September 2026 – Warren's space

The Real DOGE

Last year I criticized Elon Musk’s project to save the federal government $2 trillion a year (Department of Government Efficiency—DOGE) as a missed and botched chance to streamline our federal bureaucracy. I was, perhaps, overly influenced by the elimination of the USAID aid agency, which I consider a big mistake https://wcoats.blog/2025/02/17/usaid/ and an interview with a brainless boy on one of the DOGE teams who had no idea what he was doing. Tyler Hassen’s new book: “Inside DOGE: The Real Story from a Senior Insider,” has convinced me that I was largely unfair. Washington Post – Inside DOGE

While DOGE achieved far less than it promised, its primary failure was PR – its failure to properly explain what it was doing and how it was doing it. https://wcoats.blog/2025/04/27/trumps-chainsaw/ https://wcoats.blog/2025/11/29/kill/

It would have taken me days to research what DOGE actually achieved, but my AI program took less than one minute and probably was more though so I will just share its answer. This did not replace me but made, I think, my blog better.

What did DOGE promise to deliver and what did it actually accomplish

DOGE promised a sweeping transformation: roughly **$2 trillion a year** in lower federal spending, a leaner and more efficient federal workforce, modernized government technology, and unusually transparent public accounting of its results. What it demonstrably delivered was much narrower: aggressive cancellations and workforce actions, major operational disruption, and a reported—but largely unverified—$215 billion in savings, far below the original goal.^[1]^[2]

What DOGE promised

There were two related but distinct promises:

Promise	What it meant in practice
Cut federal spending by $2 trillion	Elon Musk’s early public target was to reduce annual federal spending by at least $2 trillion. The target was subsequently discussed at lower levels—$1 trillion, then approximately $150 billion in savings by FY 2026. ^[3]^[4]
Eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse”	DOGE was expected to identify and cancel low-value contracts, grants, leases, and programs, while cutting duplicative spending. ^[3]^[2]
Reduce bureaucracy and improve productivity	It sought to shrink or restructure parts of the federal workforce and make agencies operate more efficiently. ^[5]
Modernize federal IT	The January 20, 2025 executive order formally charged the renamed U.S. DOGE Service with improving government-wide software, IT systems, network interoperability, data integrity, and responsible data synchronization. ^[2]
Provide transparent, itemized reporting	Musk promised a public “Wall of Receipts” showing savings, so the public could inspect DOGE’s work. ^[1]

A crucial distinction: the legal executive-order mission was principally technology modernization and productivity. The far larger $2 trillion fiscal promise was a public political objective associated with Musk and DOGE’s wider cost-cutting drive, not a quantified requirement written into the order.^[2]^[1]

What it actually did

DOGE’s concrete actions included:

Embedding DOGE teams in federal agencies to examine records, systems, contracts, and operations. The executive order called for an agency team typically including a lead, engineer, HR specialist, and attorney.^[2]
Seeking to terminate contracts, grants, and leases, including underused office space, software licenses, and selected programs.^[6]
Pursuing federal-workforce reductions and agency restructuring.
Creating and maintaining the public “Wall of Receipts,” which ultimately listed claimed savings of approximately $215 billion—including categories beyond the individual contracts, grants, and leases shown in the main receipts records.^[5]^[1]
Expanding centralized access to agency unclassified records, software, and IT systems, with an explicit emphasis on data access and modernization.^[2]

Its temporary organization was set to end July 4, 2026—18 months after its creation.^[2]

Savings: claims versus evidence

The central result is that DOGE’s claimed savings and independently substantiated savings diverged sharply.

Measure	Amount	Interpretation
Original public aspiration	$2 trillion annually	The headline promise; DOGE did not come close to it. ^[1]^[7]
Later, lower goal	About $150 billion	Musk’s April 2025 goal for savings by the end of FY 2026. ^[3]^[4]
DOGE’s eventual claimed total	About $215 billion	An administration/DOGE estimate, not an audited accounting of net budget savings. ^[1]^[5]
“Wall of Receipts” reviewed by GAO	$110 billion	Claims tied to reported contract, grant, and lease actions that GAO examined. ^[1]^[5]
GAO-supported portion of that $110 billion	About 4%	GAO found only a small part of the reviewed claims had adequate support; this is not the same as an estimate of total program savings. ^[8]

The GAO’s findings are particularly important because headline savings are not equivalent to actual reductions in federal outlays. A canceled multiyear contract may have had unspent funds, may not have been canceled, may have been replaced by another purchase, or may impose transition costs elsewhere.

Among the problems GAO found:

108 of 264 leases DOGE listed as terminations were already being terminated before DOGE began. GAO said this overstated lease savings by more than $80 million.^[1]
More than half of the listed contracts were either not actually ended or had insufficient information to determine their status.^[1]
DOGE cited $1.7 billion in savings from a Defense Department technology contract that GAO said was never terminated or reduced; GAO therefore found no savings from that action.^[8]^[1]
DOGE did not provide enough detail for GAO to verify the methodology for 96% of reported grant savings, and it often did not apply its own stated method consistently to contracts.^[1]

Earlier independent reporting had already found major reporting errors. NPR’s contract-record review in early 2025 could verify only about $2.3 billion in maximum estimated savings from the items it examined, while emphasizing that even this figure could overstate actual savings.^[9]

Bottom line

DOGE did accomplish a real administrative and political intervention: it pushed agencies to cancel or reconsider some contracts, grants, leases, software licenses, and programs; it contributed to workforce reductions; and it made federal technology, data access, and organizational efficiency a central White House priority.^[6]^[2]

But it **did not deliver the $2 trillion annual spending reduction it promised**, and it did not produce a transparent, independently auditable accounting sufficient to validate even most of its public savings claims. Its own final figure—roughly $215 billion—was only about 11% of the original $2 trillion target, and GAO found serious reliability problems in the subset of claims it reviewed.^[5]^[1]

The fairest concise assessment is: DOGE was consequential as an instrument of disruption, contracting pressure, workforce change, and IT/data centralization; it was unsuccessful as a demonstrated $2-trillion deficit- or spending-reduction program.

⁂

https://www.doge.gov

What I believe

I am a classical liberal fusionist. The following brief outline will hopefully explain what that means followed by a brief summary of where Trump stands relative to my beliefs of what is good for America.

I want to be free to make my own decisions about my life and for you to be similarly free as well. As we live together with 8.3 billion others, we must have understandings/rules/laws guiding our interactions if we are to live peacefully with each other. An efficient government limited to those purposes is essential. As a classical liberal I strongly support the limited, enumerated powers and structure (checks and balances) of government provided by the American constitution. Our constitution provides that our government will have limited powers sufficient to protect us from foreign and domestic threats of corruption, fraud and attack, secure our property rights, adjudicate disputes, provide public goods (e.g. roads, pollution regulations) and establish the rules (guardrails) for private enterprise. Our constitution specifically prohibits our government from infringing upon our freedom of speech, assembly, or religion.

Such limited government powers would leave use with substantial freedom to choose our own way of life. The quality of our lives will depend importantly on how wisely we use that freedom. While it would be ideal for those in need of help to receive it from family and friends and from private charities established for that purpose, I believe that the private provision of charity on any large scale has been so displaced by government welfare that I accept the government’s role in providing a social safety. But the current mix of programs restrict our freedoms and are inefficient. I propose a Universal Basic Income as the most efficient approach and the most consistent with individual freedom. https://wcoats.blog/2020/08/20/replacing-social-security-with-a-universal-basic-income/

America has flourished because the substantial freedom our government leaves us is generally used well. The vast majority of us use our freedom in ways that respect the freedoms of others. The three monotheistic religions—Christianity, Judaism and Islam (and no doubt others as well)—provide important guidance for virtuous behavior. These include honesty, charity, love, prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, humility, forgiveness, etc. Virtue is the other leg of Fusionism, which is explored in the wonderful new book by Stephanie Slade: Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right.

While respecting the freedoms of others, I may choose (within my abilities) how I make my living, whom to buy from and sell to (free trade), and how to spend my free time and with whom. Much of our relationships with others will reflect the locally accepted norms of good behavior. This extends far beyond driving on the same side of the road. Some of these norms have been codified into laws, which we expect to be applied equally to all of us. Some are the norms of courteous behavior (good manners). Thus, freedom and rights have fostered the entrepreneurship that has made the U.S. the economic envy of the world.

But today, with the internet and jet planes, our world extends far beyond our own communities. Engaging with as much of the world as possible peacefully has benefits. It can enhance our safety by making agreements with other governments that reduce the occurrences of war. It can add joy to our lives by exposing us to the many wonder of other cultures and geographies. It has enormously lifted the average standard of living because of the extension of the benefits of specialization made possible by trade. Global average per capital real income has risen 13 to 15 times (1,200 to 1,400%) over the last two centuries. This after many, many centuries of virtually no change.

But what is required to travel to or trade with other countries? How can our planes fly over and safely land in other countries? How do we prevent the signals from other countries’ satellites from interfering with the internet and other signals from our own as they fly over? Just as our Federal government can establish laws to protect our safety, liberties and property across state lines that benefit us all, they need to do so across country borders. https://wcoats.blog/2020/12/01/the-rule-of-law-china-and-the-u-s/ Without such agreements we would not be free to trade and travel nearly as widely as now. https://wcoats.blog/2017/01/06/the-liberal-international-order/

We have failed to live up to these standards on many occasions, but they are the north star to which we strive. Or at least until now. On July 23, 2019, speaking to a Turning Point USA audience (and on other occasions as well) President Trump said: “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” With that he threatened to throw away the limits on the power of our government and the checks and balances on its exercise. Some of his policies have been consistent with the principals I believe in, but many have not.

The Economy: The government’s limited role of protecting property rights and promoting business transparency has unleashed the entrepreneurial energies that have led to our country’s flourishing. Like President Biden before him, Trump thinks his ideas of where to put our resources are often better than the market’s—thus projecting government activities beyond its proper functions. He was right, however, to think that many government agencies and their regulations were more burdensome than helpful to the private sector. A review and streamlining of the government’s oversight of the economy would be a good idea. Unfortunately the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk was a crude hatchet job that did more harm than good. https://wcoats.blog/2020/11/04/saving-the-american-dream/

Immigrants: America would not exist without immigrants. https://wcoats.blog/2026/07/06/immigrants-2/ Currently they are important to provide the younger workers needed to pay the expenses (e.g. Social Security benefits) of our growing number of longer-living retirees. Rather than allowing more legal immigrants, Trump has reduced the number and promised to deport those here illegally. https://wcoats.blog/2026/02/08/immigrants/ . While I support efforts to prevent illegal immigration, Trump’s quickly recruited and improperly trained ICE agents have murdered innocent Americans and deported American citizens, along with illegal immigrants, without due process and in violation of court orders. The rule of law be damned. https://wcoats.blog/2025/08/29/immigration/

Free Speech: Our constitution specifically protects free speech for a good reason: https://wcoats.blog/2012/09/15/further-thoughts-on-free-speech/ It helps build public consensus and support for good public policies.

Trump goes ballistic when criticized and misuses executive power to punish critics. These have included suing critics, threating the licenses of their employers, etc. https://wcoats.blog/2026/08/21/our-first-amendment-freedom-of-speech/

“ABC late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel said an interview he conducted with Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico will not air on broadcast because of what he called threats issued to his network by President Trump’s Federal Communications Commission.” The Hill 9/10/2026

Our constitution provides checks and balances on the powers of government in an effort to prevent (or minimize) the overreaching of government. Donald Trump took major actions against agency inspectors general across both of his presidential terms: Between April and May 2020, he removed or replaced five agencies’ inspectors general in a series of late-Friday decisions: just days into his second term, he dismissed seventeen independent inspectors general at once across cabinet departments—including Defense, State, Transportation, Labor, and Energy. Subsequent individual firings followed throughout early 2025 (such as the USAID IG in February 2025).

The nonpartisan inspectors general review agency programs, financial statements, and operations, recommend changes to make government operations more economical and effective, manage hotlines and intake processes for employees to report wrongdoing safely, and report their findings to the heads of the agencies they monitor and to Congress. In September 2025, a federal judge ruled that the mass January 2025 firings violated federal law because the administration failed to provide the mandatory 30-day notice and substantive rationale to Congress, though the court did not order their reinstatement.

At least 20 high-ranking generals, admirals, and civilian defense leaders have been directly fired or pushed out of their roles by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump. When including behind-the-scenes actions—such as blocking promotion rosters, cancelling appointments, and forcing early retirements—over 80 generals and admirals have had their careers altered, blocked, or cut short as part of a sweeping restructuring aimed at downsizing senior military leadership and reshaping the Pentagon. According to my military friends, those removed were generally the best of the lot. Not bowing to Hegseth’s silly games proved fatal. Where might this be going?

Trade: The Trump administration has stifled the free market allocation of resources to the detriment of our growth in several ways. He has complained about offshoring manufacturing resulting in our trade deficits (which by the way help finance the government’s fiscal deficits thus keeping interest rates on government bonds lower than otherwise). In fact, however, manufacturing output in the US is greater than it has ever been. Domestic employment in manufacturing, however, has fallen because of increased labor productivity.

Trump claims that high tariffs are needed to reduce our trade deficit. But he has not imposed them in ways sanctioned by the World Trade Organization, i.e., to improve competitiveness with a level playing field. His tariffs often seem weapons to get countries to agree to other totally unrelated goals. Trump’s bullying has cost the U.S. more than trade. Often his threats require that foreign companies building plants in the US give shares to the Federal government. The US government now owns shares in some 40 or so such companies (https://wcoats.blog/2026/08/10/econ-101-capitalism-and-socialism/ ). And the courts have struck down some of his tariffs. https://wcoats.blog/2024/11/26/tariffs/

Wars and foreign policy: During his Presidential campaign, Trump promised to end our forever wars. Then, with Israel, he ordered an invasion of Iran. One reason seemed to be to stop Iran from developing atomic bombs (correcting Trump’s first term error of withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran which prevented such a development). https://wcoats.blog/2026/04/02/iran-and-the-bomb/. “Trump’s threats against countries trading with Iran expose the limits of US economic power, as allies resist Washington’s demands and the global economy moves towards a less American-dominated order.” “Trump is hastening the decline of American power,” by Joseph E. Stiglitz 9/12/2026. https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/09/trump-is-hastening-the-decline-of-american-power/

Trump’s continue support of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza and increasingly the West Bank has further isolated the US, which stands alone with Israel in the UN in defense of these humanitarian atrocities. https://wcoats.blog/2026/03/31/fixing-palestine/

I agree with Trump’s insistence that others (in particular NATO members) pay their share of the cost of the defense they get with American help. But insulting our allis, often with tariff increases or threats, is not in America’s interest, nor in compliance with WTO rules.

In The New York Times (9/10/2026), Tom Friedman proclaimed that: “Trump is the most un-American president in my lifetime. No president has done more, and continues to do more, to unravel the post-World War II institutions and alliances that were built and sustained by his predecessors. We are talking about… our intimate relationships with Canada and Mexico and our military alliances with South Korea and Japan — to name but a few. These relationships and institutions together produced global and American prosperity and great power peace for generations….”

During his presidential terms, Donald Trump initiated U.S. withdrawals from or ceased participation in a wide range of prominent international treaties, agreements, and bodies:

Paris Climate Agreement: Withdrawn during his first term and formally pulled out of a second time in January 2025.
Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA): The U.S. withdrew in May 2018.
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Withdrawn via executive order in January 2017.
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC): Trump ordered the U.S. withdrawal from the founding 1992 climate treaty.
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty: The U.S. exited this Cold War-era arms control treaty with Russia in August 2019.
Open Skies Treaty: Withdrawn in November 2020.
World Health Organization (WHO): Initiated withdrawal in 2020 and executed withdrawal actions again during his second term.
UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) & UNESCO: Withdrawn during his first presidency.
Global Compact for Migration: Withdrawn in December 2017.

Standing alone we are much weaker than when standing together with friends.

Interest rates: While Trump’s threats to the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates reflects a complete misunderstanding of the forces in play and the Trump administration’s perverse impact on them, I have confidence in the integrity of Kevin Warsh and expect the Fed to raise its policy rate next week in keeping with its commitment to lower inflation to 2%. https://wcoats.blog/2026/08/29/inflation/

Corruption: Trump’s wealth increased $3 to $4 billion dollars during his second term so far. Corruption? No comment. “Trump has pledged a $5,000 dividend to every American adult if Republicans retain control of Congress in November’s midterm elections, prompting questions about how the benefit would work, whether it is legal and where the funds would come from.” Washington Post 9/10/2026. Amazingly Trump publicly proclaims this bribery.

The Washington Post reported on 9/12/2026:

“Democrats hope to retake control of the House, and to use that power to probe Trump’s business ventures, legal maneuvers and policies…. ‘There’s so much corruption and grift that it’s going to take the entire House on the Democratic side to do investigations appropriately,’ Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California), who would probably lead investigations as chair the Oversight Committee in a Democratic-held House….

“Trump family enrichment…

“Handouts to supporters…

“Construction projects…

“Immigration enforcement…

“Prosecutions of Trump’s political enemies…

“Institutional pressure campaigns.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/09/12/house-democrats-plan-sweeping-trump-investigations-if-they-win-november

It goes without saying that Trump does not support many of the US Constitution based principles I support. If I am right, as I am sure I am, that adhering to the principles of our Constitution is an important part of the foundation of our flourishing, Trump’s abuses of those principles will have the opposite effect. His disregard for the rule of law, his expansion of the powers of government to coerce us, and his disregard and flaunting international agreements and relationships will turn the US into a society of uncertain rights heading in uncertain directions depending on who is leading it at the time.

To give Tom Friedman the last word from his NYT article sited above:

“A year ago, I heard one of our former presidents privately observe that we can survive Trump’s second term as long as our institutions remain intact. Well, unfortunately, they have not. Who would argue today that the Justice Department, which has been turned into a personal legal weapon of the president, is intact, that the Department of Health and Human Services is intact, that the Pentagon is intact, that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is intact or that the Federal Communications Commission, which is now run by a Trump-appointed hack who acts as combined government censor and minister of propaganda, is intact?”

Trump, Trump, Trump, all about Trump

Are we supposed to take him literally but not seriously or is it the other way around? Are his rants those of a truly crazy person or can he really not know that his totally nutty rants are doing serious damage to the U.S.? https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-7-2026?r=1n8osb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

I had worried that Trump’s anti trade, protectionist instincts would do serious damage to our country, but never dreamt that he would so blatantly abuse executive power against his domestic enemies and would so quickly turn almost the whole world, our allies included, against us, something not good for the country. By the way, U.S. manufacturing output is the greatest it has ever been. Manufacturing employment, on the other hand, has decline some because of increases in labor productivity.

The party that had aways best reflected my views on the policies that best served us, the Republican Party, has totally failed to uphold congress’s constitutional responsibilities to block Trump’s lawlessness. As much as I hate to say it, our (the country’s) only hope to stop Trump before his picture and name are on every building in town and almost every country in the world (I leave it to you to decide which might still like Trump) has condemned us and refused to cooperate with us, is to elect a Democratic congress in November. I think this will happen whatever the courts rule on mail in ballets. I always vote in person on election day anyway.

	Kurt Schuler on The Real DOGE
	What I believe… on Econ 101: Capitalism and …
	What I believe… on Our First Amendment Freedom of…
	What I believe… on Further thoughts on Free …
	What I believe… on Immigrants