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President Donald Trump shared a post from the Department of Government (DOGE) X account on Sunday, revealing hundreds of millions of dollars saved for taxpayers.
The list noted the cancellation of planned taxpayer funds to a long list of international projects that will no longer receive funding.
The list opened with “$10M for ‘Mozambique voluntary medical male circumcision,’” among the many questionable items.
Another included $486 million in taxpayer funding to the “Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening,” which included $22 million for “inclusive and participatory process” in Moldova and $21 million for voter turnout in India.
A third example cited on DOGE’s list was $9.7 million for UC Berkeley to develop “a cohort of Cambodian youth with enterprise driven skills” followed by $2.3 million for “strengthening independent voices in Cambodia.”
Musk previously announced that the organization would reduce the current federal deficit by $1 trillion by 2026, cutting an average of $4 billion dollars daily. He added that if these numbers were successfully met, there would be “no inflation in 2026.”
DOGE has supposedly already eliminated one billion dollars through the elimination of 104 diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) contracts, according to Fox News.
In a Feb. 11 executive order, Trump assigned DOGE power to implement a workforce optimization initiative as part of eliminating government waste. The stated goal is, “To restore accountability to the American public, this order commences a critical transformation of the Federal bureaucracy. By eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity, my Administration will empower American families, workers, taxpayers, and our system of Government itself.”
DOGE has also proposed the potential option to eliminate paper checks sent out by the government.
“Treasury processed 116 million paper checks in FY2024,” a post from DOGE stated. “In FY2023, $25 billion in tax refunds were delayed or lost due to returned or expired checks.”
The update also noted, “Treasury maintains a physical lockbox network to collect checks for tax (IRS), passport (State Department), etc. It costs approximately $2.40 per check to maintain this lockbox network,” adding that, “Deleting paper checks would save at least $750 million per year.”
