These are sad stories but you have to wonder how many such stories you might collect from any mostly-functional organization. Certainly there were people who had unjust firings, toxic interactions before Trump and Musk. People who work at big tech companies also have experiences like this (layoffs while on maternity leave, while getting treated for terminal illnesses etc.). This isn't a sign of any grave malice and is inevitable in a large org. What I do wonder is whether DOGE achieved any significant savings, and that is not addressed in the article.
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> What I do wonder is whether DOGE achieved any significant savings
I don't think you actually wonder this because this information is easily and widely available with essentially zero effort.
Not only were there no real cost savings, but it was painfully and mathematically obvious that it was impossible for this approach to produce that kind of outcome.
> What I do wonder is whether DOGE achieved any significant savings
The answer is no.
Apples and oranges.
The fallout of a few employees being screwed by Google or similar is a lot different than the fallout of everyone being screwed by government.
Your concern for an illusory fiat ledger is noted.
> whether DOGE achieved any significant savings
They achieved something impossible: More federal spending even after reduction in work force.
Indeed the article is less an article and more a random collection of gripes and quotes. The third paragraph betrays that they're not really doing any analysis...
> The government would likely end 2025 with about 300,000 fewer employees... The total figure amounted to one in eight workers... In recent weeks, hundreds of the employees DOGE pushed out have reportedly been offered reinstatement.
"Hundreds" coming back is portrayed as if it offsets the 300,000 gone. They continue:
> The true scope of DOGE’s attack on the federal government remains unknown. While there is no reason to think it achieved meaningful cost savings or operational efficiencies...
and then go on to complain about an immigrant database, which has nothing to do with the reduction in the federal workforce. Simple quick math would suggest $60 billion or so a year in savings from the workforce reduction. Of course the larger savings is in the whole programs that were eliminated, not just the salaries and benefits savings.
DOGE saving $2 trillion / year is indeed impossible. That kind of savings would require a national conversation about what federal roles we no longer need. But DOGE likely achieved hundreds of billions a year in savings. USAID alone had a $50 billion budget that was mostly eliminated, though a few billion just moved over to State.
> But DOGE likely achieved hundreds of billions a year in savings. USAID alone had a $50 billion budget that was mostly eliminated, though a few billion just moved over to State.
A lot to unpack here ----
If you're an institutionalist: Does the executive now hold power of the purse?
If you're a humanitarian: was $50B for millions of lives and god knows how many more of massive quality of life improvement worth it?
If you care about evidence: "Likely hundreds of billions a year in savings" is insufficiently rigorous to throw around such large numbers. I've heard its as low as $2B and likely lower.
USAID was also a key channel for gathering open source intelligence in developing countries, and provided cover identities for CIA agents. There was certainly some waste and corruption but eliminating it completely was a massive own goal from a soft power perspective.