DOGE Dodges the Truth About Wasteful Spending
Based on an analysis conducted by New America, the savings from DOGE’s cancelled IES contracts are heavily inflated.
Exposing the Truth Behind DOGE’s “Big Savings”
In early 2025, the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claimed it had eliminated hundreds of billions of dollars in so-called wasteful government spending by cancelling federal contracts, including nearly $900 million at the U.S. Department of Education. But in a data-driven analysis, the New America Education Policy Program demonstrated that these figures were inflated, misleading, and didn’t reflect real savings.
Using publicly available contract data from USAspending.gov and DOGE’s own releases, New America showed that more than half of what DOGE cited as savings was based on contract ceiling values that might never have been spent. In reality, the total value of the terminated contracts was closer to $676 million, not $881 million—and once accounting for already-incurred expenditures, realistic “savings” amounted to roughly $278 million.
Perhaps more importantly, the analysis highlighted that some contracts funded legally required research and operations, meaning simply cancelling them could create duplicated costs, delayed projects, or require rebidding—risking taxpayers paying twice for the same work.
This work helped ground the national debate over DOGE’s claims in verifiable evidence, pushing back against exaggerated rhetoric and ensuring that policymakers, the media, and the public had accurate figures to base their decisions on.