The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) deactivated 500,000 government credit cards.
DOGE said, “Credit Card Update! The program to audit unused/unneeded credit cards has been expanded to 32 agencies. After 10 weeks, more than 500K cards have been de-activated. As a reminder, at the start of the audit, there were ~4.6M active cards/accounts, so still more work to do.”
Credit card creep in the federal government is a really, really big version of an average family that has so many streaming services and other subscriptions auto-deducted from their bank account that they can’t even remember what they are paying for each month. Entire business models are set-up to help consumers manage their charges, subscriptions, and withdrawals. DOGE is providing that same service nationwide on behalf of the taxpayer.
DOGE in February said it uncovered these unneeded government cards had processed 90 million transactions, amounting to $40 billion in spending for fiscal year 2024.
Elon Musk, head of DOGE, had alerted the government in March that the credit cards appeared suspicious due to their seemingly unlimited use.
“There are still almost twice as many credit/purchasing cards as people in the government, and the limits are $10,000!” Musk posted via X. “A lot of shady expenditures happening.”
Other DOGE savings and changes announced recently include “termination of 522 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $285M and savings of $110M, including an $181k Department of Agriculture contract for a “technical climate advisor for central Africa”.
Also, major policy changes that will save taxpayer money and improve efficiency, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced recently three new policy actions that are projected to save more than $935 million annually for the American taxpayer, while expanding American innovation and scientific research. The DOE announced that it will follow best practices used by fellow grant providers and limit “indirect costs” of DOE funding to 10% for state and local governments, 15% for non-profit organizations, and 15% for for-profit companies.
The American taxpayer has not yet been able to realize the full value of the savings from DOGE. DOGE has ferretted out waste, fraud, and abuse; billions in grants and programs not consistent with the benefit of America; billions in blatantly discriminatory DEI mandates and programs here in America and in foreign aid; massive bloat in departments and agencies; and extraordinary inefficiencies in IT systems and administrative processes.
Yet, the Deep State is fighting back – and Democrats especially. Democrats have launched countless lawsuits asking the courts to stop the savings, stop the fixes, and keep government as inefficient and fraud-susceptible as possible. They want government big, complicated, difficult to track, and easy to fool. That's part of the grift the deep administrative swamp wants to keep in place at the expense of the taxpayer.