How does $95,000 a week sound? A pretty good gig if you can get it and some contractor did – or got essentially the equivalent to that exorbitant rate at taxpayer expense.
Last week DOGE uncovered that the Veterans Administration (VA) was paying $380,000 every month to an outside contractor to make minor changes to the VA website. That contract was not renewed. One VA staffer working about 10 hours a week is now doing this work.
"Good work by @DeptVetAffairs," DOGE said in a post on X. "VA was previously paying ~$380,000/month for minor website modifications. That contract has not been renewed, and the same work is now being executed by 1 internal VA software engineer spending ~10 hours/week."
This money doesn’t grow on trees, or even from the government printing presses, it comes out of the pockets of regular, working Americans.
The VA along with other federal agencies works with DOGE to route out waste and abuse while streamlining departments funds back towards essential services.
VA Secretary Doug Collins also recently announced the dismissal of over 1,000 staffers enabling redirection of over $98 million per year in resources back to health care, benefits and services for VA beneficiaries.
The old saying that ‘Light is the best disinfectant’ perfectly describes the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE is the light. DOGE is not personal. DOGE isn’t against anyone. DOGE is FOR the American taxpayer and all the people who rely on benefits and services from the federal government.
Many of the things DOGE has been uncovering are process type things such as the retirement system that is kept in paper folders in an underground mine, ancient and inefficient computer systems, lack of specifics defining who payments are being made too, and not updating who is dead or alive in the Social Security system.
There have been lists and lists of incredulous grants and programs that most regular Americans can’t imagine is something that exists let alone funded by their hard-earned tax dollar.
DOGE also brought other questionable uses of taxpayer funds to light and changes or cancellations were made to the Department of Labor totaling $237 million saved.
These grants included $10 million for "gender equity in the Mexican workplace," $12.2 million for "worker empowerment in South America" and $6.25 million for "improving respect for workers' rights in agricultural supply chains" in the countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cancelled 113 grants totaling $4.7 billion.
The DOGE website reports that it has saved Americans $140 billion as of early April.
DOGE makes clear that cuts in federal agencies are not personal. No one is saying the people are bad or even that all the services are bad. Some services that people like are being cut, but just like in the budgets of taxpayer households, prioritization of spending has to be weighed against revenue. Much of what is being cut is waste, fraud, and abuse and some are simply things that can no longer be afforded considering the debt and deficit of the United States.