Almost a Year After It Launched, DOGE's Legacy Is Mixed
Has the Department of Government Efficiency delivered on promises to downsize federal employment, cut regulations, and reduce federal spending?
As the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) transitioned from internet meme to real-life government reform effort, the agency claimed it would achieve many far-reaching, seemingly improbable goals.
It was going to slash $2 trillion in federal spending, eliminate burdensome and unconstitutional regulations, upgrade the federal government's "tech stack," evict the woke deep state, and, time permitting, balance the budget.
When it launched, both DOGE supporters and critics seemed to believe the agency was striving for the wholesale dismantling of the federal government. As the dust settles one year later, we can get a more accurate sense of how much DOGE has done to shrink and streamline the federal government.
Its cost-cutting efforts have been unsuccessful, but it did accomplish quite a bit toward shrinking the federal government's workforce. The Trump administration's deregulatory drive has been moderately successful, although it's debatable how much credit DOGE should receive for that.
Federal Employment
DOGE's biggest success on its own terms has been its reduction in federal employees.
When the second Trump administration came into office in January 2024, there were some 2.4 million civilian federal employees. That's about 1.5 percent of all employed civilian workers.
In its August 2025 jobs report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found 97,000 fewer federal workers by the end of that month. That figure does not include the 154,000 workers who accepted DOGE's "fork in the road" offer to voluntarily leave their federal jobs in exchange for being paid through the end of September 2025.
The precise impact of these deferred resignations on federal employment is difficult to parse, as the October government shutdown has delayed the release of BLS jobs reports that would count the federal workers lost through deferred resignations.
The Partnership for Public Service estimates that as of late September 2025, 201,000 people had left federal employment during the second Trump administration through deferred resignations, early retirements, reductions in force, and the layoffs of probationary employees. This measure isn't a complete snapshot of the fall in federal employment, as it does not include new hires—like all those extra Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents—or people retiring on schedule.
The Trump administration estimated that number would reach 300,000 by the end of 2025. If that larger figure stands, the Trump administration will have managed to cut the federal workforce by some 12 percent.
Federal Regulation
A core component of DOGE's original mission, as outlined in a Wall Street Journal op-ed co-authored by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, was to unilaterally cut federal red tape.
The actual deregulation we've seen under the Trump administration has come from more traditional routes: individual agencies issuing deregulatory rules and actions.
Early in his term, the president instructed agencies to impose total regulatory costs that were "significantly less than zero" and to eliminate 10 rules for every one rule adopted. According to a parsing of the latest Unified Agenda by the Economic Policy Innovation Center, the administration is closer to a 5–1 ratio of deregulatory actions to regulatory actions.
It has taken 778 active deregulatory actions, compared to 161 active regulatory actions. Significant deregulatory actions (those with an estimated economic effect of $100 million or more) number 71, compared to 31 significant regulatory actions. That's less than the Trump administration's goal, but significantly more deregulation than the Biden administration managed, since it added $1.8 trillion in new regulatory costs.
Federal Spending
DOGE's impact on federal spending is murkier, largely due to its inability to accurately and transparently account for its own claimed savings.
The agency's website says that it has saved taxpayers $214 billion by canceling contracts, grants, and leases. Unfortunately, DOGE's "wall of receipts" tallying these savings is riddled with errors and accounting gimmicks.
For instance, the agency will count as a savings the entire value of a contract it canceled, even if much of the obligated money has already been spent.
Another DOGE savings gimmick is to lower the maximum amount the government could potentially spend on a contract, even though those funds had not been spent and likely never would have been spent. This practice, it's been pointed out, is comparable to taking out a credit card with a $20,000 limit, canceling the card, and then claiming you've saved $20,000.
A Politico investigation into DOGE's claimed savings found that of the $145 billion it claimed to have saved via canceled contracts through the end of June 2025, only $1.4 billion—less than 1 percent—were real, verifiable cash savings.
DOGE did help identify and pause spending that would become the $8.9 billion rescission package passed by Congress in July. For context, that rescission package amounts to less than a percent of the federal discretionary budget. Federal spending in FY 2025 is an ominous $6.66 trillion, compared to $6.29 trillion in FY 2024. The deficit stands at $1.8 trillion.
This article originally appeared in print under the headline "DOGE's Budget Bark Didn't Match Its Bite."
