From dead people receiving checks to research on “transgender” monkeys, a new watchdog department plans to scrutinize what it calls wasteful government spending across a $6.75 trillion federal budget.
The new watchdogs
President-elect Donald Trump has announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), appointing Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as external advisors. Their mandate is to “dismantle bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies.”
Target areas
Josh Hart, CEO of Open the Book, a fiscal waste monitoring organization, shared insights with the New York Post about potential areas for spending cuts. According to Hart, the focus will be on “spending that has been on autopilot where there’s no real thought or purpose behind it.”
Payments to the deceased
One of the most striking revelations involves payments to deceased individuals. In 2023 alone:
- The IRS, Medicare, and veterans groups sent $1.3 billion in checks to dead recipients
- A Treasury Department do-not-pay list exists but appears underutilized
Internal revenue issues
The IRS faces its own internal challenges:
- IRS employees owed $50 million in unpaid taxes between October 2021 and October 2023
- Only 20 employees were terminated despite these violations
Controversial research funding
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has funded several contentious animal research projects:
- $549,000 to a Russian lab for experiments on cats walking on treadmills after partial brain removal
- $33 million for “Monkey Island,” housing 3,000 primates for research
- $3.7 million for monkey gambling studies
- $477,000 for research on “transgender” monkeys
- A portion of $12 million for methamphetamine testing on monkeys at the University of Mississippi
COVID-19 ongoing expenses
Despite the pandemic’s decline:
- FEMA projects $70 billion in pandemic-related spending through August 2026
- $15 million allocated for retired Dr. Anthony Fauci’s security detail this year
Property and administrative waste
Government property management reveals significant inefficiencies:
- $2 billion annually for maintaining empty government-owned offices
- Additional $5 billion for leased space
- $620,000 spent by EPA on questioned ammunition purchases
Improper payments and fraud
Significant losses through improper payments include:
- $171 million in unemployment and Social Security benefits to incarcerated individuals
- $101 billion in fraudulent Medicaid and Medicare payments
- $546 million lost to tax fraud
Unusual grant allocations
Recent controversial spending includes:
- $58.7 million to China between 2017-2022, including $100,000 for New Yorker magazine cartoons promoting gender equality
- $350,000 in January 2024 for studies on Egyptian liver disease history and medieval Muslim-Chinese encounters
Looking forward
As the DOGE prepares to begin its work, questions remain about how effectively external advisors can influence entrenched government spending patterns. The initiative represents an unprecedented approach to fiscal oversight, though its actual authority and potential impact remain to be seen.