The Wall Street Journal reports:

Federal spending is higher since President Trump took office even as the Department of Government Efficiency slashes contracts, cuts jobs and ends diversity programs.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of daily financial statements issued by the Treasury Department found government spending since the inauguration is $154 billion more than in the same period in 2024 during the administration of former President Joe Biden. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports:

Last week, Elon Musk indicated for the first time that his Department of Government Efficiency was falling short of its goal.

He previously said his powerful budget-cutting team could reduce the next fiscal year’s federal budget by $1 trillion, and do it by Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. Instead, in a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Mr. Musk said that he anticipated the group would save about $150 billion, 85 percent less than its objective.

Even that figure may be too high, according to a New York Times analysis of DOGE’s claims.

That’s because, when Mr. Musk’s group tallies up its savings so far, it inflates its progress by including billion-dollar errors, by counting spending that will not happen in the next fiscal year — and by making guesses about spending that might not happen at all.

One of the group’s largest claims, in fact, involves canceling a contract that did not exist. Although the government says it had merely asked for proposals in that case, and had not settled on a vendor or a price, Mr. Musk’s group ignored that uncertainty and assigned itself a large and very specific amount of credit for canceling it.

It said it had saved exactly $318,310,328.30.

Mr. Musk’s group has now triggered mass firings across the government, and sharp cutbacks in humanitarian aid around the world. Mr. Musk has justified those disruptions with two promises: that the group would be transparent, and that it would achieve budget cuts that others called impossible.

Now, watching the group pare back its aims and puff up its progress, some of its allies have grown doubtful about both.

“They’re just spinning their wheels, citing in many cases overstated or fake savings,” said Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute. “What’s most frustrating is that we agree with their goals. But we’re watching them flail at achieving them.” [Continue reading…]