Latest news with #DOGE-driven
Axios
29-05-2025
- Business
- Axios
Musk's real DOGE legacy will be decided by courts long after his departure
Elon Musk's DOGE days are over — but the bruise on his reputation and a legacy wrapped in ongoing litigation remain. The big picture: DOGE-driven cuts wreaked havoc on federal workers, prompting a litany of lawsuits seeking to rein in Musk's chainsaw. As the billionaire departs, judges across the country could still unravel key parts of the effort for which he became the face. Musk, who arrived in D.C. as a political outsider with unprecedented power, will depart the capital with his boasts of government savings contested, his favorability ratings deflated and his brands battered, Axios' Zachary Basu writes. How history remembers his turbulent tenure could in part be determined by the courts. The White House did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment. Driving the news: Ongoing legal battles over record transparency, firings at the U.S. Institute of Peace and various federal agencies, budget cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities, and access to sensitive personal information — among others — could hobble DOGE's reach long after Musk's departure. The latest: On Tuesday, a federal judge allowed a lawsuit filed by more than a dozen Democratic state attorneys general accusing Musk and DOGE of illegally exerting power over government operations to move forward. The states alleged Musk holds "virtually unchecked power" over the executive branch. As he closes the door on his time at DOGE, the remnants of that power remain — though not everything went to plan during Musk's roughly four-month tenure. By the numbers: Musk started with an audacious goal to find $2 trillion in savings through DOGE, which was originally set to sunset July 4, 2026. According to the most recent update to DOGE's website, the cost-cutting initiative claims only $175 billion in savings — though it's backtracked on its claims in the past. That estimate includes workforce reductions, which have seen more than 120,000 federal employees laid off or targeted for layoffs, per CNN's count. Those cuts have rocked D.C.'s economy and massively stressed the bureaucracy. Some workers have been caught in cycles of being fired and re-hired with no guarantee their job will stick. Catch up quick: Musk on Wednesday thanked President Trump for "the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending" as his time as a special government employee comes to its end. The mission of DOGE, he wrote, "will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government." What we're watching: The White House plans to send a $9.4 billion rescissions package to Congress next week, an administration official told Axios' Hans Nichols, to give lawmakers the chance to codify some of the cuts identified by DOGE.
Politico
24-05-2025
- Business
- Politico
Interior Department job cuts spark conflict with DOGE appointee
DOGE-driven staff cuts inside the Interior Department have set off a turf battle over how to deploy personnel at the Bureau of Land Management — raising concerns the vacancies would undermine President Donald Trump's promise to boost domestic fossil fuel and minerals production. A memo issued this month by a DOGE appointee at Interior set off a tussle over how employees at BLM should fulfill the duties for the thousands of jobs that now sit empty, but which people inside the agency say are critical for its day-to-day operations. The May 2 memo, obtained by POLITICO, was signed by Stephanie Holmes, a former staffer for Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency who is now embedded as Interior's acting chief human capital officer. It ordered most staff to stop doing 'detail' work — temporarily filling in for vacant positions — and return to their official permanent positions by May 18. But BLM Deputy Director for Administration and Programs Michael Nedd, a 30-year veteran of the bureau, instructed career staff to ignore the Holmes memo, saying it would have resulted in fewer positions being filled, three people familiar with the situation told POLITICO. The bureau oversees the 245 million acres and the oil, gas, coal and minerals produced on that land, making it a critical player in fulfilling Trump's pledge of rapidly expanding the nation's fossil fuel and mineral production. BLM employees said Nedd's direction to staff marked a boiling over of career staff distress over the steep loss of bureau personnel after DOGE first attempted to fire agency employees, a move that courts ruled to be unlawful. Interior has since offered deferred buyouts and early retirements and is now planning a potentially massive reduction in force to be carried out in coming weeks. A bureau spokesperson declined to comment on how many people have left so far. Nedd told staff 'to ignore the email from HR' because 'the work is too important and these people in detail are doing the work of the Administration,' said one person familiar with Nedd's directive who was granted anonymity to discuss internal department affairs. A second person working at BLM confirmed Nedd's direction to staff, as did a person outside the agency who interacts with the bureau. Those people were also granted anonymity to protect working relationships. 'It's a battle of HR versus Mike Nedd,' one of the people inside the agency said. The administration is 'shooting themselves in the foot,' this person said of the Interior HR memo. 'We're running out of people.' Nedd did not respond to inquiries. A BLM spokesperson declined to comment. An Interior Department spokesperson said Nedd did not tell people to ignore the memo. Lawmakers of both parties have criticized Interior's overall staffing cuts, saying the steep headcount reductions were leaving critical positions unfilled. Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree, the top Democrat on the appropriations subcommittee for Interior's budget, said the department has lost more than 10 percent of its staff through buyouts and early retirements offered by the Trump administration. 'I am very worried about the state of Interior,' Pingree told Interior Secretary Doug Burgum during the subcommittee's hearing Tuesday on the department's proposed budget. 'There's been a stunning decline in its ability to do its mission.' Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei also said he was concerned that an exodus of staff from Interior would hurt efficiency. 'I don't know how you can sit there and hold people's feet to the fire when you've got so many empty desks,' Amodei said during the hearing. Burgum defended the department's overall efforts to cut its staff at the hearing, saying the goal was to peel away layers of bureaucracy and move more staff to the local level. If BLM were run like a private company 'you wouldn't have five layers between headquarters and the front lines' Burgum told the committee. 'We're trying to streamline, to get more people out there to get it done.' The BLM's roughly 10,000 employees manage vast swaths of land in Western states such as Utah, New Mexico and Alaska. Bureau staff are in charge of processing applications to drill for oil and natural gas, mine for coal and uranium, develop wells for geothermal energy and carry out other energy-related projects on federal land. But BLM still doesn't have a director after Trump's first nominee, Kathleen Sgamma, withdrew her nomination last month following the surfacing of an essay she wrote years ago criticizing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a throng of the president's supporters on the U.S. Capitol. Interior's human relations staff told employees at the end of April to upload their résumés in preparations for job cuts that could see hundreds or thousands pushed out. The reductions are coming even as Burgum has pledged to slash the time the department takes to process permits — reducing it from years to in some cases less than a month. The DOGE-led staff reductions have led to a growing number of vacant positions that more employees have to fill in to perform basic jobs, according to three bureau employees granted anonymity to discuss internal bureau affairs. So far, they said, Burgum has been content to let Holmes and Tyler Hassen, a former oilfield services executive and former DOGE staffer who is now Interior's acting policy chief, run the department's staffing policy. BLM leadership has been forced to assign temporary roles to staff, as shown by another email bureau leadership sent to employees in early May and obtained by POLITICO. Among the changes in duties added to several people's existing roles laid out in that email, BLM's main chief of staff, Jill Moran, was named as the temporary chief of staff for the assistant secretary of land and minerals. Mitchell Leverette, the bureau's director for its Eastern States office, was named to also serve as assistant director for energy, minerals and realty management, a position that became vacant after the previous person took a buyout. Karen Kelleher, who had served as another deputy director of state operations after working as Idaho state director, was named as temporarily working as acting Alaska state director after that position became vacant. The temporary work isn't just for high-level staff, employees said. With more senior staff being given temporary assignments, mid- and lower-level staff have had to take on more work to backfill leadership responsibilities, employees told POLITICO. 'Most of the folks I work with are juggling at least two offices at the moment without any extra incentive,' said an employee at one of the bureau's state offices who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Axios
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Dems express Rubio remorse
Democrats who once worked alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused him in a Senate hearing Tuesday of flip-flopping beyond recognition under the Trump administration. The big picture: The Senate voted 99-0 to confirm Rubio as President Trump 's secretary of state in January. Since then, he's become an integral part of the administration's immigration crackdown and has emerged as the face of the government's spree of student visa revocations. As a senator, Rubio on several occasions voiced his support for the humanitarian mission of USAID, which has since been stripped by DOGE-driven cuts, with its remaining functions moved under Rubio at the State Department. But Rubio had his grievances with foreign aid and co-authored a 2023 report targeting "Wokeness" and DEI at the State Department. Driving the news: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who said in March he regretted voting to confirm his former colleague, didn't hold back in a fiery Senate Foreign Relations hearing Tuesday, saying to Rubio, "I have to tell you directly and personally that I regret voting for you for secretary of State." Rubio shot back, saying, "Your regret for voting for me confirms I'm doing a good job." Van Hollen characterized Rubio's response as "flippant." Friction point: During a monologue that preceded a contentious exchange with Rubio, Van Hollen said he believed the two men "shared some common values." The Maryland lawmaker, who has become the congressional driving force behind the push to return Kilmar Ábrego García to the U.S., continued, "That's why I voted to confirm you. I believed you would stand up for those principles — you haven't." Pointing to the administration's admission of Afrikaners while it ends protections for others, Van Hollen accused Rubio of making "a mockery of our country's refugee process." The other side: The top diplomat contended he was "actually very proud" of what the administration has done with USAID, pointing to one of Trump's previously cited examples of waste: "$10 million for male circumcisions in Mozambique." Rubio — after sparring with Van Hollen over Ábrego García, whose return the administration has been ordered to "facilitate" — said "no judge" could tell him "how to conduct foreign policy." He added, in reference to the administration's revocation of hundreds of student visas, "I don't deport anybody, and I don't snatch anybody." "What I do is revoke visas," he said. Zoom out: Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) echoed Van Hollen Tuesday, saying to Rubio, "I'm not even mad anymore about your complicity in this administration's destruction of U.S. global leadership, I'm simply disappointed." Rosen said she always found "Senator Rubio" to be "a bipartisan, pragmatic partner." But she continued, "I don't recognize Secretary Rubio." Reality check: While it's certainly true Rubio has become more MAGAfied under the Trump administration, he and the president have long had more foreign policy similarities than differences. Rubio, for instance, was a top foreign policy adviser to Trump in his first term, helped craft his Cuba and Venezuela sanctions, and expressed a deep mistrust of government bureaucrats thwarting the president's agenda. Catch up quick: Several Democrats who voted for Rubio have since expressed regret or said he's changed since his MAGA matrimony. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) described Rubio to a Council on Foreign Relations audience last week as "someone who, up until four months ago, was an internationalist. Someone who believed in America flexing its powers in all manners, but especially through foreign assistance." He called for "Marco Rubio, from all of his career up until about 120 days ago, to re-emerge, reassert himself, and save the enterprise." What they're saying: In a recent letter to Rubio signed by Van Hollen and others, Senate Democrats evoked Rubio's own past comments about the importance of defending human rights amid the State Department's reorganization and reports that its annual reports on international human rights would be scaled back. Citing Rubio's 2013 statement that the world is "a better place" because of U.S. defense of "fundamental human rights," the senators wrote, "As you have previously conveyed, American inaction emboldens authoritarian regimes and weakens protections for vulnerable communities."
Axios
19-05-2025
- Health
- Axios
NIH funding cuts put current and future cancer patients at risk
National Institutes of Health budget cuts proposed by the Trump administration and staff layoffs at the largest funder of cancer research threaten to stall innovation, doctors and researchers said. The big picture: Cancer remains the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. As former President Biden said Monday after announcing he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, the disease "touches us all." For many common cancers, rates continue to rise, especially for women. And recent studies have found diagnoses for several cancers have increased among people under the age of 50, including colorectal cancer. Yes, but: Now, potentially life-saving research faces an uncertain future, researchers say. Zoom out: For researchers already hit hard by DOGE-driven cuts and NIH grant cancellations, the president's 2026 budget proposal with nearly $18 billion in proposed cuts posed another blow. The American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network said in a May 2024 fact sheet that "[i]ncreased and sustained investment" at the NIH and its National Cancer Institute has been key to reducing the nation's cancer mortality rate, which the NCI says continues to decline. A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson told Axios it "remains committed to advancing cancer research and other serious health conditions." What they're saying: However, "[t] hese are the most difficult times that we have ever experienced," Steven Rosenberg from the National Cancer Institute told PBS when asked about layoffs and budget cuts. What is the NIH, and how does it contribute to cancer research? The NIH describes itself as the nation's medical research agency and as the largest public funder of biomedical and behavioral research in the world. It falls under the Department of Health and Human Services and is made up of 27 institutes and centers, including the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Flashback: The NCI was established through the National Cancer Act of 1937, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since President Nixon's declaration of a "war on cancer" in the early 1970s, research enjoyed increasing shares of federal biomedical research funding with strong bipartisan support. The Trump administration has upended the once-bipartisan consensus on funding cancer research. Zoom in: The NCI is the government's principal agency for cancer research and training with a team of around 3,500, according to its website. The NCI received a total of $7.22 billion in fiscal years 2024 and 2025. What has happened to the NIH under the Trump administration? The potential impacts of NIH cuts are in flux and far-reaching. In February, the NIH said it would make dramatic cuts to the rate it pays for institutions' administration and overhead costs, saying it would cap the indirect cost rate on new and current grants at 15% of the total cost. That announcement sent shockwaves through the academic research world, with some institutions receiving reimbursements of more than 50%. Friction point: Nearly two dozen states sued in response to the administration's overhead cost cap, alleging the billions of dollars in cuts could lead to layoffs, disrupt medical trials and close labs. A federal judge granted a temporary freeze then later made it permanent — teeing up the administration's appeal. Beyond that, the NIH has cut funding for research and institutions that it says do not support the agency's mission, Axios' Carrie Shepherd reported, which includes some diversity, equity and inclusion studies. Some of the terminations follow the president's anti-DEI executive orders, while other grants addressed topics like vaccination and LGBTQ+ health, KFF Health News reported in April. A Senate committee report released last week by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) documenting what he called "Trump's war on science" found the NIH has committed $2.7 billion less to researchers through March, compared to the same timeframe last year. The Democratic staff's analysis also reported a 31% decline in cancer research grant funding in the first three months of 2025, compared to the same timeframe in the previous year. "[T]he Trump administration's funding freeze did not just affect new research," the report read. "Renewals of existing grants also plummeted, disrupting studies that had already gone through peer review, some of which had already started to produce results." Yes, but: The Department of Health and Human Services, which is overseen by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., slammed the report as a "politically motivated distortion," and called Sanders' characterization of a "war on science" "unequivocally false." What are doctors and researchers saying about the state of cancer research? Jalal Baig, an oncologist and writer, said in a recent MSNBC op-ed that because "no two cancer centers" are alike in their "indirect" costs, "a uniform, fixed cap would disrupt or halt operations for many." While that plan is blocked by a judge's injunction, he said job cuts have had "palpable effects," pointing to reports of treatment delays for patients using an experimental therapy fighting gastrointestinal cancers. Kimryn Rathmell, the former director of the National Cancer Institute, told the Associated Press that "discoveries are going to be delayed, if they ever happen." The bottom line: " Countless Americans depend on the continued progress of cancer research to save lives and improve cancer care," Baig wrote. "And without it, many potential insights and treatments needed to propel oncology forward will never be realized."
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
New estimates indicate that Elon Musk's DOGE might not achieve any savings
We've watched as DOGE chief Elon Musk's promised pot of savings from his 'efficiency' operation has shrunk from $2 trillion to $1 trillion to what he now claims is $150 billion, or 7.5% the amount initially promised. Now new estimates suggest that the way Musk has gone about his cost-cutting crusade might cost nearly as much as — if not more — than what he claims to have saved taxpayers. As The New York Times reports, DOGE hasn't been cheap for the federal government: The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that studies the federal work force, has used budget figures to produce a rough estimate that firings, re-hirings, lost productivity, and paid leave of thousands of workers will cost upward of $135 billion this fiscal year. At the Internal Revenue Service, a DOGE-driven exodus of 22,000 employees would cost about $8.5 billion in revenue in 2026 alone, according to figures from the Budget Lab at Yale University. Put those two figures together and you're approaching $145 billion in costs. And that's not counting, as the Times notes, the legal fees the federal government is incurring to defend against dozens of lawsuits contesting DOGE's authority. A White House spokesman defended the cuts in a statement to the Times, saying, 'It's important to realize that doing nothing has a cost, too, and these so-called experts and groups are conveniently absent when looking at the costs of doing nothing.' It should be noted that DOGE's costs up front might be more expensive than in subsequent years. Even so, the estimates raise serious questions about DOGE's net savings — and that's assuming Musk's quoted savings numbers are reliable, which they often haven't been. Moreover, the estimated lost revenue from the IRS cuts would be a recurring phenomenon. Musk's degrading of the administrative state and social services while potentially saving nothing helps underscore how scammy the DOGE enterprise, and sheds light on how this whole operation is at its core not about fiscal discipline. Musk and his team were perversely creative in devising ways to fire workers en masse. But as a group of cocky political outsiders who confused speed with efficiency, they weren't equipped to anticipate the legal restrictions on what they could do. Their rash approach has resulted in lots of rehiring and back pay for people wrongly fired — and lost productivity along the way. Musk and his team put their faith in a kind of 'shoot first, ask questions later' strategy, but that resulted in administrative whiplash. 'Accidentally' canceled programs have had to be re-assembled. And blanket firings of 'probationary workers' resulted in the squandering of expensive hiring and training processes for hyperspecialized positions that could cost up to $1 million for positions like spies, the Times notes. There is a possibility that Musk is delivering the opposite of taxpayer savings — a worse government at roughly the same cost. Social Security is under siege, foreign aid has been eviscerated, and the IRS is less equipped to stop tax cheats (which in turn means less government revenue). But, according to the estimates reported by the Times, no significant sum of money is being saved, and there's no way the 'savings' from what we've seen so far will net out to massive 'DOGE checks' for the American public. One would hope Musk is slightly humbled by this experience. As an adversary of organized labor, he may have been surprised to find that it's a bit harder to treat government workers as entirely dispensable. And as someone who has flippantly described the government as nothing more than a corporation, he may have been forced to think twice about the unique logistical, social and ethical obligations and challenges of running a state. If his own conscience and the courts didn't do that for him, maybe the apparent backlash against Tesla will. This article was originally published on
