DOGE "found" a few hundred gazillion dollars in govt. waste.

where did it go??
never heard if it was transferred to different agencies, thrown in general fund or used to reduce my tax burden.

That money never existed. They just printed less of it.

quote:

Originally posted by Skull Leader:
That money never existed. They just printed less of it.

^^^^^
This.

Let me add from my experience dealing with fed.gov budget and appropriations, that the decision to not expend appropriated funds does not return them to the General Fund or allow transfer to other Departments. That takes action by Congress to change the appropriations.

As I understand it, the funds DOGE identified as wasteful spending are not being spent on anything because of these barriers. In less than two weeks, the legal authority to expend those funds expires with the end of FY2025. Then some poor sod at the Treasury gets to rebalance the books for FY2025, reducing the total Executive budget accordingly.

^^^^^ This.

One simply edits the spreadsheet.

Click the "Mo Money™" widget or the "NoMo Money™" widget.

It's Majik.

I'll tell you why there is no DOGE money from the DOGE audit of Social Security. The so called "findings" of hundreds of thousands of people over age 120 still collecting SS checks was utter total bullshit. No truth to it at all. SSA maintains a database of all social security NUMBERS issued. They also maintain a list of all BENEFICIARIES. It's a separate list. The list of all these dead people that are 150 years old etc is from the list of numbers, not beneficiaries. Again, those are NUMBERS, NOT BENEFICIARIES. . . NO CHECKS are issued from the data base of SS numbers issued. When the DOGE folks were hollering about all these dead people collecting checks they were flat wrong. The death data goes to the data base of BENEFICIARIES. It also goes to the data base of social security NUMBERS issued. Benefits stop as soon as SSA gets the death report. The death reports do go also to the data base of SSNs issued. But since there are no checks, just the death gets annotated. Some states don't add SSNs to their death records. So not all deaths get annotated to the list of NUMBERS. That's where DOGE got all of the nonsense about thousands of 120 year olds collecting checks. If you know anything about this, you would say that it's not surprising that there are lots of numbers (numbers, not beneficiaries) that never get annotated with a death. You have to consider. Is it worth the time, money and effort for SSA to hunt down whether there is an unreported death if no checks are involved? I'll anticipate a question and answer it- where do these SSNs come from where no death is annotated and they were never a beneficiary. Example - children who sadly pass away, the never married 30 yr old who dies in an auto accident etc.

There wasn't a single referral to the DOJ to prosecute anyone based upon the DOGE audits. Absolutely none. It was a waste of time and money. All DOGE did was look at computer listings. That's it. You aren't going to be able to pick up any fraud by just reviewing computer listings. Is there fraud at SSA. Yup. It comes mainly from two sources - a. fake or dubious medical evidence submitted to support disability claims and b. Unreported income by beneficiaries of Supplemental Security Income (SSI). SSI is not Social Security. It's a public assistance program run by SSA. You will never uncover any of this type of fraud by scanning computer listings. It requires field investigations and interviews with beneficiaries. DOGE did none of that.

This was probably from 4 months ago so I don’t know what the numbers are.

Elon proposed 192 (900 Billion) cuts to reduce debt. Democrats sued him 182 times. 164 of them are still in litigation.
Only 11 (150 billion) were not challenged.

Even if these all went through there is no money to have coming back. It’s more about stopping it from going out.

Hahahhahaha

The federal government does no wrong. And there’s no fraud in social security.


Again.

What about illegals said to be getting SS or SSI ? I thought there are quite a large number receiving benefits they aren't entitled to. I've always thought SS was for Americans. Perhaps, if those in charge actually knew something of money management, there would be know waste or fraud. I have no issue with Americans receiving benefits when they retire. Most people here will recieve SS when it's time. I waiting 4 years longer than most to retire.

quote:

Originally posted by Fed161:
I'll tell you why there is no DOGE money from the DOGE audit of Social Security. The so called "findings" of hundreds of thousands of people over age 120 still collecting SS checks was utter total bullshit. No truth to it at all. SSA maintains a database of all social security NUMBERS issued. They also maintain a list of all BENEFICIARIES. It's a separate list. The list of all these dead people that are 150 years old etc is from the list of numbers, not beneficiaries. Again, those are NUMBERS, NOT BENEFICIARIES. . . NO CHECKS are issued from the data base of SS numbers issued. When the DOGE folks were hollering about all these dead people collecting checks they were flat wrong. The death data goes to the data base of BENEFICIARIES. It also goes to the data base of social security NUMBERS issued. Benefits stop as soon as SSA gets the death report. The death reports do go also to the data base of SSNs issued. But since there are no checks, just the death gets annotated. Some states don't add SSNs to their death records. So not all deaths get annotated to the list of NUMBERS. That's where DOGE got all of the nonsense about thousands of 120 year olds collecting checks. If you know anything about this, you would say that it's not surprising that there are lots of numbers (numbers, not beneficiaries) that never get annotated with a death. You have to consider. Is it worth the time, money and effort for SSA to hunt down whether there is an unreported death if no checks are involved? I'll anticipate a question and answer it- where do these SSNs come from where no death is annotated and they were never a beneficiary. Example - children who sadly pass away, the never married 30 yr old who dies in an auto accident etc.

There wasn't a single referral to the DOJ to prosecute anyone based upon the DOGE audits. Absolutely none. It was a waste of time and money. All DOGE did was look at computer listings. That's it. You aren't going to be able to pick up any fraud by just reviewing computer listings. Is there fraud at SSA. Yup. It comes mainly from two sources - a. fake or dubious medical evidence submitted to support disability claims and b. Unreported income by beneficiaries of Supplemental Security Income (SSI). SSI is not Social Security. It's a public assistance program run by SSA. You will never uncover any of this type of fraud by scanning computer listings. It requires field investigations and interviews with beneficiaries. DOGE did none of that.

Well said.

Some rescissions based on DOGE findings were sent to Congress by the WH. Much smaller than promised—but this is the way it has to be done.

Newsmax link

So it's likely the stories about DOGE taking money out of starving children and seniors mouth's is BS too.

I think most of that was related to the dissolution of USA ID, which was initiated by doge but strongly endorsed by Rubio.

quote:

Originally posted by Fed161:
I'll tell you why there is no DOGE money from the DOGE audit of Social Security. The so called "findings" of hundreds of thousands of people over age 120 still collecting SS checks was utter total bullshit. No truth to it at all. SSA maintains a database of all social security NUMBERS issued. They also maintain a list of all BENEFICIARIES. It's a separate list. The list of all these dead people that are 150 years old etc is from the list of numbers, not beneficiaries. Again, those are NUMBERS, NOT BENEFICIARIES. . . NO CHECKS are issued from the data base of SS numbers issued. When the DOGE folks were hollering about all these dead people collecting checks they were flat wrong. The death data goes to the data base of BENEFICIARIES. It also goes to the data base of social security NUMBERS issued. Benefits stop as soon as SSA gets the death report. The death reports do go also to the data base of SSNs issued. But since there are no checks, just the death gets annotated. Some states don't add SSNs to their death records. So not all deaths get annotated to the list of NUMBERS. That's where DOGE got all of the nonsense about thousands of 120 year olds collecting checks. If you know anything about this, you would say that it's not surprising that there are lots of numbers (numbers, not beneficiaries) that never get annotated with a death. You have to consider. Is it worth the time, money and effort for SSA to hunt down whether there is an unreported death if no checks are involved? I'll anticipate a question and answer it- where do these SSNs come from where no death is annotated and they were never a beneficiary. Example - children who sadly pass away, the never married 30 yr old who dies in an auto accident etc.

There wasn't a single referral to the DOJ to prosecute anyone based upon the DOGE audits. Absolutely none. It was a waste of time and money. All DOGE did was look at computer listings. That's it. You aren't going to be able to pick up any fraud by just reviewing computer listings. Is there fraud at SSA. Yup. It comes mainly from two sources - a. fake or dubious medical evidence submitted to support disability claims and b. Unreported income by beneficiaries of Supplemental Security Income (SSI). SSI is not Social Security. It's a public assistance program run by SSA. You will never uncover any of this type of fraud by scanning computer listings. It requires field investigations and interviews with beneficiaries. DOGE did none of that.

Please tell me how competent SSA is. I'll shove your answer ... Incompetent fucks comes to mind. Fire everyone of the fucks and give me my money back. Whew, done...

Even with the tariffs and DOGE our government ran a 345 billion dollar deficit just for August so we are well on track to run a yearly deficit of $2.1 or more trillion dollars for the fiscal year. DOGE was just a drop.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

The federal government does no wrong. And there’s no fraud in social security.

Again.

You obviously did not read my post. Where did I say the federal government does no wrong? No where. You are making assumptions on what I believe and you would be wrong. And where did I say that there was no fraud in social security? Once again, no where. In fact, I'll repeat from my post - "Is there fraud at SSA. Yup. It comes mainly from two sources - a. fake or dubious medical evidence submitted to support disability claims and b. Unreported income by beneficiaries of Supplemental Security Income (SSI). SSI is not Social Security. It's a public assistance program run by SSA. You will never uncover any of this type of fraud by scanning computer listings." As you can see, I clearly did NOT say that there was no fraud at SSA.

When DOGE started, the very first agency they reviewed was SSA. Why did DOGE make all those mistakes when they did their audit? Simple. They got access to SSA data bases, but never asked any SSA employees what any of the data bases were. The General Accounting Office and other outside agencies (after getting the proper clearances first) have reviewed SSA data bases before. That's nothing new. But the first thing they do before a review or audit is to meet with SSA and get explanations of what they were looking at. DOGE never did that. SSA would have been glad to explain what the data bases were, but they were never asked. In fact DOGE made a point of talking to SSA employees as little as possible. I assume those were the instructions they were given.

OLD THREAD ALERT

Why Firing 9% Of The Federal Workforce Didn't Move The Needle

Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com,

In January 2025, the federal government employed about 3 million people. By November, that number had fallen by roughly 270,000 workers — a reduction of about 9%.

According to the Cato Institute, that was the largest peacetime federal workforce reduction EVER.

More than 150,000 employees took the “Fork in the Road” buyout offer to resign or retire. Tens of thousands more were laid off outright. Entire offices were emptied. Agencies that had been growing for decades shrank to staffing levels not seen since 2014.

And yet, despite historic federal layoffs, government spending went UP last year.

The federal government spent $7 trillion in Fiscal Year 2025— roughly $300 billion more than the year before. Bear in mind, 2025 was the year that DOGE was supposed to take a chainsaw to the budget and cut spending.

This is not a failure of DOGE. It’s a revelation about the actual problem.

The total federal payroll— every salary, every benefit, for every civilian federal employee (excluding the military)— comes to about $336 billion a year— less than 5% of total federal spending.

In other words, you could fire every federal employee tomorrow— every bureaucrat, every regulator, every paper-pusher in Washington— and 95% of the spending would continue as if nothing happened.

That’s because around 60% of the budget is mandatory spending— Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid— programs that pay out automatically based on laws that were passed decades ago. Congress doesn’t vote on these expenditures each year. The checks just go out.

Then there’s interest on the national debt, which in total runs about $1.2 trillion per year. It’s the second-largest line item in the entire federal budget, bigger than Medicare, bigger than national defense.

(The government uses a lower number called “net” interest; they exclude hundreds of billions in interest owed to Social Security and military retirees. But unless they plan on screwing those people over, that interest still has to be paid. So, we use the “gross” interest number and not “net” interest).

All of these obligations grow automatically, every year, regardless of who’s in charge or how many people show up to work.

Social Security alone grew by over $100 billion last year. Interest payments grew by another nearly $100 billion. Those two-line items, by themselves, swallowed more than the entire savings DOGE could theoretically achieve by cutting the workforce.

In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, more than 80% of projected spending growth over the next decade comes from Social Security, federal healthcare programs, and interest on the debt.

This is the structural problem nobody in Washington wants to talk about honestly: America’s deficit problem isn’t exclusively because of bad decisions today. It’s a failure to address bad decisions made years ago… decades ago– commitments that are baked into law, growing on autopilot, funded by borrowing roughly $2 trillion every year.

In an ideal world, Congress would address these entitlement programs directly. They are, after all, the biggest driver of the problem. But reforming Social Security or Medicare is the political third rail— nobody wants to touch it.

But there are other ways to move the needle as well.

The $38+ trillion national debt is manageable as long as the economy grows faster than the debt— which right now is not happening. But America still has absurdly strong economic potential to make that happen.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has publicly stated that roughly 10% of the entire federal budget— about $600 billion per year— is outright fraud. Not waste. Not inefficiency. Fraud. And much of that fraud is within entitlement programs— the welfare fraud that came to light in Minnesota, the hundreds of billions in Medicare and Medicaid fraud that have been documented for years.

So, reducing fraud would be extremely helpful. Stop paying criminals!! It shouldn’t be that hard.

Then they can take a hatchet to the regulatory maze that strangles productivity; this would substantially reduce the deficit and boost real economic growth— putting America in striking distance of growing the economy faster than the debt.

To its credit, DOGE proved that the federal government could function with far fewer employees.

After the historic reduction in federal employees, services didn’t collapse.

The IRS still processed returns. Air traffic controllers still showed up. The essential machinery of government kept running with 9% fewer people.

That confirms what many have long suspected: a significant portion of federal workers exist to justify their own existence.

But DOGE also proved something far more uncomfortable. Whenever the executive branch tries to go beyond workforce cuts and tackle the spending itself— even fraudulent spending— someone files a lawsuit, and a judge issues an injunction.

Federal judges blocked DOGE from accessing Treasury payment systems. A coalition of 20 state attorneys general sued to halt layoffs at over a dozen agencies. Even relatively modest cuts were tied up in litigation for months.

The legal system functions as a ratchet: spending can go up easily, but it almost never comes down.

Ultimately, the spending trajectory won’t change until Congress decides to root out fraud, cut spending across the board, and stop obstructing economic growth.

But Congress won’t act until voters force them to do so— which, based on the current state of American politics, isn’t happening anytime soon.

The window to fix this relatively painlessly is still open. But it’s narrowing. Within seven years, Social Security’s trust funds will be exhausted, and the national debt will exceed $50 trillion. At that point, the math won’t just be uncomfortable. It will be unavoidable.

We can hope they figure it out. But hope isn’t a strategy. And that’s what a good Plan B is all about— ensuring your family’s financial future doesn’t depend on Congress suddenly discovering fiscal discipline after decades of proving they have none.

https://www.zerohedge.com/poli...ce-didnt-move-needle

I REALLY wish DOGE was bigger, better and more visible. I would like to see it as a cabinet position with highly visible, detailed (With receipts) and regular briefs. I want shamed those that sponsor and sign off on waste. Like a Soviet "Political Officer" in the movies; I want the fear of God in those spending OUR $. Seriously, if I had 3 wishes from a Genie, this would be one of them.

Many, perhaps most states, have an independently elected AG. We need the same. Someone who’s career requires high profile arrests.

DOGE's purpose was never to save money. It was to be a distraction to make MAGA think they were getting something. It was red meat waved at the base to give us a sniff, but we were never intended to taste it.

All those DOGE cuts evaporated as soon as it was up to congress to make them. They chose not to make those cuts even though they were popular AND Republicans held the house and senate. Trump didn't even push for them. He attacked the one guy (Massie) who fought for them.

The same thing happened to the tariff dividend Trump talked about.