From the inside
That's not efficiency. That's vandalism with a spreadsheet.
Here is what makes me angry, because I have seen this government from the inside: it does waste money, and it can be maddening to work in. So when they promised to make it efficient, part of me wanted them to pull it off.
Instead they sent in a teenager and a handful of tech bros who had never run anything bigger than a group chat, forced their way into agencies and networks they had no legal right to touch, and gutted whole swaths of what government does: foreign aid, scientific and medical research, civil-rights and fair-housing enforcement, even the agencies that keep our history, libraries, and museums. That is not efficiency. That is vandalism with a spreadsheet.
The receipts
They faked the savings and broke what worked
$110 billion
DOGE claimed $110 billion in savings. The government's own auditors found much of it was never real: thousands of "terminated" contracts that were never actually cancelled, and a method they could not even verify for most of it. That is not cutting waste. It is faking a spreadsheet while breaking things that worked.
Government Accountability Office, 2026
17 watchdogs fired
In one night they fired all 17 independent Inspectors General, the government's own investigators whose whole job is finding fraud, waste, and abuse, by two-sentence email, breaking the law that requires notice to Congress. A federal judge ruled it unlawful. You do not fight waste by firing the people who find it.
EPI · U.S. District Court (Judge Reyes) · Grassley & Durbin, 2025
300 million
A teenager and engineers barely out of college were handed the keys to the Treasury and your Social Security data, and a whistleblower says they copied 300 million Americans' records into a database with none of the required security. No one can say where that data went, or why they needed it.
NPR · SSA whistleblower · federal court, 2025-26
170 to 370 days
Meanwhile, the real fix goes untouched: it takes 170 to 370 days to remove a poor-performing federal employee, and only one in ten federal workers says their own agency will even do it. You can fix the rules without burning the house down.
OPM · GAO
It already existed
There was already a right way to do this
And the worst part? We already had people doing this kind of work the right way: the U.S. Digital Service, a small team of technologists who helped agencies modernize specific IT systems and fix broken digital projects, carefully and on a limited scale. This administration took its name, drove out the experts, and slapped "DOGE" on the empty shell. It never should have happened.
But we are here now, so let's do the job they only pretended to do: find the real waste with real auditors, keep the institutional knowledge you cannot reboot, and fix what is genuinely stuck. Cut the waste, not the rights.
The plan
Fix it for real: investigate first, then build back stronger
Here is the truth underneath all of it: none of DOGE was ever really about auditing the government, assessing it, or making it work better. But Americans do want that, and they are right to. People want a government that is easier to navigate, more effective, and more efficient, and Congress should always be pushing to get there. I will push harder than anyone.
But we cannot rebuild until we know what was broken. So first we do a complete, independent investigation, bring the watchdogs back, and stand up a full cross-branch, cross-agency commission to find the gaps and the damage, name what is permanently lost, figure out what we can get back, and build it back better, stronger, and genuinely more efficient than it ever was.
Federal levers: what a Senator can do
- Restore the inspectors general: reverse the unlawful firings and protect the watchdogs' independence in statute so no president can gut them overnight.
- Stand up the investigation: fund a cross-branch, cross-agency commission with real auditors and subpoena power to map the damage and verify what was actually saved.
- Lock down your data: legal walls around Treasury and Social Security systems, with real security requirements and accountability for anyone who copied your records.
- Finish the real reform: fix the rules that make it take a year to remove a poor performer, and consolidate the tangle of hiring authorities that keep good people out.
The plan, in full
Where she stands
The evidence
The facts
$110 billion
DOGE's headline "savings" number. The GAO found much of it unverifiable, including thousands of contracts reported as terminated that were never actually cancelled.
Government Accountability Office, 2026
17
Independent Inspectors General fired in a single night by email, in violation of the law requiring 30 days' notice to Congress. A federal court found the removals unlawful.
EPI · U.S. District Court (Judge Reyes) · Sens. Grassley & Durbin, 2025
300 million
Americans whose Social Security records a whistleblower says were copied into an unsecured database after DOGE staff were given access to SSA and Treasury systems.
NPR · SSA whistleblower disclosure · federal court filings, 2025-26
170-370 days
How long it actually takes to remove a poor-performing federal employee, the real inefficiency DOGE left untouched while it broke what worked.
U.S. Office of Personnel Management · GAO
A government that works is worth fighting for. That means finding the real waste with real auditors, keeping the knowledge you cannot reboot, and building back stronger, not swinging a wrecking ball and calling it reform.
Sources: DOGE savings claims and verification: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2026. Inspectors General removals: Economic Policy Institute; U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judge Reyes); statements of Sens. Grassley and Durbin, 2025. Social Security / Treasury data access and the whistleblower disclosure: NPR; SSA whistleblower filings; federal court records, 2025-26. Federal removal timelines and hiring authorities: U.S. Office of Personnel Management; U.S. Government Accountability Office.