It is recent news of the executive order signed by Donald Trump to strengthen the powers of the DOGE, the government department aimed at evaluating public spending in terms of ‘efficiency’ (vaguely defined to tell the truth) and which a few days ago received the power to be able to approve or not approve all federal government hirings, in addition to the rule dictated by obscure logic to say the least, of only being able to hire a person after four redundancies or retirements, among which we will probably also include those who have voluntarily joined a programme to ‘resign’ from their employment in a federal agency, which has registered around 75,000 registrations, very low numbers compared to forecasts (but we are not surprised)

Well, at this press point, where Elon Musk was speaking from the Oval Office as if it were his own, standing with Trump looking down on him, the President (or one of the two, for that matter, as relations and executive powers are delineated) announced how the DOGE would already have found tens of billions of dollars to implement their cuts, with the figure possibly reaching as high as $500 billion. Of course, all this does not represent reality.

Announcements disproved by verifications

According to the Washington Post, the figure would be close to six billion dollars, not even close to the tens, or 500 billion declared by the president. It is as if a person announces that he has found a five-hundred-euro note on the ground, only to see that it is actually only a five.

Another problem that arises when talking about DOGE is the lack of transparency and verifiability of the data supported. In fact, the department does not yet have its own official website up and running (it looks like it will go live soon), has no address or ways for the press to reach the department, which is mainly active on X. According to NPR’s Stephen Fowler, a DOGE post claiming $1 billion in cuts to DEI contracts had no correspondence on the US Spending portal, which is updated almost daily.

Indeed, taking a fairly superficial look at the DOGE’s X profile, many of the posts are published without providing any proof that the cancellations actually took place, or that the subject of the cancelled contracts is consistent with what was declared: one need only think of the statements about the 50 million dollars that Trump and Musk said were given to Gaza for condoms, and that according to the two presidents were actually used to make bombs, when in reality the funds went to the Gaza region in Mozambique, some six thousand kilometres away from the Strip.

In one post, we read how nine million dollars in contracts were also cut for topics such as ‘Central American gender assessment consultant services’, ‘Brazil forest and gender consultant services’, without bringing any proof of the fact.

The constraints of reality

Adding up the figures reported on the department’s X profile, $1.84 billion was officially cut from 7 to 14 February, to be added to about $4 billion from cuts in administrative procedures. If we wanted to make a silly exercise in logic, the average for the reporting period amounts to about $230 million per day, which would correspond to $84 billion in one year, almost one-fifth of the $500 billion declared by Trump and a long way from the $1 trillion that is one of Musk’s declared targets for DOGE.

This assessment is based on the possibility, which is far from certain, that over time it will always be easy to find and subsequently cancel government contracts, and it is not difficult to assume that sooner or later conflicts will arise between DOGE and politicians, who often by means of small amendments in the budget law manage to find very important resources for their territory and, above all, for their consensus.

Another issue to be considered will certainly be the judicial response to many of the cuts that will be announced by the DOGE. In fact, the executive cannot go and touch the so-called ‘mandatory spending’, i.e., spending that is mandated by at least one law passed by Congress. Trump and his vice-president JD Vance are taking a lot from the Italian repertoire, accusing judges of being ‘radical left liberals’ and that they would not have the power to block the enforceability of presidential orders.

Just to make a point, in the United States federal judges are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate; thus, it is easy to trace how so many judges who have blocked executive orders or laws in recent days were appointed by Republican presidents such as Reagan or Bush senior.

The risks of constitutionality

In conclusion, the DOGE initiative, although presented as a bold and necessary strategy to reduce public spending, raises more than one concern. The discrepancy between triumphalist declarations and actual numbers, coupled with a lack of transparency and concrete evidence on savings, casts doubt on the effectiveness and legitimacy of this approach.

In an already inherently complex political and legal context, the planned cuts could generate not only internal conflicts between the various levels of government, but also raise legal issues that risk generating a constitutional crisis, in a context in which power is increasingly squeezed towards the executive, with a real threat to the ‘checks and balances’ that characterise the entire US constitutional design.

The management of public resources cannot be reduced to slogans or numerical manipulations, but requires a considered, verifiable approach in line with laws and constitutional principles. Only through a real, transparent and judicious reform process will it be possible to achieve effective optimisation of public spending without compromising the rights and benefits of those who depend on state resources.