First, every objective audit has found many problems with that data, ranging from taking credit for things which were terminated under the Biden administration to listing the maximum ceiling on a flexible contract (IDIQ) as the total savings even though the amounts actually spent were far lower (like canceling your credit card and saying you saved the limit), and even counting the same contract multiple times.

Second, you have to look at the cost of their actions. They’ve disrupted the functioning of the entire federal government and doing in a very haphazard manner. That means that a lot of current spending is wasted by DOGE _and_ that the business of the government isn’t getting done. For example, whether or not you think the U.S. should engage in foreign aid, under DOGE they paid money to send people to help in Myanmar only to lay them off after they arrived on site, squandering all possible value. That story is being repeated all over the country right now and in many cases the loses are permanent: if they choose to waste payroll having people come back to an office where they can’t work, the job isn’t getting done and there’s no way to recover the wasted payroll. As they keep losing lawsuits, it’s also likely that the amounts cut will be exceeded by the cost of settlements when they breach contracts or fail to provide a service required by statute.

One really big area is tax collection: the IRS is already estimating revenue reductions on the order of half a billion dollars, and since they’ve been sacking a lot of the law enforcement for businesses and high-net wealth individuals, that will get worse as people feel confident cheating more aggressively.

Lastly, you have to look at the economy. Estimated have each federal job supporting 2-3 other jobs, and federal spending drives the economy in many parts of the country. They’ve already cut growth of the entire economy into the negative (from +2.5% in January to -2-3% now - see https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow) and a lot of that is driven by federal cuts.