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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Sadly, you can put this headline right in front of most Trump supporters and they'll insist it's all deep-state lies (as the Trump admin continues to drain their pockets).

[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.

How much in lost work hours did that 5-bullets shenanigan cost?

[Anonymous]

And when we factor in lost productivity, lost IRS revenues etc, it comes out as a big win, for someone, but not the average US taxpayer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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 up 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.

The American Enterprise Institute is saying the figure is closer to $10B

“The Department of Government Efficiency's claims that it's saving more than $140 billion by cancelling contracts is overstated. New analysis from the American Enterprise Institute finds the savings are much closer to about $10 billion. Nat Malkus, the deputy director of Education Policy Studies at AEI, reviewed the contract data DOGE posted to highlight the amount of money agencies obligated versus how much they actually spent. It came out to be much smaller than what DOGE claimed the total value of the contracts were worth. Additionally, AEI said until the White House asks Congress for, and lawmakers approve a rescission of funding, they money stays on the books and savings aren't real.”

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/federal-newscast/2025/04/is-doge-overstating-its-savings-claims/

[Anonymous]

DOGE/DHS on the brink of shutting down domestic WMD attack preparedness.

On what planet is this money worth saving?

[Anonymous]

Great, and tens of thousands of good workers (fed and fed adjacent) have been and will be forced out of their jobs, too. For nothing.

No telling what the actual cost to this country will be. I’m not sure we will ever know. This is such a shameful period for America.

[Anonymous]

I will say that the good thing about Elon is that he admits when he is wrong. He was totally naive about government. Now he knows. Some people think he was all good and some people think he was all bad. Obviously someone is wrong here and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

I think we can agree that there is a debt problem that needs to be fixed. I doubt that will happen anytime soon given the political divide. We need a pragmatic middle of the road approach, but we are seriously no where close to that approach.

[Anonymous]

The lowest March budget deficit in 5 years. About $30 billion in less spending and $30 billion in higher revenues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I will say that the good thing about Elon is that he admits when he is wrong. He was totally naive about government. Now he knows. Some people think he was all good and some people think he was all bad. Obviously someone is wrong here and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

I think we can agree that there is a debt problem that needs to be fixed. I doubt that will happen anytime soon given the political divide. We need a pragmatic middle of the road approach, but we are seriously no where close to that approach.

I give Musk no credit for recognizing that government is hard and different than what he knows. On the contrary, his 'error' is a reflection of his horribly, vastly outsized ego. He imagined that he and his minions are the smartest people in the world, and everyone in government is idiots. Had he an ounce of humility, he had a plenty of information at his fingertips to the contrary.

His hubris and recklessness is unforgiveable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The lowest March budget deficit in 5 years. About $30 billion in less spending and $30 billion in higher revenues.

Great. And wait til you can add the fall in consumer spending and production and services. Yay for stagflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

They are still operating on the Biden budget which was an increase over last year's spending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Sadly, you can put this headline right in front of most Trump supporters and they'll insist it's all deep-state lies (as the Trump admin continues to drain their pockets).

100%. The MAGAs in my life do not believe anything that is not on Fox News or a local Fox affiliate. All news other than Fox News is fake news and liberal propaganda.

Unless Fox News starts reporting some of these lies, the MAGAs will live blissfully unaware.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

They are still operating on the Biden budget which was an increase over last year's spending.

And now the $4 trillion Trump tax cut will come into being. Let’s hear you MAGAs squeal about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I will say that the good thing about Elon is that he admits when he is wrong. He was totally naive about government. Now he knows. Some people think he was all good and some people think he was all bad. Obviously someone is wrong here and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

I think we can agree that there is a debt problem that needs to be fixed. I doubt that will happen anytime soon given the political divide. We need a pragmatic middle of the road approach, but we are seriously no where close to that approach.

No, he doesn’t. His arrogance was and continues to be astounding. Particularly for someone who has no experience, was not elected, and has no real role or accountability for his huge mistakes. The only “credit” he deserves is for the massive damage he has done to our government. A hostile actor could not have been more successful. This country is suffering greatly for it. The damage will last years— perhaps longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I will say that the good thing about Elon is that he admits when he is wrong. He was totally naive about government. Now he knows. Some people think he was all good and some people think he was all bad. Obviously someone is wrong here and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

I think we can agree that there is a debt problem that needs to be fixed. I doubt that will happen anytime soon given the political divide. We need a pragmatic middle of the road approach, but we are seriously no where close to that approach.

I will say that the good thing about Elon is that he admits when he is wrong.

He's a narcissist like Trump and rarely admits to making mistakes or downplays them. He's admitted that DOGE made some mistakes, but he doesn't admit to making mistakes personally. And when it comes to his businesses, he rarely admits mistakes. For example, he's been promising autonomous driving vehicles for ages and not delivering what he promises and not really admitting to failing to deliver on his promises. See below:

2019: Musk predicted that Tesla would have over a million robotaxis on the road by mid-2020.
2020: Musk claimed FSD would be “feature complete” by the end of the year.
2023: Musk admitted his previous timelines were overly optimistic but promised full autonomy “later this year.”

Or when he didn't immediately respond to the explosion of his Starship rocket on March 6th this year, later describing it as a "minor setback."

And, yes, we all agree the debt problem should be solved. It's just those of us who are not MAGA do not believe this particular administration is the right one to do it competently.