This piece originally appeared in City Journal.
As part of a goal to trim $1 trillion in deficit spending from the budget, Elon Musk has called for slashing $4 billion in government spending per day. The new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could achieve much of these savings—and potentially more—if it addresses problems already identified by existing government watchdogs to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse.
Every year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which works for Congress, and executive branch Inspectors General (IGs) issue thousands of government reform recommendations and expose inefficiencies across federal programs. But federal agencies and Congress are often slow to act on this guidance. The GAO reports that 30 percent of the recommendations it made four years ago were ignored. More than 19,000 recommendations made by GAO and IGs remained open as of the end of January.
How much could the federal government save if watchdog recommendations were acted on in a timely manner? Answering this question has become a bipartisan priority in recent years. Last year, the GAO estimated that those potential savings could total between $106 billion and $208 billion. But the congressional watchdog agency also identified 30 additional reforms that lawmakers could enact to save significant sums, including one change to Medicare that would yield a whopping $141 billion.
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