As the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) moves from internet memes to real-life government reform efforts, the agency claims to achieve many far-reaching and seemingly impossible goals.
It would cut $2 trillion in federal spending, eliminate burdensome and unconstitutional regulations, upgrade the federal government’s “tech stack,” oust the woke deep state, and balance the budget as time permits.
When it was launched, DOGE supporters and critics alike seemed to believe the agency was working toward a wholesale dismantling of the federal government. As the dust settles a year later, we can get a more accurate picture of how much DOGE has done to shrink and streamline the federal government.
Its cost-cutting efforts were unsuccessful, but it did achieve significant results in reducing the federal government’s workforce. The Trump administration’s deregulatory push has been moderately successful, although how much credit DOGE should receive remains controversial.
By itself, DOGE’s greatest success has been the reduction of federal employees.
When the second Trump administration took office in January 2024, there were approximately 2.4 million civilian federal employees. This represents approximately 1.5% of all employed civilian workers.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found in its August 2025 jobs report that the number of federal workers decreased by 97,000 by the end of the month. That number does not include the 154,000 workers who accepted DOGE’s “fork in the road” offer, voluntarily leaving their federal jobs in exchange for wages through the end of September 2025.
The exact impact of these delayed resignations on federal employment is difficult to analyze because the October government shutdown delayed the release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment report, which would count federal workers lost to delayed resignations.
The Partnership for Public Service estimates that as of late September 2025, 201,000 people have left federal employment during Trump’s second administration through delayed resignations, early retirements, force reductions and layoffs of probationary employees. The measure is not a complete reflection of the federal employment decline because it does not include new hires (such as all additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents) or planned retirements.
The Trump administration estimates that number will reach 300,000 by the end of 2025. If that number stays the same, the Trump administration will succeed in cutting about 12% of the federal workforce.
Core components of DOGE’s original mission, e.g. wall street journal The op-ed, co-written by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, aims to unilaterally cut federal red tape.
The actual deregulation we’ve seen under the Trump administration has come through a more traditional route: individual agencies issuing deregulatory rules and actions.
Early in his administration, the president directed agencies to bring total regulatory costs “well below zero” and to eliminate 10 rules for every rule passed. According to the Center for Economic Policy Innovation’s analysis of the latest unified agenda, the ratio of government deregulatory actions to regulatory actions is close to 5:1.
It has taken 778 active deregulatory actions, compared with 161 active regulatory actions. The number of major deregulatory actions (actions with an expected economic impact of $100 million or more) was 71, compared with 31 major regulatory actions. That’s lower than the Trump administration’s goal but much higher than the Biden administration’s deregulation, which added $1.8 trillion in new regulatory costs.
DOGE’s impact on federal spending is murkier, largely because of its inability to accurately and transparently account for its claimed savings.
The agency’s website says it has saved taxpayers $214 billion by eliminating contracts, grants and leases. Unfortunately, the “wall of receipts” by which DOGE tallies these savings is riddled with errors and accounting tricks.
For example, the agency will count the full value of contracts it cancels as savings, even if most of the obligation funds have been spent.
Another one of DOGE’s savings gimmicks is to lower the maximum amount the government can spend on contracts, even though those funds haven’t been used and may never be used. Some point out that this is the equivalent of taking out a credit card with a $20,000 limit, canceling the card, and then claiming you’ve saved $20,000.
one Politico An investigation into DOGE’s claimed savings found that of the $145 billion it claimed to have saved by canceling contracts as of June 2025, only $1.4 billion (less than 1%) were real, verifiable cash savings.
DOGE did help identify and suspend spending that would become the $8.9 billion repeal package passed by Congress in July. For context, the repeal package amounts to less than one percent of the federal discretionary budget. Federal spending in fiscal year 2025 is $6.66 trillion, compared with $6.29 trillion in fiscal year 2024. The deficit is $1.8 trillion.
DOGE’S LEGACY IS MIXED appeared first on Reason.com nearly a year after this article was published.
