DOGE (Barely) in the News

The sad hivemind made up of what were once separate professional news organizations was recently gloating that several hundred federal employees riff’ed by DOGE recommendations were rehired at the Government Services Administration (GSA). The ongoing steady reductions of billions in spending have generally not made their way into the news for some reason.

One story about the restaffing characterized the Trump Administration as “begging” the several hundred workers to return to GSA. The agency was presumably unable to continue to function with only its remaining 11,000 or 12,000 employees. GSA controls contracts for federal building leases, among other things. While perhaps not a paragon of efficiency, GSA is where cancellations of unnecessary or dubious contracts would have to be executed, so the agency can therefore literally hold hostage much of DOGE’s recommendations if it does not like cuts to its own budget and staff.

I would have thought the federal employee whistleblower bonus of up to $10,000 for reporting wasteful spending that kicked in on September 10 would have received more coverage. [Note: if it involves fraud or is happening on a larger scale, the employee is strongly advised to seek out an experienced qui tam attorney because the potential rewards under existing whistleblower statutes can be much more than a lousy $10k.]

Casual conversations in my Maryland suburban neighborhood now often include mentions of losing a job or knowing someone who did. There are very few precedents of significant reductions of government employees in general. But it is less the raw numbers (still relatively small and not concentrated) than the shock that these jobs are not safely eternal with a guaranteed path to retirement.

The effects of cutting spending on contracts and employment by government vendors are not yet clear, but I suspect it may be more significant than cuts in direct federal employment in the long run if sustained at high levels. Many of the people who can afford to shop at the massive Tysons Galleria in Northern VA are at the top of the food chain for federal contracts or provide lobbying, consulting and legal services on behalf of such contractors. The downstream economy must be enormous.

The DOGE success rate is now averaging about $120 billion a year in savings. This seems like a lot. But if the federal government were a grossly obese rhino, that rate of savings would be the blood loss from a barely noticeable scratch or fleetingly negligible weight loss from sustained jogging towards more food.

At some point Congress has to get involved to significantly restrain spending. At the present time, with so many congressional spouses, compadres, and campaign donors feeding at that big trough, and so many others downstream back in the home state poised to scream at the slightest change, significant cuts don’t seem likely. Ever.