What DOGE did (and didn’t do) in 2025 : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/8256x5504+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1b%2Fcf%2F0e3b89c1402a865c2265fece243d%2Fgettyimages-2200061417.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/8256x5504+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1b%2Fcf%2F0e3b89c1402a865c2265fece243d%2Fgettyimages-2200061417.jpg" class="img" alt="Elon Musk holds a chainsaw reading "Long live freedom, damn it" during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on February 20, 2025. The chainsaw was a present to Elon Musk from Argentina's President Javier Milei." fetchpriority="high"/> Earlier this 12 months, Elon Musk wielded what he referred to as a "chainsaw for paperwork" throughout the annual Conservative Political Motion Convention (CPAC) in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on February 20, 2025. Whereas Musk not leads DOGE, the concept of trimming the federal authorities stays. SAUL LOEB/AFP disguise caption

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SAUL LOEB/AFP Earlier this month, billionaire Elon Musk, the one-time DOGE chief and Trump adviser, sat down with Katie Miller on her podcast to replicate on his time with the administration.

He referred to as DOGE's work "just a little bit profitable" however mentioned he would not do it once more if given the prospect.

"We have been considerably profitable, Musk mentioned. "I imply we stopped plenty of funding … that basically simply made no sense, that was simply fully wasteful."

Musk left his function with DOGE in Could after authorized setbacks and clashes with Trump's cupboard.

But at the same time as he retreated from Washington, the concept that slashing wasteful spending will result in profound cuts to the nation's rising deficit stays central to the Trump administration's imaginative and prescient of a slimmed down paperwork.

Whereas lots of DOGE's preliminary outsized guarantees to extend effectivity and slash spending by no means totally materialized, the Trump administration has not given up on these objectives.

Here is a glance again at a few of what DOGE did and didn't accomplish in its inaugural 12 months and the way the Trump administration is calibrating its techniques to make extra incremental and fewer high-profile tweaks to federal businesses.

Shrinking the federal workforce Companies ordered to fireplace staff earlier within the 12 months by DOGE have been hiring again a whole lot of employees forward of the top of the fiscal 12 months in September, whereas the Workplace of Administration and Finances tried to put off extra individuals throughout the longest-ever federal authorities shutdown in October.

Nonetheless, by the top of 2025, some 317,000 federal staff shall be out of the federal government, in response to the Workplace of Personnel Administration. Some federal businesses and packages, just like the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth, the Company for Public Broadcasting and far of the Schooling Division have been successfully eradicated.

Regardless of these reductions and a push to chop contracts and terminate leases, the federal authorities remains to be spending more cash than it brings in.

Concentrate on slashing 'Democrat priorities' Workplace of Administration and Finances director Russ Vought is main the push to streamline the federal workforce. Vought has lengthy referred to as for the federal authorities to have a smaller footprint, most just lately together with efforts to enact mass reductions-in-force at a number of businesses throughout the federal authorities shutdown that began in October and was blocked by the courts.

Additionally throughout the shutdown, the Trump administration introduced a number of rounds of funding cuts geared toward what the president referred to as "Democrat priorities" like transportation and power grants, persevering with the development of spending cash on insurance policies they like and eradicating funding from insurance policies that Trump disagrees with.

Trump's priorities depend on the sharing of delicate knowledge DOGE's push to consolidate delicate private knowledge throughout federal businesses has survived authorized challenges and been used for the administration's immigration enforcement priorities.

That features the transformation of a federal citizenship verification database, calls for for states at hand over details about federal meals assist recipients and extra. At the very least a few of these efforts have wrongly flagged U.S. residents, NPR has beforehand reported.

Authorities restructuring efforts nonetheless exist Although the DOGE entity has not dominated the headlines in current months since Musk departed the federal authorities, the main target of its work has not stopped.

Lots of Musk's prime allies and DOGE lieutenants have transitioned to grow to be full-time staff on the businesses they have been detailed to.

An Aug. 21, 2025 government order signed by the president created the Nationwide Design Studio that goals to "fill the digital potholes" of the federal authorities's on-line techniques and web sites.

The Chief Design Officer answerable for this effort, Joe Gebbia, is an Airbnb cofounder and Musk affiliate who led DOGE's overhaul and digitization of the federal worker retirement system on the Workplace of Personnel Administration.

The studio is accountable for the web site for the brand new "Trump Accounts," tax-advantaged funding accounts for U.S. youngsters created underneath Trump's "One Large Stunning Invoice Act" signed earlier this 12 months. Different initiatives embody the Vitality Division's "Genesis Mission" and the US Tech Pressure, a two-year program in search of "an elite corps of engineers to construct the following technology of presidency expertise."

Federal spending nonetheless is not reigned in One of many said causes DOGE was created was to sort out the nationwide debt, which grew greater than $2.2 trillion from October 1, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2025 to greater than $38 trillion.

That quantity is anticipated to develop by a minimum of three trillion extra {dollars} within the subsequent decade over baseline projections because of the One Large Stunning Invoice Act signed into regulation earlier this 12 months that features tax cuts and new spending on Trump's priorities.

"President Trump pledged to chop the waste, fraud, and abuse in our bloated authorities, and the Administration is dedicated to delivering on this pledge for the American individuals," White Home spokesman Davis Ingle mentioned in a press release offered to NPR.

The White Home didn't straight reply to NPR's questions in regards to the authorities's deficit spending or the rise within the nationwide debt.

From the beginning of the brand new fiscal 12 months in October to the top of November, the federal authorities has spent almost a half trillion {dollars} greater than it has introduced in, in response to the newest Month-to-month Treasury Assertion. That is barely lower than the identical interval final 12 months.

The overwhelming majority of federal spending — about 65% this fiscal 12 months — goes towards Social Safety, Medicare, well being packages, earnings safety and veterans' advantages and companies. One other smaller proportion has been curiosity funds in direction of the nation's debt, plus 14% for nationwide protection.