say 160 billion and he is a little closer to the situation than you😉 So we have numbers ranging from 0 to 160 billion. According to you and @twenty you think they found less than 1% waste and fraud. You guys really do have big brains
Link it. I’ve read a lot of analysis and haven’t seen anything even close to that. They claimed they’d find a trillion or so. A few billion is the high I’ve seen, losing a 100 million or so is the low. Some people that don’t know squat about how the government works, like DOGE personnel themselves, thought it was a good thing. Those that know could see that it was a clown show from the start and were proven right.
Why? The cop who shot her was investigated by the DoJ and the Capitol Police and cleared of wrongdoing. So, there is no apparent reason for her to be paid.
Alex Pretti's family should file a claim.
Want to take bets as to whether Blanche would pay out?
@twenty DOGE was put out of our misery in early August last year.
As as stand alone group, yes. But the remaining staff was embedded in agency contracting shops and they still have to sign off on any procurement over a certain dollar.
@aloha-hoosier no it's not. According to some people the number was 150+ billion. I just listened to Joe Lonsdale say 160 billion and he is a little closer to the situation than you😉 So we have numbers ranging from 0 to 160 billion. According to you and @twenty you think they found less than 1% waste and fraud. You guys really do have big brains
Link it. I’ve read a lot of analysis and haven’t seen anything even close to that. They claimed they’d find a trillion or so. A few billion is the high I’ve seen, losing a 100 million or so is the low. Some people that don’t know squat about how the government works, like DOGE personnel themselves, thought it was a good thing. Those that know could see that it was a clown show from the start and were proven right.
I'll try this another way. You really believe DOGE went in there and couldn't find any waste or fraud? Doesn't that position seem a tad bit crazy when you stop and think about? You are literally believing that government institutions in charge of 100s of billion of dollars in spending have basically zero waste?
@snarlcakes bowl and hickory going on about handles under butch and hurrying Hoosier yet they both deny same as if there are two other people sharing the same horrible personalities 🤣.
now. On topic. The dirtier deal is that any claims the irs might have against Trump they are dismissing. Now that’s some sketch. He could pardon himself, I guess, but I wonder if those claims were in the tax court and not district court
Somehow their votes offset mine. It's really not fair.
Listen none of these communist b#tching about Trump's NGO cares about stealing or corruption. They're just mad Trump started his own NGO and he gets to dish out some cash to his team. Don't tell them, but it is fun watching them pretend to care.
Conservative DOGE savings estimates are in the same ballpark as this fund. One is outrageous corruption, the other should be ignored as meaningless. Which is which depends on your team. Partisans on both sides gonna partisan.
That’s the high end of estimates. Most are less and some estimate DOGE costs exceeded savings. It was worthless. I wholeheartedly support the goal of reducing spending and the size of government but this was not the right way to - and it failed as predicted.
No, that's not "the high end" of savings estimates. Per Gemini:
Low end:
Verified budget analyses and federal spending records estimate that the true, documentable savings from the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) contract cancellations and cuts are closer to $1.4 billion to $2.6 billion, a tiny fraction of the hundreds of billions initially claimed.
The conservative estimates vary depending on how the accounting is done.
Politico and NYT cited. If they admit it, I think you can, too.
Verified Contract Savings ($1.4B): Non-partisan analyses, including a https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/12/trump-doge-contract-claims-savings-inflation-00498178 ." data-copy-service-computed-style="font-family: "Google Sans", Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 500; margin: 0px; text-decoration: underline 1px rgb(26, 13, 171); border-bottom: 0px rgb(26, 13, 171);">Politico investigation, found that DOGE frequently calculated savings by looking at the maximum "ceiling value" of contracts (the total amount the government could theoretically spend over a decade) rather than the actual amount obligated or spent. Once accounting errors and duplicate claims were removed, actual identifiable contract savings were only about $1.4 billion.
Congressional Action Dependent ($2B - $7B): Budget hawks at think tanks like the https://manhattan.institute/article/the-actual-math-behind-doges-cuts ." data-copy-service-computed-style="font-family: "Google Sans", Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 500; margin: 0px; text-decoration: underline 1px rgb(26, 13, 171); border-bottom: 0px rgb(26, 13, 171);">Manhattan Institute estimate real-world savings to be in the $2 billion to $7 billion range. However, even these estimates are theoretical, as Congress must still officially rescind (claw back) those funds; otherwise, agencies are legally mandated to reallocate that money elsewhere.
High end:
The most liberal—and highest—published estimate of savings is approximately ** \(\$150 \text{ billion}\)**, a figure previously cited by DOGE and Elon Musk. However, independent analyses and government economists heavily dispute this number, with verified, documentable savings estimated to be much lower.
The Numbers at a Glance
DOGE’s Official Estimate: DOGE’s online dashboard lists over \(\sim \$150 \text{ billion}\) to \(\sim \$160 \text{ billion}\) in total claimed reductions from agency contracts, grants, and terminated building leases.
Independent Budget Analyses:Nonpartisan watchdogs (like theNew York Times and POLITICO) estimate the actual, hard dollar savings from the examined contract and grant cancellations are closer to ** \(\$1.4 \text{ billion}\) to \(\$8 \text{ billion}\)**, as DOGE frequently used "ceiling limits" rather than actual spent funds in its calculations.
This post was modified 2 days ago 3 times by BradStevens
@twenty DOGE was put out of our misery in early August last year.
As as stand alone group, yes. But the remaining staff was embedded in agency contracting shops and they still have to sign off on any procurement over a certain dollar.
I had heard that some were forced on agencies, but not how pervasive it was.
I'll try this another way. You really believe DOGE went in there and couldn't find any waste or fraud? Doesn't that position seem a tad bit crazy when you stop and think about? You are literally believing that government institutions in charge of 100s of billion of dollars in spending have basically zero waste?
The question is not: "Did DOGE not find any waste?"
DOGE found things that they considered waste and cut those programs / money.
The question is: "Did DOGE eliminate waste in excess of the cost it took them to perform their audit" which I am to understand was a substantial amount of money. So if they found 500 million in "waste" that's great, but if it cost them 400 million to do it, meh....not so great.
This post was modified 2 days ago 2 times by SqueakyClean
@aloha-hoosier no it's not. According to some people the number was 150+ billion. I just listened to Joe Lonsdale say 160 billion and he is a little closer to the situation than you😉 So we have numbers ranging from 0 to 160 billion. According to you and @twenty you think they found less than 1% waste and fraud. You guys really do have big brains
Link it. I’ve read a lot of analysis and haven’t seen anything even close to that. They claimed they’d find a trillion or so. A few billion is the high I’ve seen, losing a 100 million or so is the low. Some people that don’t know squat about how the government works, like DOGE personnel themselves, thought it was a good thing. Those that know could see that it was a clown show from the start and were proven right.
I'll try this another way. You really believe DOGE went in there and couldn't find any waste or fraud? Doesn't that position seem a tad bit crazy when you stop and think about? You are literally believing that government institutions in charge of 100s of billion of dollars in spending have basically zero waste?
I’m literally saying DOGE was destined to fail and they did.
@snarlcakes bowl and hickory going on about handles under butch and hurrying Hoosier yet they both deny same as if there are two other people sharing the same horrible personalities 🤣.
now. On topic. The dirtier deal is that any claims the irs might have against Trump they are dismissing. Now that’s some sketch. He could pardon himself, I guess, but I wonder if those claims were in the tax court and not district court
Somehow their votes offset mine. It's really not fair.
Listen none of these communist b#tching about Trump's NGO cares about stealing or corruption. They're just mad Trump started his own NGO and he gets to dish out some cash to his team. Don't tell them, but it is fun watching them pretend to care.
Conservative DOGE savings estimates are in the same ballpark as this fund. One is outrageous corruption, the other should be ignored as meaningless. Which is which depends on your team. Partisans on both sides gonna partisan.
That’s the high end of estimates. Most are less and some estimate DOGE costs exceeded savings. It was worthless. I wholeheartedly support the goal of reducing spending and the size of government but this was not the right way to - and it failed as predicted.
No, that's not "the high end" of savings estimates. Per Gemini:
Low end:
Verified budget analyses and federal spending records estimate that the true, documentable savings from the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) contract cancellations and cuts are closer to $1.4 billion to $2.6 billion, a tiny fraction of the hundreds of billions initially claimed.
The conservative estimates vary depending on how the accounting is done.
Politico and NYT cited. If they admit it, I think you can, too.
Verified Contract Savings ($1.4B): Non-partisan analyses, including a https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/12/trump-doge-contract-claims-savings-inflation-00498178 ." data-copy-service-computed-style="font-family: "Google Sans", Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 500; margin: 0px; text-decoration: underline 1px rgb(26, 13, 171); border-bottom: 0px rgb(26, 13, 171);">Politico investigation, found that DOGE frequently calculated savings by looking at the maximum "ceiling value" of contracts (the total amount the government could theoretically spend over a decade) rather than the actual amount obligated or spent. Once accounting errors and duplicate claims were removed, actual identifiable contract savings were only about $1.4 billion.
Congressional Action Dependent ($2B - $7B): Budget hawks at think tanks like the https://manhattan.institute/article/the-actual-math-behind-doges-cuts ." data-copy-service-computed-style="font-family: "Google Sans", Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 500; margin: 0px; text-decoration: underline 1px rgb(26, 13, 171); border-bottom: 0px rgb(26, 13, 171);">Manhattan Institute estimate real-world savings to be in the $2 billion to $7 billion range. However, even these estimates are theoretical, as Congress must still officially rescind (claw back) those funds; otherwise, agencies are legally mandated to reallocate that money elsewhere.
High end:
The most liberal—and highest—published estimate of savings is approximately ** \(\$150 \text{ billion}\)**, a figure previously cited by DOGE and Elon Musk. However, independent analyses and government economists heavily dispute this number, with verified, documentable savings estimated to be much lower.
The Numbers at a Glance
DOGE’s Official Estimate: DOGE’s online dashboard lists over \(\sim \$150 \text{ billion}\) to \(\sim \$160 \text{ billion}\) in total claimed reductions from agency contracts, grants, and terminated building leases.
Independent Budget Analyses:Nonpartisan watchdogs (like theNew York Times and POLITICO) estimate the actual, hard dollar savings from the examined contract and grant cancellations are closer to ** \(\$1.4 \text{ billion}\) to \(\$8 \text{ billion}\)**, as DOGE frequently used "ceiling limits" rather than actual spent funds in its calculations.
High end of what I’ve seen but still an abject failure even if true.
