For the second time in two weeks, DOGE’s “receipts” do not match its claims.
On Monday, the Division of Authorities Effectivity launched one other spherical of so-called “receipts” — or canceled contracts to point out its value slicing — and posted them on its “wall of receipts.” As was the case with the primary spherical, this set, too, contained inaccuracies.
Regardless of doubling the variety of listed contracts, the up to date itemized financial savings now complete $9.6 billion, a pointy drop from the unique $16.6 billion in financial savings DOGE itemized final week. On the similar time, DOGE is now claiming complete financial savings of $65 billion — far increased than the quantity itemized, and a rise from its earlier declare of $55 billion, a lot of which has beforehand been known as into query.
$65 billion is roughly 0.9% of the complete 2024 federal funds of $6.75 trillion.
DOGE’s web site claims this increased determine consists of financial savings from contract and lease terminations, renegotiations, grant cancellations, layoffs and different miscellaneous reductions, however DOGE has not provided documentation for the overwhelming majority of the financial savings it claims.
As well as, $144.6 million is attributed to actual property financial savings, however DOGE has offered no supporting particulars past the greenback determine, company and metropolis, making unbiased verification tough.
DOGE has not defined why it diminished the itemized complete, however that is possible on account of errors within the unique reporting — lots of which had been first recognized by information organizations together with CBS Information.
Initially, DOGE listed 1,127 receipts. That quantity has now grown to 2,299, although 34% of them report zero financial savings. The newly added receipts additionally include obvious errors and cases of double, triple and even quadruple counting.
White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt holds copies of receipts from authorities contracts recognized for cuts by DOGE throughout a press briefing on the White Home on Feb. 12, 2025.
Nathan Howard / REUTERS
Most of the contracts included within the “wall of receipts” had been unlikely to achieve the quantity of financial savings that DOGE is claiming. In keeping with Michael LeJeune, a personal guide with an experience in authorities contracts, many of those are particular varieties of agreements with “unfunded necessities and so they hardly ever get used” to the complete quantity. He additionally says it seems that a few of these unfunded or partly-funded contracts are being counted a number of occasions.
For instance, there’s a quadruple itemizing for a contract for DEI coaching and evaluation companies for the Division of Agriculture. The general contract was $25 million, and 4 firms that offered these companies drew funding from that single contract. DOGE, nonetheless, mistakenly listed every firm as having a separate $25 million contract — wrongly claiming a complete of $100 million in financial savings.
Different listings additionally elevate questions, together with:
Three separate gadgets record financial savings of $15 million every, however every merchandise references the identical contract, a blanket buy settlement, below totally different contractors. A blanket buy settlement is a typical authorities settlement that’s usually used for easy repetitive purchases. On this case, the Environmental Safety Company contract was for “human assets consulting companies.” The Trump administration terminated the settlement on Jan. 25, referring to the contract as “Range, Fairness, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Enterprise Providers Blanket Buy Agreements (BPAs).” It’s unclear how a lot of the contract’s funding had already been spent. Two line gadgets record $9,999,999 in financial savings for a Client Finance Safety Bureau contract cancellation, though each of these are for a similar contract. In its first receipt launch, DOGE listed one other contract thrice, claiming complete financial savings of $1.965 billion. In actuality, authorities information point out that solely $400 million had been spent over 4 years throughout 44 subcontracts, with minimal remaining expenditures anticipated. The most recent DOGE replace now lists one in all these contracts as saving $0.35, one other at zero financial savings, and a 3rd at $18,171,886.An earlier posting incorrectly claimed $8 billion in financial savings from a canceled contract, on account of an obvious typo within the unique doc. The precise contract was value $8 million. The contracting firm, D&G Options, confirmed to CBS Information that this was an accounting error and that $3.8 million had already been spent. Regardless of this, DOGE continues to record $8 million in financial savings for the contract’s cancellation, when the precise determine is $4.2 million.DOGE has additionally taken credit score on X for the sale of a constructing in Washington, D.C., claiming it as financial savings. Nevertheless, CBS Information discovered that the constructing was truly auctioned off throughout the Biden administration for about $4 million.
The biggest single new “receipt” was $1.9 billion for IT work for the IRS, however it’s not clear if the cancellation was for the complete challenge or for a portion of the bigger contract. CBS Information has reached out to the contractor for extra particulars and did not instantly hear again. There have been a minimum of 5 different awardees eligible for this seven-year blanket buy settlement.
In late 2020, the Brookings Establishment printed a examine that famous that within the authorities workforce, contractors outnumbered federal employees — that 12 months, there have been about 2.2 federal employees for each 5 contractors (the examine additionally notes that President Trump added about 2 million jobs to that workforce throughout his first time period). Now, as DOGE zeroes out these contracts, tens of hundreds of presidency workers and contractors have possible misplaced their jobs consequently.