US Agencies Terminate or Reduce 78 ‘Wasteful’ Contracts Worth $1.9 Billion: DOGE

Overall, the cost-cutting initiative begun in January has saved $214 billion in taxpayer funds, the agency said.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) website is displayed on a phone, in this photo illustration. Oleksii Pydsosonnii/The Epoch Times

Federal government agencies terminated and reduced 78 “wasteful” contracts over the past nine days with a ceiling value of $1.9 billion, generating $335 million in savings, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said in a Nov. 23 post on X.

Among the terminated contracts was a $4.3 million IT services contract for “Inflation Reduction Act transformation project management support” at the IRS, a $661,000 Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) IT services contract for “social media monitoring platform subscription,” and a $191,000 U.S. Agency for Global Media contract for “broadcast operations and maintenance in Ethiopia, Africa.”

According to the DOGE website, the initiative has generated total savings of $214 billion as of Oct. 4, which amounts to more than $1,329 per taxpayer.

The savings were achieved through measures such as asset sales, interest savings, workforce reductions, regulatory savings, deletion of fraud and improper payments, and cancellation or renegotiation of contracts/leases.

The HHS ranked at the top of agencies with the most savings under DOGE, followed by the General Services Administration, the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the Small Business Administration.

Democrats have raised questions about privacy protections when DOGE staff access the personal information of Americans.

In September, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) released a report accusing DOGE of operating outside of federal law and having unchecked access to personal data of U.S. citizens, according to a Sept. 25 statement from the lawmaker’s office.

When DOGE staff visited SSA and OPM sites, agency personnel were informed about the security practices that DOGE members would follow while accessing data from these agencies, according to the report.

DOGE staff’s reported actions appear to violate the Privacy Act of 1974 and the E-Government Act of 2002, which relates to protecting Americans’ personal data, the report said.

“DOGE isn’t making government more efficient—it’s putting Americans’ sensitive information in the hands of completely unqualified and untrustworthy individuals,” Peters said.

“They are bypassing cybersecurity protections, evading oversight, and putting Americans’ personal data at risk. We cannot allow this shadow operation to continue operating unchecked while millions of people face the threat of identity theft, economic disruption, and permanent harm.”

In June, the Supreme Court gave DOGE two wins on the privacy issue. One of the orders lifted a lower court injunction that prevented DOGE employees from accessing confidential data stored with the SSA.

The second order formally blocked an order from lower courts that demanded DOGE respond to freedom of information requests in a pending complaint.

Meanwhile, former DOGE head Elon Musk said in an Oct. 31 interview with Joe Rogan on his podcast that DOGE was continuing to cut waste and fraud at the federal level. The initiative had become less publicized after his exit in May, he said.

In its crackdown on government waste and fraud, DOGE reported uncovering some of the “strangest, most baffling uses” of government funding.

It cited a $2.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation that was issued for addressing “historic and systemic racial inequities” in STEM education.

A $6.9 million grant was issued by the Department of Education for teaching social and emotional learning and the foundations of mental health development from an “antiracist approach.”