Nearly 40% of the federal contracts that President Donald Trump’s administration claims to have canceled as part of its signature cost-cutting program aren’t expected to save the government any money, the administration’s own data shows.
The Department of Government Efficiency, run by Trump adviser Elon Musk, published an updated list Monday of nearly 2,300 contracts that agencies terminated in recent weeks across the federal government. Data published on DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts” shows that more than one-third of the contract cancellations, 794 in all, are expected to yield no savings.
That’s usually because the total value of the contracts has already been fully obligated, which means the government has a legal requirement to spend the funds for the goods or services it purchased and in many cases has already done so.
“It’s like confiscating used ammunition after it’s been shot when there’s nothing left in it. It doesn’t accomplish any policy objective,” said Charles Tiefer, a retired University of Baltimore law professor and expert on government contracting law. “Their terminating so many contracts pointlessly obviously doesn’t accomplish anything for saving money.”
An administration official said it made sense to cancel contracts that are seen as potential dead weight, even if the moves do not yield any savings. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Trump administration says it’s targeting fraud, waste and abuse in the government. DOGE said Monday that its cost-cutting efforts have saved an estimated $65 billion, including canceling leases and grants, cutting employees and selling assets. That figure has not been independently verified.
Some of the canceled contracts were for research studies that have been awarded, training that has taken place, software that has been purchased and interns who have come and gone. Dozens of them were for already-paid subscriptions to The Associated Press, Politico and other media services that the Republican administration said it would discontinue.
Other canceled contracts were to purchase a wide range of goods and services.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded a contract in September to purchase and install office furniture at various branches. While the contract does not expire until later this year, federal records show the agency had already agreed to spend the maximum $567,809 with a furniture company.
The U.S. Agency for International Development negotiated a $145,549 contract last year to clean the carpet at its headquarters in Washington. But the full amount had already been obligated to a firm that is owned by a Native American tribe based in Michigan.
Another already-spent $249,600 contract went to a Washington, D.C., firm to help prepare the Department of Transportation for the recent transition from President Joe Biden’s administration to Trump’s.
“It’s too late for the government to change its mind on many of these contracts and walk away from its payment obligation,” said Tiefer, who served on the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tiefer said DOGE appeared to be taking a “slash and burn” approach to cutting contracts, which he said could damage the performance of government agencies. He said savings could be made instead by working with agency contracting officers and inspectors general to find efficiencies, an approach the administration has not taken.
DOGE says the overall contract cancellations are expected to save $9.6 billion, an amount that has been questioned as inflated by independent experts.
Some of the canceled contracts were intended to modernize and improve the way government works, which would seem to be at odds with DOGE’s cost-cutting mission.
One of the largest, for instance, went to a consulting firm to help carry out a reorganization at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, which led the agency’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The maximum $13.6 million had already been obligated to Deloitte Consulting LLP for help with the restructuring, which included closing several research offices.
Why is it everyone looks at these things as savings? The government allocated money to spend on these things, congress decided spending the money was important. The money has already been allocated, so what are we saving? It just means the government is doing less and a bunch of money is in limbo or going to be used inappropriately.
I mean, we live in more years than the current one so that argument kinda falls on its face pretty quick. And like you said, they’ll probably just cancel a lot of these projects and have lovely limbo money to fuck around with because it’s not like they respect terms and agreements.
The real argument is that these programs and infrastructure developments help people and strengthen the economy. They help the working class by sharing everyone’s resources and make sure that less of the burden of doing everything is on the individual. For some reason there are billions of people in the world who have zero understanding of the concept that when the government “saves” money by cancelling projects and slashing oversight budgets they lose out. Their taxes go down but their monthly expenditures to go way up and they’re ok with that because they get the illusion of choice.
What I’m calling out is that the executive side can only help government be more efficient (get more for the same spend).
The legislative owns the purse strings and decides what to spend. DOGE literally can’t “save” money, because congress has already “spent” it.
But you’re absolutely right in regards to the fact that these grants/employees/etc. that are getting cut have compounding value that will be lost.