Musk Drastically Lowers Estimate on How Much Money DOGE will "Save" Taxpayers

[Anonymous]

Typical Elon Musk. So much noise, and so few results. Turns out firing thousands of federal workers doesn't give you the cost savings you've been bragging you can achieve. Higher taxes on billionaires would help close that gap and put the country on a firmer fiscal footing...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/10/us/politics/musk-doge-drops-goal.html

In Cabinet Meeting, Musk Seems to Drastically Lower DOGE’s Savings Goal
Musk said his group was on pace to cut $150 billion from the federal budget in one budget year. That would be a sharp drop from his previous stated goal of $1 trillion.

While stumping for Donald J. Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign, Elon Musk said he could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. After Mr. Trump took office and placed Mr. Musk in charge of the budget-slashing so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Mr. Musk lowered that projection by half, to $1 trillion in the upcoming fiscal year.

In a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Mr. Musk appeared to set his group’s goal lower still.

“I’m excited to announce that we anticipate savings in ’26 from reduction of waste and fraud by $150 billion,” Mr. Musk told Mr. Trump, referring to the fiscal year, which runs from the beginning of October 2025 to the end of September 2026.

Mr. Musk’s group has slashed budgets and fired thousands of workers around Washington, but so far the DOGE website indicates that it remains far from reaching his goal of $1 trillion in savings next year. As of Thursday, the site claimed $150 billion in savings, with an itemized list of some of the purported cuts.

[Anonymous]

I mean did he specify over how many headed?

[Anonymous]

He’s still not factoring in all the most he’s costing the government. DOGE is costing is over $500b in lost revenue. It’s become a major deficit driver.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He’s still not factoring in all the most he’s costing the government. DOGE is costing is over $500b in lost revenue. It’s become a major deficit driver.

So, $150b - $500b = - $350b

This should be the headline of every newspaper.

[Anonymous]

It was never about saving money. It was about tossing red meat to the MAGA hordes by making government workers suffer. Mission accomplished.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was never about saving money. It was about tossing red meat to the MAGA hordes by making government workers suffer. Mission accomplished.

Also to remove regulation and programs they disagree with without having to go through pesky congress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It was never about saving money. It was about tossing red meat to the MAGA hordes by making government workers suffer. Mission accomplished.

Also to remove regulation and programs they disagree with without having to go through pesky congress.

Those pesky cancer research programs!

[Anonymous]

It was never about deficit or efficiency, It has always been about dismantling government. GOP derangement about the so-called "deep state" and their lies about how regulation supposedly does more harm than good.

All done with lies. There were no "transgender mouse studies" or "millions spent on condoms for Gaza" or "millions of social security checks sent out to 150 year old vampires" or "millions for drag shows for epileptic dwarves in Kazakhstan" or whatever other daily BS "receipts" he's been touting. Lie after lie after lie. There were never going to be "DOGE rebate checks" or trillions saved.

Wake up, Republicans. Stop rationalizing yourselves into thinking you need to believe or go along with this garbage.

[Anonymous]

I will be interested in seeing actual tax revenues after gutting the IRS and more.

But I also don't trust the government to report actuals.

[Anonymous]

DOGE isn't about having taxpayers money. DOGE about about stealing data that can be connected and dismantling specific offices that had oversight of Musk's businesses.

[Anonymous]

The other piece of news that belongs with this story is that a WSJ analysis of Treasury Dept statements found that government spending since the inauguration is $154 billion MORE than the same period in 2024 when Biden was president.

So, while purporting to save American taxpayers money by gutting the government, spendy billionaire Trump is actually spending MORE money than Biden did during the same period.

The headline from the WSJ article:

See How Government Spending Is Up Even as Musk Touts Savings: Musk team’s $150 billion in savings barely dents $6.8 trillion in spending largely on autopilot, WSJ analysis finds.

[Anonymous]

So, in the best possible case, not accounting for reduced economic activity as a result of the savings, the US will break even this year on the revenue losses from the Tax Cuts and Jobs act (estimated to be ~$1.5T over ten years). So, no improvement has been made on the budget deficit as a result of these efforts.

I am all for cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, and also for reducing the size of government, but the latter needs to come from Congress, not a dictator, and the former needs to be done legally, with full accountability, not by unaccountable "special government employees" with significant conflicts of interest.

[Anonymous]

DOGE has crippled the federal workforce for a generation. How much will that help? Hope Wall Street bros enjoy it when it takes a decade to get a bank merger approved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DOGE isn't about having taxpayers money. DOGE about about stealing data that can be connected and dismantling specific offices that had oversight of Musk's businesses.

While collecting more payments to Musk.

[Anonymous]

This WSJ article outline just how bad DOGE is

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-doge-government-spending-increases-5903992d?mod=hp_lead_pos7