SBA sticks to DOGE cost-savings claims, though details — and math — remain fuzzy
The Small Business Administration’s top official told lawmakers this week that DOGE has found billions of dollars in savings via canceled contracts and identified hundreds of millions in fraudulent loans thanks to “data analytics” — but declined to share specifics behind those big-money claims.
Appearing before the House Small Business Committee on Wednesday, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler repeated parts of the same opening statement she gave to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee two weeks ago — including an assertion that the agency has “canceled wasteful contracts for total cost savings of more than $3 billion” through its partnership with the Elon Musk-founded group.
“I’m proud that we are working alongside the DOGE team, who are not partisans, but patriots and business leaders like myself, who are working to strengthen the future of our nation,” Loeffler said.
A FedScoop review of publicly posted DOGE data after Loeffler’s May 21 Senate testimony found a massive gap between the $3 billion in savings she touted and the $22 million recorded on the group’s wall of receipts.
No lawmakers questioned Loeffler about that more than $2 billion chasm, but another FedScoop review of DOGE data — which was updated June 3, one day before the SBA administrator’s most recent congressional appearance — found $65 million in reported cost savings. An additional 30 canceled SBA contracts have been posted by DOGE since the publication of FedScoop’s May 27 story.
Beyond doubling down on that contract-cancellation cost-savings declaration, Loeffler credited DOGE — and “their ability to do data analytics” — with finding $630 million in fraudulent loans that she said “were granted to individuals over the age of 120 or under the age of 11.”
“That’s why, absolutely, it’s critical that we have age verification,” Loeffler told Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas. “We also found SBA loans to noncitizens; we were able to cancel those. They were approved under the Biden administration. That’s why we need citizenship verification.”
Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., asked Loeffler to provide details to the committee on “what you called illegal loans to undocumented people,” noting that the SBA met congressional requests to review DOGE’s work on the matter with “complete silence.”
“We will commit to working with you so you understand the importance of the cuts,” Loeffler replied.
Rep. Johnny Olszewski, D-Md., returned to that line of questioning later in the hearing, asking Loeffler where “the DOGE numbers come from” and “what loan programs and SBA systems contain the information that you’re sharing in your press release.”
The SBA head ducked Olszewski’s question on loan-program specifics but said the agency has 48 systems that DOGE is “helping us streamline to ensure that there’s a single point of contact.”
“Small businesses are not being served by having a massive number of technology systems that cost tens of millions of dollars a year to maintain,” Loeffler said. “And so what they’re doing is helping us serve small businesses better.”
Both Olszewski and McIver also pressed Loeffler on the vetting and qualifications of DOGE liaisons to SBA, asking whether they have any small business experience and if they’d been subject to proper security training and protocols.
“The DOGE team are employees of various federal agencies like the SBA,” she said. “They had the same vetting that any government employee would have.”
Madison Alder contributed to this article.
