No plans for a DOGE after-action report, Russell Vought says
The White House isn’t planning to review the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s performance as the Elon Musk-launched project that eviscerated large swaths of federal agencies winds down, its top budget official said Tuesday.
During a House Appropriations hearing, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee Chairman Dave Joyce noted that DOGE has been “pretty much eliminated” in the proposed fiscal 2027 budget.
The Ohio Republican then asked Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought if he planned to present any documentation on “what exactly DOGE accomplished” in terms of “reductions in dollars spent” and “people at agencies.”
“We have no plans to do … a closing DOGE report,” Vought answered. “We’re always happy to give you our assessment of that work. I think it made some really important strides.”
An executive branch funding proposal for fiscal 2027 released in January called for $8 million to the OMB-housed Information Technology Oversight and Reform bucket to fund DOGE. The 2027 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act (H.R.8495), introduced in April, also appropriated $8 million for ITOR, though DOGE wasn’t mentioned by name in the bill.
The White House’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal, also released in April, requested $35 million for DOGE. But Vought didn’t push back on the premise of Joyce’s question Tuesday, telling the congressman that he’s “always happy to work with” him on what he needs.
“You all passed many of the reductions that DOGE found just through the normal appropriations process when you ended the year so much lower than the year before,” Vought told Joyce. “We did some of that in the rescissions package, and so many of the fruits of their labor are sprinkled all across the government.”
The future of DOGE has been the subject of speculation and confusion since Musk unleashed the tech collective on federal agencies during the early days of the second Trump administration. Vought told lawmakers on the same House Appropriations panel a year ago that DOGE’s members were “far more institutionalized” at various agencies.
Chase Ausley, a U.S. DOGE Service director stationed at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, told FedScoop in April that the organization was “actively growing,” with 90-some employees deployed across many agencies.
Despite the apparent pivot to a decentralized body spanning the broader federal government, the group continues to fluster Democratic lawmakers. Reps. Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin pressed Vought on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s plans to hire 12,000 employees after cutting nearly 21,000 the year before.
“The chainsaw apparently went a little too deep,” Hoyer mused.
Pocan also asked Vought how much DOGE ultimately cost the country. A 2025 report from minority staff on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations estimated $21.7 billion in waste by DOGE during the first six months of its existence.
Vought told Pocan he didn’t know how much was spent on DOGE workers, adding that many of them were volunteers.
“I don’t believe DOGE cost us anything,” the OMB director claimed. “They saved us.”
