Elon Musk’s DOGE claimed to have saved $160 billion, but it may have cost Americans atleast $135 billion -- Financial Times
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.
