Savings or Cost
The DOGE website provides a running total of money “saved” since February 2025, with funding terminations divided by contracts, grants and leases. However, many savings on the “Wall of Receipts” are false, and will actually cost the budget, taxpayers, businesses and the economy. In this article, you can learn to check the contract “Wall of Receipts” for accuracy to make informed decisions regarding your taxpayer dollars.
Federal Contract Basics
Most income-earning adults in the United States pay federal income taxes. These taxes are then used to pay for what the constitution promises (Justice, Domestic Tranquility, Defense, Welfare and Liberty). But before taxes can be used, the legislative branch (congress) must appropriate them for use via categories of services, supplies, construction and research projects, military and civil service personnel, etc.
The appropriation process includes checks and balances beginning with agency heads providing procurement forecasts to congress, then line items to be funded get added to a spending bill that congress votes upon. After congress has approved the bill, it goes to the president. If the president vetoes it, then the bill goes back to congress for revisions. Once the spending bill is fully approved, funds are allotted to agency financial managers.
Getting goods and services the country needs through contracting with private businesses can begin after funding allotment. Warranted contracting officers follow procedures in the FAR to plan, compete, award and administer these contracts. How much gets spent with which contractors for what goods or services has been mostly transparent to everyone with internet since 2008 at USA Spending which gets fed information directly from warranted officer’s actions through the also publicly accessible FPDS.
In 2024, U.S. small businesses nationwide contracted with the federal government to provide some of the necessary functions of the country. Prior to decades old laws and regulations, the good old boy system was in place . . . meaning taxpayer funds were NOT often dispersed to the best business at the best price. But from 2008 to 2024, direct awards to large businesses fell by roughly 50% to make way for a more efficient method of contracting - competition amongst small businesses.
Reconciling the Receipts
According to their claims on “The Wall of Receipts” for contracts, Doge has made 7279 contract terminations totaling $140B in estimated savings as of April 4th, 2025. However, the terminated contracts tell a much different story, and thanks to the transparency in contracting anyone can validate accuracy using the following steps:
Open 4 tabs on your computer: DOGE, USA Spending, FPDS, and GSA eLibrary.
On the DOGE tab, scroll down to a random contract and click the FPDS link.
In the link that FPDS opened, copy the IDV ID under document information and paste that number in the EZ search bar for FPDS for a list of awards/orders under that contract.
To find out more, paste that same IDV ID into Award ID at USA Spending.
Understanding the naming conventions in the FAR is essential to determining actual savings from contract termination. For example, BPAs (with an “A” in the IDV ID) are blanket purchase agreements made for $0 and cost nothing unless an order (with an “F” identifier) is executed. Another example is Indefinite Delivery contracts (with a “D” in the IDV ID) that are also worth $0 while orders under the D contract (with an “F” identifier) represent actual funds expended.
Orders under A and D contracts cannot be executed without a specific procurement request from the relevant financial manager (akin to writing a check) who is tracking actual outlays on contracts and managing the balance of agency budgets approved by congress. A and D identified contracts provide the least risk to the government since the cost risk is $0 or a minimum guarantee, while terminating them early costs additional funds in re-procurement efforts should those goods and services be needed. On the other hand, contracts with an F, C, or P identifiers (and sometimes N) that are terminated with funds and time still remaining could reflect actual savings to the government.
The next several paragraphs include analysis of some “savings” reported by Doge as of April 4th, 2025 (sorted by highest savings) .
Doge’s Centennial Technologies line-item lists savings of $1.90; however, the FPDS link goes to BPA 2032H524A00020 an “A” type of agreement that does not obligate funds. Since there is no order associated with this listing, no money was saved. BPAs can remain open without obligation and orders can be disallowed per agency direction. However, should the IRS actually need these IT services again on agreement, an entire procurement process (3-6 months for this dollar estimate) will cost taxpayers plenty. Terminating a $0 funded BPA itself does not represent actual cost savings, which makes Doge’s “savings” calculation overstated by $1.9B.
Doge’s Family Endeavors, Inc. line-item lists savings of $2.9B; however, the FPDS link goes to task order 140D0424F0005 executed under its parent D contract. Since orders are funded, and not the parent, the value of order 140D0424F0005 must be calculated to reconcile this “receipt”. FPDS EZ Search shows the order award value of $357,854,800, and 8 modifications, most relating to scope or administrative matters at no cost. The total amount obligated with modifications was $427,722,795.26. Since this order began in November 2023 and the end date was November 2025, termination of this order for Facilities Support in February 2025 yields minimal savings (if any) after termination costs are paid to the contractor. Doge’s reported “savings” are overstated by approximately $2.9B.
Doge’s Acacia Center for Justice line item shows savings of $367,033,895 with the FPDS link going to contract 140D0422C0009. This “C” type contract is fully funded per year on the base contract, so is more straight forward than the previous examples. Viewing all actions for this contract in FPDS EZ Search reveals funding equivalent to $796,720,624. This contract for Legal Services Contract for Unaccompanied Children was awarded in March 2022 with an end date of September 2025. If unaccompanied children need legal services again prior to September 2025, procurement costs will be paid for twice by taxpayers. At the most, this termination might save $50M (based upon time remaining, termination settlement and previous option year funding). Doge’s report of savings is inaccurate by approximately $315M.
Doge’s Project Solutions line item shows savings of $285,400,682. The FPDS link goes to contract 86614122A00005, executed off of GSA contract GS00F025DA for Engineering Services. Checking all actions in GSA EZSearch shows this BPA and it’s 2 mods are all worth $0. The total value of the BPA shown in FPDS of $315M represents an estimate and not actually executed funds which can be validated by viewing the related FPDS actions and their related “Action Obligation”. Doge’s report of savings is inaccurate by $285M.
Doge’s Ranger Land Systems line item for Border Control with Homeland Security for a savings of $142,002,188 goes to FPDS linked contract 70B03C22F00000336. GSA EZsearch shows the award in April 2022 and 28 modifications for a total value of $194,711,463.98. The original end date of this contract was March 7th, 2025. Doge’s termination of this contract on March 13th, 2025, with the deduction of -$210,763.56 is nothing more than final close-out that happens after a contract is ended and financials are reconciled against work completed (standard practice). Doge’s reported savings for this line item are inaccurate by $142M.
Doge’s Aptive HTG, LLC line item for the VA for integrated healthcare transformation lists savings of $131,289,705 and the FPDS link goes to contract 36C10X23N0005 (a task order executed from D type contract 36C10X20D0002). GSA EZsearch shows the award of the order in November 2022 and 4 modifications for a total of $13,589,771.31, the last being a termination mod with a value of $120.99. So, Doge’s savings total for 1 order as shown on the Wall of Receipts was perhaps drawn incorrectly from the total contract value for the parent D contract, which includes 41 orders with 251 associated modifications. Even if Doge’s mistake here was mixing up the parent A contract with associated orders, it would still be false by no more than $-258k for all 6 orders combined (some of which were at the end of their performance so not countable anyway). Doge’s report of savings is inaccurate by $131M.
In summary, the first 6 contracts listed on Doge’s contract Wall of Receipts with links to FPDS on April 4th, 2025 (sorted by highest value) misrepresent savings of $5,673,000,000 that do not exist.
Also, on the first 10 pages of the same Wall of Receipts, 75 terminated USAID contracts are listed as savings that total multiple billions of dollars, each stating that vendor name and description are “unavailable for legal reasons”, and the FPDS links do not go to any contracts. The FAR requires that most actions are reported by warranted officers to FPDS outside of certain exceptions, including those that would compromise national security. However, a quick USA Spending search shows 131 results for actions under USAID in 2025 alone, and the handful of those actions that specify “Unspecified Recipients” are still available to dive into for other relevant info that anyone might need to reconcile numbers. It is unclear why Doge does not want to provide a link to their savings for each of these USAID contracts so they can easily be verified . . . although Elon Musk posted on 2/3/2025 on X to have "spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper." .
Finally, Doge includes solicitations on the Wall of Receipts as savings and as discussed earlier, funds are not obligated until they are executed on a contract. A solicitation is not a contract and may not have any funding allotted toward it, meaning it is the government’s option to cancel the solicitation before award without cost at any time. Since Doge did not include an FPDS link for their cancelled solicitation with a listed savings of $318M, it is impossible to find out why Doge believes this action to be a savings.
Intentional Costs
Anyone with internet and the guidance of someone with intermediate experience within the field of federal contracting, education in fiscal law, and awareness of all applicable regulations can attempt to reconcile Doge’s Wall of Receipts. The FPDS CSV files are even available for download by the public for analysis. And while the exercise above touched on only the first several pages of Doge’s Wall of Receipts, it came up with a Doge error rate of 99% . . . a fair conclusion that many of the other 7000+ listed Doge savings are incorrect by a large dollar amount.
Amidst this lack of factual savings reporting to taxpayers, federal government services and staffing are being cut (including seasoned contracting officers who could accurately report to the public), Doge staff are being paid more than most qualified contracting officers, local economies are having their local federally contracted business tax base decreased abruptly, President Trump is calling for deregulation and in federal contracting that means the good old boy system reverts back and small businesses lose, and Musk wants to send money from what was saved (?) to taxpayers.
Another cost to taxpayers is contract termination costs. While our examples above from the first several pages of Doge’s Wall of Receipts would have minor, if any, termination costs because they weren’t actual terminations within the intent of the FAR, in the other 7000+ line items listed, there is bound to be some contracts terminated with significant termination costs. And costs associated with this administration’s attempt at impoundment (see more on this in our “Friend of Foe” article) are not even included here.
This combination could be viewed as a huge mistake by people not suited to do the work in front of them, or because of the obvious errors - it might be viewed as intentional. In either case, it is fair to ask taxpayers if they would prefer correct information in making financial decisions. And in either case, this attempt at savings by Doge will cost the taxpayers more money and hurt local economies . . . and it will not be a short-term pain unless Doge stops what it is doing quickly.
A Better Future
We all agree that reviewing contractual expenses and their purpose is essential to good decision making for individual taxpayers and congress. So how could we as a country become better at this? Since we have had solid resources and processes in place for 16 years, the most efficient ways to do this are:
Educate the public and their representatives on where and how to review federal contracts themselves to make better decisions in the future.
Increase the number and grades of 1102 government positions that require proven cost analysis and negotiation skills to yield significant savings every day.
Consider all effects before stripping Federal Acquisition Regulations and do not strip those essential to competition amongst small businesses, fair prices, firm fixed price contract vehicles, and transparency in reporting.
Use DoD’s GPC payment card program as the standard for all agencies to achieve better transparency in micro purchases.
