DOGE By The Numbers
Understanding Government Budgets and Debt
DOGE is throwing out a lot of BIG numbers to journalists and news consumers claiming what they’re finding are examples of waste, misspending, and even fraud and corruption. Not all journalists agree about what DOGE is finding, so it’s important that we hear all sides. Here are some recent news reports to illustrate my point:
“The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced Monday that some $4.7 trillion in payments from the Treasury Department were missing a critical tracking code, which made tracing the transactions “almost impossible.”
The transactions were reportedly missing the Treasury Account Symbol (TAS), an identification code which links a Treasury payment to a budget line item, according to DOGE, which described the use of such code as a “standard financial process.”
“In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible,” read an X post from DOGE.” New York Post
“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), inspired by DOGE's crackdown on federal spending, said it had located $20 billion in tax dollars within the agency that the Biden administration reportedly "knew they were wasting."
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the government's leading disaster-relief arm, gave over $59 million to house illegal immigrants in luxury New York City hotels just last week, DOGE uncovered.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate DOGE Caucus Chairwoman, who says she speaks to Musk about spending cuts every few days, recently published a list of projects and programs she says the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has helped fund across the years. Ernst described "wasteful and dangerous" spending that had gripped taxpayers until DOGE stepped in.” Fox News
“The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said it found $1.9 billion in funds “misplaced” by the Biden administration that belonged to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
“$1.9 billion of HUD money was just recovered after being misplaced during the Biden administration due to a broken process,” DOGE said in a post on X.”
This news comes after HUD Secretary Scott Turner launched a DOGE Task Force at the agency. DOGE said it “worked together” with Turner “to fix the issue and de-obligated the funds which are now available for other use by the Treasury.” Local 12 News
“After repeated delays, the Department of Government Efficiency on Monday released a "wall of receipts" — what it characterized as documentation of the money saved by the slashing cuts to jobs and contracts pushed by Elon Musk's team at DOGE over the past several weeks. The initial accounting was overstated by billions of dollars, a review by CBS News found.” CBS News
“Elon Musk’s cost-cutting and fraud-finding apparatus, the Department of Government Efficiency, came out swinging in recent days. The result? Two stunning strikeouts.
A series of announcements by DOGE as well as claims by Musk and President Donald Trump about the agency’s efforts have crumbled under scrutiny even as they’re broadly repeated by conservative pundits, sympathetic media and the White House.” NBC News
I believe we will see this type of coverage continue for weeks or even months. Some journalists will report DOGE findings of misspending, fraud, abuse, and corruption as factual while other journalists will disagree strongly with the findings of DOGE. Who are news consumers to believe?
I think one thing that might help us is to understand the ‘process’ of government finances. They are simple and complex at the same time.
Understanding Budgets and Debt
Most adult individuals, families, and businesses work with some kind of budget. There’s a ‘revenue’ side (money coming in) and a ‘spending’ side (money going out). That’s pretty straight forward. Many parents teach their children how to budget by giving them an allowance and/or paying them for doing jobs around the house. That was my introduction to ‘budgeting’ in the 1950s.
When I started working for employers in high school I became a ‘taxpayer.’ I noticed on my pay stub each week that the government took money out of my earnings for taxes. I became more interested in how government spent taxpayer monies when I realized some of that money was mine!
So, where does debt come into the budget process? Debt is money you owe to someone or some company. If I didn’t have enough money to buy something I wanted, I could either be patient and save up enough money over time to buy it or borrow the money from someone and pay them back over time. You can borrow money from a person or a business, but they usually expect you to pay them back with interest. Paying them back became part of my ‘monthly budget.’ What I still owed them (plus the interest) was my ‘debt.’
For example, most people who want to purchase a house go into debt to do it. Only a small minority of people have enough money to purchase a house with cash. Those who can’t do that get a ‘mortgage’ (loan) that covers the cost of purchasing the house. The lender loans the borrower who uses the money to buy the house while promising to repay the lender both the ‘principal’ and ‘interest’ on the loan. The monthly payments to the lender become part of your ‘budget’ while the remaining amount owed becomes part of your ‘debt.’
So, what about governments (e.g. Federal, state, local)? How do they handle budgets and debt?
Federal Budget and Debt
The Federal budget is based on a specific annual process. When I began reading government budget reports as a journalist in the 1960s they were on paper or microfilm. I was able to get some printed reports mailed to me at the news station. Others I had to read at libraries or local congressional offices. Fortunately for today’s journalists and taxpayers most government information is digitized and available for anyone to read online.
You can read about the Federal government’s budget process here.
Revenue means how much money the government receives from taxpayers, fees, etc. Spending means how much money the government spends on programs that are supposed to benefit taxpayers. When the Federal government spends more than it receives, it goes into debt.
First, let’s look at Federal budgets.
You can look at budgets from fiscal years 1922 - 2025 at this government website. The most recent numbers I found for the 2025 fiscal year show that the Federal government will spend $7.3 trillion based on revenues of $5.5 trillion. That’s a ‘deficit’ of $1.9 trillion. The Federal government’s ‘fiscal year’ is from October 1 to September 30 of the following year (e.g. October 1, 2024 - September 30, 2025).
You can see how much revenue the Federal government receives at this Treasury Department website. It’s updated regularly and based on the ‘fiscal year.’ The U.S. government has collected $1.60 trillion in fiscal year 2025 so far. You’ll find the latest data on Federal revenue, spending, deficit, and the national debt at this Treasury Department website. So far in fiscal year 2025, the federal government has spent $2.44 trillion. As you can see from the government’s own numbers, it has spent much more than it took in (a deficit of about $840 billion). That’s just since October 1, 2024.
You can look at Federal government ‘spending’ here. The spending numbers continue to update, so it’s good to check it at least weekly. The site also includes the ‘Top 10 Spending by Category and Agency.’
You can look at line items for various Federal agencies by logging on to their individual websites. Two examples are the Department of Commerce and the Department of Health & Human Services. You can search for other government departments and agencies to read similar financial reports.
The Congressional Budget Office also reports the recent financial information here. It includes an Overview, Revenue, Spending, Deficit, and Debt. This website will help you see the difference between budgets and debt. Even though the government has a ‘deficit’ of $840 billion for this fiscal year, the Treasury reports the ‘National Debt’ at more than $36 trillion dollars. Because the government spends more than it takes in (revenue), the amount of debt keeps growing year after year.
As for the history of the National Debt, you may find this Treasury Department website interesting. Be sure to click on the left side bar that reads, The Growing National Debt. It includes a graph of the U.S. National Debt over the last 100 Years.
“Over the past 100 years, the U.S. federal debt has increased from $395 B in 1924 to $35.46 T in 2024.” U.S. Treasury
You’ll also find other interesting historical graphs, plus links to websites with even more financial information that will be helpful to journalists and the public.
Summary
It’s difficult for many journalists and news consumers to understand government and spending numbers that are in the millions, billions, and even trillions of dollars. That’s one reason that reporting by DOGE and about DOGE is difficult to follow and understand. I hope journalists covering this story will do their best to get the facts right and present them in ways news consumers can easily understand. The job of journalism is to find facts, confirm facts, report facts, then get out of the way so the American public can decide how they want their government to operate.
Comments and Questions Welcome
I hope these thoughts are helpful to you. Please share your comments and questions and I will respond as quickly as I can. If you like what we’re doing in this newsletter, please let your friends know about it so they can subscribe.
Newsletter Purpose
The purpose of this newsletter is to help people who work in the fields of journalism, media, and communications find ways to do their jobs that are personally fulfilling and helpful to others. I also want to help news consumers know how to find news sources they can trust.
[The Real Journalism Newsletter is published every other Tuesday morning — unless there’s ‘breaking news!]
t