16 hours ago
DOGE gets failing grade
1: The DOGE numbers don't add up.
Calculating how much DOGE has saved is difficult, but it's not at all hard to see that it didn't deliver what was promised.
After Musk revised down his own early projection of DOGE savings from $2 trillion to $1 trillion, the department's website now estimates it has found more than $170 billion in taxpayer savings —
Get The Gavel
A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.
Enter Email
Sign Up
But even that figure should be taken with a grain of salt, given that past examinations of DOGE's '
Advertisement
DOGE moved to correct the error, as well as change the website to make such errors harder to find. But a
Advertisement
And though it may seem counterintuitive, cutting jobs doesn't actually translate to savings if it results in less productivity — if fewer IRS workers means less tax revenue is collected, for instance. An
And even some Republican lawmakers have expressed unease with backing many DOGE-recommended cuts in a $9.4 billion legislative 'rescissions' package to claw back previously approved funding.
House lawmakers
2: DOGE has roiled the job market.
According to the latest jobs numbers, DOGE cuts contributed to a 50 percent spike in layoffs in May over the same period last year,
Exacerbating the damage the firings alone have created is the chaotic way in which they were implemented. Federal agencies like the State Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Food and Drug Administration, National Weather Service, and the IRS are among those
rushing to rehire terminated employees. That's because many of the estimated 135,000 DOGE-axed positions are for critical functions, like approving drugs
and forecasting weather disasters. The layoffs' often-disorganized manner has confused dismissed workers and overtaxed remaining ones, many of whom have been asked to work overtime, volunteer to take on additional roles, or be pushed into new positions,
Advertisement
One former FDA worker
That's not to mention the blow to communities in states where the largest percentages of federal workers are located, as well as government contractors that face secondhand profit and job losses due to the cuts.
Outside of the greater Washington, D.C. region, which includes Virginia and Maryland, the hardest-hit states when it comes to canceled government contracts based on anti-DEI initiatives alone include Texas, California, North Carolina, Georgia, and Colorado — affecting politically red communities as well as blue. DOGE's harms know no partisanship.
3: The incalculable costs.
On Monday a
'This was a breach of law and of trust,' wrote Judge Denise Cote in issuing the temporary injunction. 'Tens of millions of Americans depend on the Government to safeguard records that reveal their most private and sensitive affairs.'
Whether some or all of DOGE's efforts to gain access to Americans' most sensitive information through agency databases will be declared unlawful is still uncertain. Challenges are still being litigated, and in a lawsuit involving DOGE access to Social Security data, the
Advertisement
According to
Some DOGE staff have been granted temporary 'edit-access' to data, which means the information can be altered or deleted entirely within the federal system.
That says nothing of the broader global impact, particularly through the dismantling of agencies like the United States Agency for International Development, which once provided critical life-saving humanitarian aid across the world. DOGE has
The government claims that shuttering the agency saved Americans nearly $60 billion, or less than 1 percent of the federal budget. According to
Advertisement
Musk is already back to playing with his cars and rocket ships as the federal government picks up the pieces from his DOGE tantrum. But the global ripple effect is a reminder that some of the damage can't be undone.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us
