DOGE claimed to have slashed tens of billions of dollars in expenditures, but it was impossible for outside financial experts to verify that because the agency did not provide detailed public accounting of its work.
But analysis by think tanks and The New York Times concluded that, despite DOGE’s claims, spending actually went up in 2025.
“DOGE did not reduce spending,” according to analysis by the CATO Institute, which focused on federal outlays and employment, and on executive branch spending that was in the organization’s jurisdiction.
“The federal government spent $7.6 trillion in the first 11 months of calendar year 2025, approximately $248 billion higher by November of 2025 compared to the same month in 2024,” the analysis said.
“DOGE failed to cut spending because most federal spending was for entitlement programs, where spending remains high due to structural reasons and policy autopilot,” CATO’s analysis continued. “Congress alone has the authority to cut these programs, so it’s unsurprising that DOGE did not reduce spending.”
A Brookings Institution Hamilton Project tool that tracks spending in real time found that as of December 19, government spending went from $7.135 to $7.558 trillion — nearly a 6 percent increase.
DOGE did, however, reduce federal employment by 9 percent in less than 10 months, according to CATO, which noted “a decline that large has not happened since the military demobilizations at the end of World War II and the Korean War.”
DOGE is no longer a “centralized entity” and staffers have been folded into other departments since Musk’s exit - amid his public falling out with Trump.
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