$78 Billion in Cuts. Some Smart. Some Brutal. All Controversial.
The Department of Government Efficiency — yes, the meme name is intentional — has been operating for 10 months now. Led by Elon Musk with Vivek Ramaswamy, DOGE has identified and implemented $78 billion in federal spending cuts.
Whether you think this is heroic or horrific depends entirely on your politics. But the numbers are the numbers. Let''s look at what actually got cut.
The Biggest Cuts
- Federal workforce reduction: 82,000 positions eliminated through attrition and early retirement. The federal government is now the smallest it''s been since 2008.
- IT modernization: $12B saved by migrating legacy systems to cloud. (This should have been done a decade ago.)
- Contract consolidation: $22B in duplicate contractor agreements eliminated. The DoD alone had 847 active contracts for "consulting services" that nobody could define.
- Building closures: 340 federal buildings closed or consolidated. Remote work + fewer employees = empty offices.
What''s Actually Controversial
The cuts to USAID foreign aid programs ($8.4B) and EPA enforcement ($3.2B) are genuinely debatable. These aren''t waste — they''re policy choices. Cutting foreign aid saves money but reduces soft power. Cutting EPA enforcement saves money but potentially increases pollution.
Market Impact
Government contractors (Booz Allen, SAIC, Leidos) initially dropped 15-20% on DOGE fears. They''ve since recovered as the market realized that DOGE is cutting bureaucracy, not defense spending. Defense tech (PLTR, Anduril) is actually benefiting — DOGE wants fewer bureaucrats and more technology.
The long-term play: if DOGE actually reduces the deficit trajectory, bond yields could fall, which is bullish for everything. But that''s a 2027+ story.
