A new report says Elon Musk’s efforts to cut “at least” $2 trillion in waste, fraud and abuse did not reduce overall federal spending, but did result in an unmatched peacetime workforce reduction.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) reduced federal employment so much so that a decline of its size has not happened since the military demobilizations at the end of World War II and the Korean War, according to a report by the Cato Institute.
Since its inception at the start of the Trump administration, DOGE aimed to reduce the size of the federal government. The department has boasted an estimated $214 billion in savings through such actions.
But the report by Cato, a think tank that promotes limited government, found that the federal government spent $7.6 trillion in the first 11 months of the 2025 calendar year. This number is roughly $248 billion higher than the same time last year.
This also exceeds former President Biden’s spending in 2023, 2022 and 2021, all between $6.27 and $6.5 trillion.
The culprit is that most federal spending is for entitlement programs, which were high due to structural reasons and policy autopilot, Cato’s report says. Only Congress has the authority to cut these programs, not DOGE.
DOGE can, however, claim success in its cuts to the federal workforce. It was able to reduce federal employment at the fastest pace since President Carter, according to the report.
It reduced federal employment by 9% in less than 10 months, cutting federal employment by 271,000.
Cato’s report said it is not surprising that a reduction of this size did not lead to lower outlays, because most federal expenditures are transfer payments rather than salaries.
The pace of workforce reduction was unusually rapid, Cato’s report said — on track to surpass former President Clinton’s reductions in roughly one year rather than four, if it continues.
One of President Trump’s goals for DOGE was to reduce the size and scope of the federal government, effectively shrinking the administrative state.
When the president formally unveiled the agency in November of last year, he said that DOGE would “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
Mr. Musk subtly celebrated this success on social media: “The matrix was reprogrammed.”
DOGE was only “a little bit successful,” the multibillionaire said on a December podcast with former Trump administration official Katie Miller.
• Mary McCue Bell can be reached at mbell@washingtontimes.com.
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