Let’s Check In on DOGE, Because That Will Allow Me to Crow and Gloat

It's gonna get real obnoxious real fast

I’ve written about DOGE a few times, and when I do, I hear from people who are a lot more bullish on Elon’s project than I am. Of course, just about everyone is more bullish on Elon’s project than I am, since I see DOGE as a sick perversion of something real, basically what the porn movie Tits a Wonderful Life is to the substantially different 1946 Frank Capra film.¹ But Elon calls his project a war on waste, fraud, and abuse, which is great branding — who favors waste, fraud, and abuse? Branding matters; history might view Jack the Ripper differently if he had called his spree “an effort to reduce illegal sex work in London.”

I understand why people view DOGE favorably. And when those people write to me and urge me to give DOGE a chance, I say: “Let’s see what happens!” After all: I would be thrilled if Elon eliminated $1-$2 trillion dollars in waste like he promised — I would happily buy a 60-second spot during the Super Bowl introducing myself as History’s Biggest Dumbass if that happened. I would even tastefully applaud the “Good Ol’ College Try” scenario, in which Elon doesn’t reach the $1-$2 trillion that he promised, but still identities substantial savings, and reasonable people agree that the effort was a net positive.

So: Why have I been such an unrelenting critic of DOGE? It’s because simple budget math makes it clear that Elon is full of shit and doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.² As I explained as obnoxiously as possible in this episode of the podcast, there simply isn’t enough non-military discretionary spending to do what Elon says he’s going to do. That’s why saying “Let’s see what happens” has been my go-to response: I knew that Elon would fail, and when that happened, I would gloat in a way that makes Cuba Gooding Jr.’s touchdown dance at the end of Jerry Maguire look restrained.

Last week, DOGE downgraded its estimated saving to $150 billion. So: Welcome to the first installment of my insufferable gloating about how fucking right I was about DOGE. If you’re adversely affected by galactic-scale self congratulation — perhaps if you’re pregnant or have an autoimmune condition — you may want to stop reading, because the intensity of the self-congratulation that I’m about to unleash will need to be measured in units that currently only exist in science fiction. And yes: This is merely round one of the gloating, because there are other shoes still to drop before DOGE accepts its inevitable fate as a historical failure.

Math geniuses will notice that $150 billion is 15% of $1 trillion. Suppose that you ordered a pizza, and Domino’s delivered a pie with nearly seven of eight slices already eaten. Or suppose that you bought a king-sized mattress, but Serta delivered a sofa cushion. Or suppose that a guy bragged about having a ten inch penis, but it ended up being 1.5 inches. That’s what DOGE just did. In a normal world, this would be a huge embarrassment, and Elon would be hauled before Congress to explain why he got nowhere near his target, but in this post-embarrassment administration, nobody cares.

Of course, even Elon’s new estimate shouldn’t be believed. For starters: This is the guy who just promised a ten inch schlong and then whipped out a Mike & Ike, why would you believe anything he says? Also, the DOGE web page is a den of lies that makes your average dating profile look like sworn testimony from Christ himself. DOGE miscounts, double counts, counts stuff that already happened, and counts stuff that may never happen. DOGE is the Theranos of government agencies, except that the scam is a million times more obvious.

Much of what DOGE is eliminating isn’t waste; it’s spending that you might agree with or might not. Elon likes to spin yarns about social security checks going to long dead people, because who could support that — don’t those government blockheads know that people don’t live to 150? Of course, those claims invariably have innocuous explanations. Most of Musk’s cuts are not obvious fraud that no sane person would support, but rather spending that conservatives don’t like. If you don’t like foreign aid, fair enough, I think some of it is money well spent, but let’s agree: It’s not fraud. And cutting funding for research on cures for diseases might be the most short-sighted and societally damaging cut that I can think of. Elon tweets about government silliness that can be cut with no harm, but the truth is that many of these “savings” come at a cost.

And in fact, some savings come at a cost that’s measured in American currency. DOGE’s attempt to fire 20,000 IRS employees has led to estimates that the cuts may cause the government to collect $500 billion dollars less in revenue. If true, that’s more than three times DOGE probably-too-rosy estimate; if it’s half true, it’s almost double DOGE’s number. And the IRS firings are just the most impactful way that DOGE’s short-term “savings” could incur long-term costs; one illustrative example of their penny-wise-and-pound-foolish approach is that they fired the technician who services the HVAC system at a VA complex in Illinois. The middle-aged property owner in me is horrified by that choice. You need an HVAC tech; what’s next, failing to change your filter every 90 days or letting grass grow around the condenser? In my America, promoting shoddy HVAC maintenance should cause middle-aged men to take to the streets in tubby, balding protest, and I think the fact that it hasn’t is a sign of national decline.

Probably the clearest sign that DOGE is a transparent joke is federal outlays in 2025. Here’s how much the federal government has spent so far this year compared to 2024:

Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury

Given the results so far, here’s an operating theory of what’s going on: A guy who had success in business came to believe that he’s a next-level genius whose powers apply to any field. That — along with mind-altering drugs — caused him to blunder into a situation where he has no idea what he’s doing. He hired a team of overmatched pipsqueaks to implement a slash-and-burn approach to cost-cutting based on completely incorrect assumptions of how government works. His promised savings have gone down, down, down — they’re presently at 7.5 percent of his initial promise — and whatever ultimately results will in no way resemble what was initially envisioned.

That’s just my theory of what’s going on. Is it correct? Well…let’s see what happens!

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1. The one problem with this analogy is that Tits a Wonderful Life arguably compares favorably in some ways to It’s a Wonderful Life, whereas DOGE probably does not compare favorably in any way to a serious cost-cutting effort.

2. Well, it’s that and also my belief that the entire project is illegal. I guess I’m a real Article 1 of the Constitution slut.