As Trump’s administration continues, Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency continues to have more access to private government information.
The United States Digital Service (USDS) was renamed to DOGE, and changed its purpose to now create budget cuts for the United States. These budget cuts are due to wasting money and other issues as well.
Although DOGE is making budget cuts they are not an official part of the government branches.
According to Musk, DOGE’s mission is to save taxpayers money and also create these budget cuts to also reduce U.S. national debt.
“DOGE has been in place since President Trump has come into office in January,” said Jonathan Niemic, a social science teacher at MCHS. “DOGE has been tasked with eliminating wasteful spending, fraud and other kind of government entities that are involved in misuse of taxpayer money.”
According to USA Today there are around 200 people who work for DOGE and the process of application is accessible to people when checking out their website.
This means that some people who may not be fully qualified could potentially get hired to work for DOGE, which can sometimes cause inefficient budget cuts.
“I think we all have wasteful spending in our lives,” says Niemic. “I think every American can safely say that we spend money on things that maybe are not the best, so the government is trying to clean up some of its bankrolls to make sure that the taxpayers money is going towards what it’s supposed to go towards.”
“There are certain programs within the federal government that do run the risk of fraud and excess when it comes to spending,” says Niemic. “I do not believe that we should touch any of the current social safety nets such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.”
Although some of these budget cuts can be useful, there are other things that DOGE shouldn’t cut as well. This year DOGE wants to cut one trillion dollars worth of money.
Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have an ambitious goal of cutting one trillion in federal spending by the end of the fiscal year in Sept. according to NPR News.
But DOGE’s moves so far to cancel contracts, send leases and push federal agencies to reduce their workforces barely make a dent in the government’s overall balance sheet — even if you take DOGE’s savings claims at face value, says NPR.