Joshua Arnold -TheWashingtonStand.com
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) officially concluded its operations on Saturday, passing its mandate on to individual agencies. “President Trump was given a clear mandate to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse from the federal government,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle. “He has made significant progress in making the federal government more efficient to better serve the American taxpayer.”
Planned obsolescence was part of DOGE’s mission from its first conception. “The final step of @DOGE is to delete itself,” said Elon Musk, who thought up the idea, in 2024. In his January 2025 executive order, President Trump specifically assigned DOGE an 18-month lifespan. “The U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization shall terminate on July 4, 2026,” he ordered.
But the end of DOGE did not entail the end of its mission. “The termination of the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization shall not be interpreted to imply the termination, attenuation, or amendment of any other authority or provision of this order.”
“A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence,” Trump declared.
“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing,” DOGE quoted former President Teddy Roosevelt in a goodbye tweet. “It has been our greatest honor to serve the American people. Happy 4th!”
At conception, DOGE was assigned the ambitious goal of saving the government $2 trillion dollars through cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. That goal was later revised to $1 trillion — still highly ambitious.
Late last year, DOGE estimated that it had found $214 billion in government savings and mostly concluded its work. These savings included selling assets; ending duplicative software licenses; canceling contracts, leases, and grants; identifying fraud and improper payments, and workforce reductions. If this number is accurate, DOGE achieved a 0.54% reduction in the national debt, The Hill estimated.
Since President Trump resumed office, the federal workforce has shrunk by more than 272,000, due to a hiring freeze, early retirement offerings, and other cuts. Nearly 140,000 federal employees left the federal government under a deferred resignation program that offered employees extra pay to leave.
One group estimated the cost of the deferred resignation program at $10 billion, although its effects may recoup those costs in the long run. Additionally, for FY 2027, the Trump administration requested $35 million from Congress in “reimbursable program activity” of DOGE, suggesting that cutting costs is not completely free.