Last week, Elon Musk indicated for the first time his department of government efficiency was short of his goals.
He had earlier that his powerful budget court team could reduce the federal budget of next fiscal year by $ 1 trillion, and do so by September 30, the end of the current fiscal year. However, at a meeting of the cabinet on Thursday, Musk said he expected the group to save about $ 150 billion, 85% less than their goal.
Even this value can be exaggerated, according to an analysis of the New York Times on the allegations of the doge.
This is because, when Musk’s group counts its economies so far, it inflates its progress including billions of dollars, accounting for spending that will not occur next fiscal year and making assumptions about spending that may not happen.
One of the group’s biggest allegations, in fact, involves the cancellation of a contract that did not exist. Although the government stated that it only requested proposals in this case and had not been decided by a supplier or a price, the musk group ignored this uncertainty and attributed to itself a large and very specific amount of credit for cancellation.
He said he had saved exactly $ 318,310,328.30.
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So far, the musk group has unleashed throughout the government and around the world. Musk justified these interruptions with two promises: that the group would be transparent and that would reach budget cuts that others considered impossible.
However, by observing the group reduced their goals and inflate their progress, some of their allies began to doubt both promises.
“They are just skating, citing in many cases exaggerated or false economies,” said Romina Boccia, director of budget policies and rights at the Cato Institute, a libertarian organization. “What is more frustrating is that we agree with your goals. But we are seeing them struggling to reach them.”
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Musk’s group did not answer questions about their allegations sent via X, their social media platform. Musk acknowledged earlier that, but said they would be corrected.
The White House press office defended the team, stating that it had reached “huge achievements,” but refused to address specific cases in which the group seemed to have inflamed its progress.
In fact, Musk promised an even greater reduction last year. When he was Donald Trump’s most prominent supporter in the campaign, he said he could cut from a federal budget of about. After Trump’s election and the start of the musk group’s work, he reduced this goal to.
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Even after Musk’s comments at the cabinet meeting on Thursday, a White House employee indicated that this target had not changed.
Budget analysts were deeply skeptical about these allegations, saying that it would be difficult to cut either without further destabilizing government services or drastically altering popular benefit programs such as Medicare and Social Security.
Musk’s group has published one of its budget cuts, which calls “receipt wall”. The site was last updated on Tuesday, showing a $ 150 billion “estimated economy”.
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The Rago book is full of omissions and failures.
While Musk said on Thursday that his group would save $ 150 billion only in the 2026 fiscal year, the site does not explicitly say when these economies would be made. The site also does not provide identifiable details about $ 92 billion of its demanded economies, which represent more than 60% of the total.
The rest of the economies is detailed, attributed to the cancellation of specific federal subsidies, contracts or offices of office. However, these detailed listings were affected by data errors, which inflated the group’s economies in billions.
The Musk group deleted some of its original errors, such as entries that told the same economy three times, a claim that confused “billion” with “million” and items that claimed credit for cancellation of contracts that ended when George W. Bush was president.
However, some expensive errors remain.
The second largest economy the group lists on its site comes from a canceled IRS contract that Doge claims to have saved $ 1.9 billion. But the contract he quotes was actually canceled when Joe Biden was president. The third largest economy the group claims comes from a canceled grant to a non -profit organization of vaccine. Musk’s group says this saved $ 1.75 billion. But the non -profit organization said that it had actually been paid in full, so the economy was $ 0.
Musk’s group also claimed credit for the cancellation of a contract that was not a de facto contract. He involved a proposal request that the personnel management office had published, seeking proposals to help with human resources work.
By announcing these requests, government agencies describe the work they want to be done. Contractors send proposals, with a plan and a price. The government can choose a supplier or several. Even after that, it often negotiates with them to reduce the price below their original proposals.
Details about this specific request were scarce: the musk group provided a tracking number for the request, 47QFEA24k0008. But Times has not been able to find this number in previous government request databases. The personnel management office refused to release the request or tell what was planned for the contract, nor did the office said when planning to choose a contractor.
Despite this uncertainty, Musk calculated the economies involved in this cancellation to the penny. (Then rounded the claim to an integer: $ 318,310,328.)
“Trash,” said Steven L. Schooner, a teacher who studies federal contracts at George Washington University.
He said it was too early to know for sure what the government would spend – especially the year Musk had targeted. What if bidders competed to reduce the price? What if a loser bidder protested, and then everything was canceled?
“You don’t know what will happen,” said Schooner. “It’s silly.”
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