Is anyone tracking DOGE lies?

[taiwan_girl]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/25/upshot/doge-spending-cuts-changed.html

Is there waste to be found? Absolutely! But, they seem to be going at it in a very amateur way.

Last week, Elon Musk’s government cost-slashing initiative, which he calls the Department of Government Efficiency, posted an online “wall of receipts,” celebrating how much it had saved by canceling federal contracts.

Now the organization, which is also known as the U.S. DOGE Service, has deleted all of the five biggest “savings” on that original list, after The New York Times and other media outlets pointed out they were riddled with errors.

The last of the original top five disappeared from the site in the early hours of Tuesday, even as the group claimed in its latest update that its savings to date had increased to $65 billion. The website offered no explanation for why it had removed some items or how it had arrived at the higher total. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, sent a written statement that did not address the deletions, but provided a broader defense of the cost-cutting initiative, saying it “has already identified billions of dollars in savings.”

The “wall of receipts” is the only public ledger the organization has produced to document its work.

and

The largest savings on the latest version of its list is a $1.9 billion cut at the Treasury Department. But The Times reported last week that this contract was canceled last fall, when Joseph R. Biden Jr. was president — and when DOGE did not yet exist.

and

[Jolly]

I really don't care if initial mistakes are made, as long as we can monitor and correct.

This needs doing. Badly.

If we line up ten people against the wall, with eight guilty and two innocent, I don't mind shooting the innocent.

This is that important.

[xenon]

It just seems like it’s being done by incompetent people. Like a bunch of software engineering types who don’t understand the government.

Probably can be better staffed. Not all problems benefit from rocket scientists.

[Jolly]

@xenon said in Is anyone tracking DOGE lies?:

It just seems like it’s being done by incompetent people. Like a bunch of software engineering types who don’t understand the government.

Probably can be better staffed. Not all problems benefit from rocket scientists.

Possibly.

But always remember, this hasn't even been attempted since the Grace Commission and it shows all sign of being more effective.

[89th]

What exactly is being attempted? As we've mentioned, nearly all of the "waste" they have found so far actually was already known and addressed.

I can't read the NYT article but I know there have been glaring and actually embarrassing mistakes such as:

• They counted the same contract 3 times (not realizing how gov contracts work, apparently), I think part of the "top 5 that mysteriously disappeared" mentioned above
• They said it was 8 billion cut from ICE, when it was 8 million... silly typo
• They included something that was canceled in 2005 (!!!) because they didn't bother to quality-check the tweet that was forwarded to them
• As mentioned above, they included 1.9 billion that was canceled by Biden

The last audit I read was of the $65 billion they have claimed, only a few million have actually been verified. That's like... a 99% inaccuracy rate.

I am 100% for detecting fraud, waste, and abuse, who isn't? But the constant exaggerations and misstatements from DOGE is really hurting their credibility. Just yesterday I told my kids the Crying Wolf story, maybe I should invite DOGE for the next story time.

[xenon]

Yeah - you undercut yourself by doing this in such a clearly amateur way.

[jon-nyc]

It’s not clear that his fan base realizes how shit his data and narratives have been. I doubt maga media corrects them much.

[Jolly]

And I doubt your left-wing sources do nothing but undercut the effort.

Ain't it wonderful?

[jon-nyc]

But I don’t limit myself to those. Not so sure that’s the case with your average Trumpist.

[Jolly]

@89th said in Is anyone tracking DOGE lies?:

What exactly is being attempted?

To cut the size and cost of a government that the American people can no longer afford.

Of course, that is not the purpose of this thread. What is being attempted in this thread, is an attempt to pick apart the biggest effort to cut government spending in 40 years.

Not that it matters, I guess.

[xenon]

Shouldn’t the biggest effort to cut spending be aimed at where the biggest spending is?

And how useful is this when you’re on pace to become the administration overseeing the biggest increase in the deficit in the country’s history?

[Jolly]

@xenon said in Is anyone tracking DOGE lies?:

Shouldn’t the biggest effort to cut spending be aimed at where the biggest spending is?

And how useful is this when you’re on pace to become the administration overseeing the biggest increase in the deficit in the country’s history?

Ok, name me one other budget reformation that cut more employees and money than the nascent DOGE effort.

[Axtremus]

@Jolly said in Is anyone tracking DOGE lies?:

If we line up ten people against the wall, with eight guilty and two innocent, I don't mind shooting the innocent.

This is that important.

Nah, you just like shooting.

[jon-nyc]

@Jolly

You’re missing his point. It’s not happening in a vacuum. It’s happening at the same time the GOP is planning on another 19T of debt in the next decade. (20T according to Massie).

That’s more than half again of the 36T we have on the books.

[jon-nyc]

@Jolly said in Is anyone tracking DOGE lies?:

Ok, name me one other budget reformation that cut more employees and money than the nascent DOGE effort.

2011 sequestration

~1990 Troop drawdown and base closures.

[taiwan_girl]

@jolly. I dont think that anyone here would disagree that there is a lot of waste in government. But it is like @xenon said, this appears to be a very amateur way. They dont seem to have any plan, anyway to "quantify" the data, etc. From the articles, it makes them look laughable.

They are going in to a house to kill a mosquito and using a sledgehammer to TRY and do so.

Sure, a person could walk into my organization (or yours) and fire 90% of the staff and claim victory!!! Kind of like "winning the battle, but losing the war."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/us/politics/doge-musk-contracts-wall.html

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has deleted hundreds more claims from its mistake-plagued “wall of receipts,” erasing $4 billion in additional savings that the group said it had made for U.S. taxpayers.

Late Sunday night, the group erased or altered more than 1,000 contracts it had claimed to cancel, representing more than 40 percent of all the contracts listed on its site last week. The deleted items included five of the seven largest savings that it had claimed credit for just last week. At the same time, the group added about 1,000 additional canceled contracts, worth smaller total savings.

It was the second time in a week that DOGE had deleted some of its greatest claims of success. Early last week, it erased all five of the largest savings it had claimed when the wall of receipts, which is what the group is calling its list of canceled contracts, was originally posted on Feb. 19.

[Jolly]

Ok.

[89th]

@xenon said in Is anyone tracking DOGE lies?:

Shouldn’t the biggest effort to cut spending be aimed at where the biggest spending is?

And how useful is this when you’re on pace to become the administration overseeing the biggest increase in the deficit in the country’s history?

Yup coupon clipping while buying ferraris

[jon-nyc]

Yet more amateur hour.

Perhaps it would have been better if they had inserted a lie here.

[Copper]

Good, sell 'em all.

I'm sure the dems will eventually buy them all back at twice the price.