DOGE has made a big impact on Washington. But government spending is up.

(Politico) Elon Musk had to publicly pitch Donald Trump on a government cost-cutting initiative three times at an X Spaces campaign event last August before he appeared receptive.

“We need a government efficiency commission,” said the billionaire, who was spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get Trump elected. The president responded with a tangent on rebuilding the military.

Eight months later, that project has become arguably the most powerful force of the beginning of Trump’s second term. Headed by Musk, named after an internet meme and administered, in large part, by mysterious twentysomething engineers, DOGE in 100 days has reshaped Washington, hobbling its longstanding institutions as the world’s richest man brings a chainsaw to a bureaucracy he claims is rife with “waste, fraud and abuse.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/doge-made-big-impact-washington-193441329.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&segment_id=DY_VTO_CORE&ncid=crm_19908-1475736-20250430-0--A&bt_user_id=36NKou5Bq2Xf2szkKmNaZC7F62ym%2FGNkGF%2BT5AVbYcNP%2FbZtqVyYRygKhCafNV6x&bt_ts=1746014527098