DOGE: What Was The Point?

Today is the one-year anniversary of the Trump-Vance Administration. It also marks the anniversary of the creation of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE. But DOGE won’t make it to its anniversary. As an entity, it has already come to an end. So, what was the point of all of that?

Let’s reflect on the stated goal of DOGE: to reduce federal spending by $2 trillion (or was it $1 trillion? Or $150 billion?) And the result? Even the Cato Institute, which supported DOGE’s agenda, acknowledges that government spending has actually **risen **under DOGE. Doesn’t that single metric establish that DOGE was a complete failure? Any real government efficiency effort would start with shuttering DOGE, if it wasn’t already shuttered.

Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed DOGE-creator, recognizes his own failure. The best he could say was that DOGE was “a little bit successful.” When asked whether he would do it all over again, he said, “I don’t think so…Instead of doing DOGE, I would have, basically, built...worked on my companies.” America couldn’t agree more.  

What did the people in America actually get as a result of DOGE? Chaos at Social Security field offices, uncertainties about veterans’ access to critical care, the end of civil rights enforcement in schools, limited staff to go after corporate billionaire tax cheats, an unstaffed consumer complaint database leaving people vulnerable to bank scams, the end of foreign aid programs that led to the death of hundreds of thousands across the globe, and so much more. And that's only what we've seen so far...as time goes on, we will see the impacts of the loss of expertise and capacity across federal agencies. This is not theoretical. This is real people, real families, and real communities suffering as a result. These are the stories we at Civil Service Strong will tell this year.

Some “champions” of DOGE tout that 317,000 federal workers left their jobs on its watch, as if headcount reduction in and of itself is a big victory. The singular focus on headcount reduction as a blunt instrument reveals that DOGE was never about efficiency. It was about retribution and stifling dissent by intimidating federal workers into leaving their jobs or, if they decided to stay, intimidating them into not questioning their political leaders. The leaders in the Trump-Vance administration know that civil servants are duty-bound to follow the law, and for an administration that thinks following the law is optional, having principled, expert civil servants on the job is an obstacle. So they wanted them off the job, and they wanted to replace them with people who put loyalty to the president above the law. That was the point. 

Why else would they launch a “deferred resignation program” to pay people $15 billion NOT to work that resulted in tens of thousands of federal workers being paid to stay home for 8 months? 

And where is their plan for delivering the services people in America need without the workforce to do it? That is the real tragedy, because federal workers serve quietly behind the scenes every day to help people in America, and when they aren’t there, those people suffer. 

We’ve already seen this effort backfire. That’s why the Trump-Vance administration panicked after DOGE fired the people who manage our nuclear stockpile, scrambling to bring them back on board when it realized how much risk it created. But that is the exception rather than the rule.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has eliminated offices that existed to make sure that DHS agencies aren’t violating the immigration and civil rights laws. They are also eliminating the jobs that protect us from cyber attacks from countries like Russia and China. At the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), they’ve eliminated a quarter of their workforce, including the people who track cancer rates among firefighters, manage the nation's network of health centers that provide care to 31 million Americans, and lead the fight against opioid abuse. The administration’s attack on the U.S. Department of Education has hobbled its Federal Student Aid operations, degrading the services relied upon by 43 million borrowers who need help affording higher education. The Small Business Administration laid off employees in the customer service center for disaster victims. 

The harms caused by these cuts have already begun to play out, and we’ll see more and more of that in 2026, when the impacts of the thoughtless workforce cuts are felt more deeply around the country.

It’s important that we keep up the fight. Though DOGE no longer exists as an independent entity, staffers who were part of DOGE have now burrowed into jobs in the administration. And Russ Vought is still in charge of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget – the man who promised to put federal workers “in trauma.” 

But while many cases challenging these moves are fought in court rooms across the country, we have to do more. We need to use this crisis as a catalyst for change. Our Democracy Works 250 project is all about reimagining a people-centered government that truly serves all in America. As the federal civil service continues to be weakened by the Trump-Vance administration, we’re laying the foundations for something new. We are building a people-centered approach to government by listening to people in America and what they want from their government, learning from former federal workers and those whom the government has delivered for as well as failed, redesigning the systems, teams, and policies they operate in, and building a bench of talent empowered to deliver for everyone in the United States. 

Democracy works when the people who serve it can. Join us to be part of the solution.