Despite high-profile efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to slash government waste, federal spending during Trump’s first month back in office increased compared to the same period last year, according to a Reuters analysis of Treasury Department data.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has it’s work cut out for it… and while it has been an ambitious star, what they’ve done so far is simply not enough.
It is time to cut the very popular federal spending programs that account for the majority of our federal deficit.
The government spent approximately $710 billion between January 21 and February 20, up from roughly $630 billion during a comparable period in 2024, even as the newly created DOGE cut costs in the billions.
Rising interest payments are consuming an increasing portion of federal dollars. Interest payments alone reached $94 billion during Trump’s first month, compared to around $80 billion during the same period last year.
“Our $7 trillion budget is driven by structural imbalances because we’ve over-promised in our retirement and health care programs compared to what we’re taking in,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “We’ve borrowed in good times and bad times, which has led to record debt levels.”
DOGE has a lot of work cut out for them. Led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, the DOGE team initially claimed $55 billion in savings through canceled contracts and property leases but has since revised these figures downward by approximately $3 billion.
One particularly dramatic revision involved a USAID contract where projected savings plummeted from almost $655 million to just 35 cents.
The money has already been spent after decades of mismanagement of the U.S. federal budget.
“DOGE has already identified billions of dollars in savings for American taxpayers, and President Trump will continue to direct this effort until our government is truly for the people, and by the people,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.
But while the administration has frozen billions in foreign aid and dismantled much of USAID, which spent $42 billion in fiscal year 2023, that’s just a small portion of the problem.
USAID represents just 0.6% of the total budget. Trump’s workforce reduction has affected roughly 100,000 federal employees through buyouts and mass layoffs, but total personnel costs amounted to only 4.3% of total spending in fiscal year 2022.
Simply put: The cuts aren’t aggressive enough. The United States is in trouble unless some hard choices are made.
Kevin O’Leary, chairman of O’Leary Ventures, compared government agencies to “big fat chickens” dripping over “barbecues of fat” during a CNN appearance Tuesday.
“I think the issue is they’re not whacking enough,” O’Leary said. “They’re not cutting enough. Keep slashing. Keep hacking while you have a 24-month mandate before the midterms. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. More, more cutting. Believe me, it’s going to work out just great.”
The cost-cutting efforts has faced, and will continue to face, both legal and political challenges from the Democratic Party.
Fourteen Democratic state attorneys general are suing to block DOGE from accessing federal data, though the agency won a victory Friday when a federal judge declined to temporarily block its access to sensitive information from several departments.
Meanwhile, 21 Obama-appointed executive tech workers resigned from DOGE Wednesday in protest, claiming the agency mishandled Americans’ private data. Musk’s efforts to examine payment and personnel records have been restricted by Biden-appointed judges.
While USAID cuts and overall reform have been popular with most voters, the real hard choices will soon come: Major spending on politically popular programs like social security, Medicare, and defense.
“There is no way to meet their goals without hitting the third rail,” said Lauren Bauer, a Brookings Institution researcher who tracks Treasury spending data, referring to politically sensitive entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
The fact is that the U.S. government – both Republicans and Democrats – have been sleepwalking for decades, unwilling to make any kind of reforms. That has left the Trump administration in a major bind.
Trump must do more, and be more bold, if his administration is really going to save American taxpayers – and the world — from the impending U.S. federal deficit cliff.