Elon Musk's beloved Department of Government Efficiency claims they've already saved us tons of money by slashing federal spending here, there and everywhere. But a New York Times analysis says that those claims are "marred with accounting errors, incorrect assumptions, outdated data and other mistakes."
The "incorrect assumptions" part reminds me of a TV production company I once worked for where the owners brought in some kind of Efficiency Expert. With absolutely no knowledge of who did what or how the process worked, he assumed that every job that was done by two people could be done just as well by one. They wound up having to hire back an awful lot of people he laid-off and the inefficiency before the rehiring more than wiped out any savings from the layoffs.
Blogger Kevin Drum, who is usually pretty good at this kind of thing, guesstimates that Musk and DOGE have only saved this country around 0.33% of the total federal budget…and that's assuming everyone who's been fired stays fired. Already, they've had to unfire a lot of people who were fired.
By the way: I often quote Mr. Drum on this blog because I find great wisdom and cool-headed reality on his blog. He's currently blogging from a hospital bed as he continues a long battle against cancer of the bone marrow. That's devotion to duty…and it's probably a doesn't-pay-all-that-well duty.