While it must be said that the average American is definitely interested in having a more efficient government that pays attention to its budget and thus acts responsibly in keeping its accounts prudent, accessible, and transparent to the people, we find that there is certainly room for an institution such as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Indeed, upon the election win of Donald Trump in November of 2024, that administration soon created DOGE, which was essentially led by none other than Elon Musk, for the expressed purpose of making the government run more efficiently and hence to be more cost-effective and purposeful in that which it does on behalf of the people. So, enough time has elapsed since the implementation of DOGE, and with DOGE no longer part of this nation's governance, a reckoning is due.
AI Overview tells us that the United States Federal deficit in 2024, under the Biden Administration, was $1.83 trillion; under the Trump Administration with DOGE, it was $1.78 trillion in 2025 and $1.99 trillion in 2026. The truth is in the numbers, which reflects that DOGE was an absolute abject failure in its stated goal to reduce governmental spending by billions upon billions of dollars, and didn't come close to becoming efficient in the sense of substantially reducing the federal deficit, for it clearly did not do that specific thing. While it is true that DOGE eliminated somewhere around 300,000 federal jobs, that seems to really be more about punishing those that were in employment and perceived to be of a different political party, thereby succumbing to the new sheriff in town, and hence did basically little to reduce the deficit, while also, in some cases, deliberately hurting governmental programs meant for the benefit of the people or as a reflection of the obligation America has to other nations.
So too, the whole structure of DOGE was fundamentally flawed, because the best way for a government to become more efficient is to work closely with those that have the expertise in how that government operates and expends its money, as opposed to simply slashing and burning whatever suited the fancy of those making the decisions, or as a form of punishment for those that were not of the correct political party. Additionally, whenever looking at any budget, the smartest people in the room are going to hone in on examining carefully the biggest budget items, which in America would consist of the National Defense, Healthcare, Social Security, and the Net interest on the national debt. These represent the big ticket items, and to the degree that these could be dealt with so that monies expended or retracted from them were done in a more efficient way, this would be reflected in a distinct improvement of those respective numbers.
In sum, there isn't any doubt that there is plenty of "fat" in the national budget, and further to the point, there are certainly plenty of things that could be done to make the government more efficient, but virtually none of that was done, and really, when it comes down to it, DOGE was a publicity stunt, which accomplished little, if any, lasting value, thus making DOGE fairly seen as an abject failure.