2d ago

Former DOGE engineer says federal waste and fraud were 'relatively nonexistent'

www.npr.org /2025/06/02/nx-s1-5417994/former-doge-engineer-shares-his-experience-working-for-the-cost-cutting-unit

A former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency says that he found that the federal waste, fraud and abuse that his agency was supposed to uncover were "relatively nonexistent" during his short time embedded within the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was," Sahil Lavingia told NPR's Juana Summers.

Lavingia was a successful software developer and the founder of Gumroad, a platform for online sales, when he joined DOGE in March. Lavingia said he had previously sought to work for the U.S. Digital Service, the technology unit that was renamed and restructured by the Trump administration. He told NPR that he just wanted to make government websites easier for citizens to use and didn't really care which presidential administration he was working for, despite protests from his friends and family.

46 comments

No shit. Pretty much the only bloat in government is the private contracts—usually for the unauditable “defense” budget.
If you’ve paid any attention, government programs are usually forced to operate with absolutely minimal funding. And the people who make it all work anyway—often with personal dedication and sacrifice—are heroes.
- And the only Medicare fraud is done by people like senator Rick Scott on the provider's side.
  
  Health insurance companies. Far and away the worst of the worst when it comes to medicare fraud. Ever seen an itemized hospital bill? That, but worse. And it happens to tens of millions per year.
- Thanks to Musk and Trump, they're now unemployed heroes.
- There are also too many contractors in non-defense agencies. It's really terrible because it both increases costs, slows things down (in my opinion), and means that there is little retention of skilled workers.
  Oddly, the main way to save money and increase efficency is to expand the government workforce. Although, I do think there needs to be more effort on how we focus government work.
- Having worked for the government, I assure you there is absolutely waste happening on a huge level. One time I threw out about $50k of lab equipment calibrators that someone clearly bought a ton of at the end of the year to use their whole budget so they didn’t lose it the following year.
  Nobody suggested reworking how budgets work though, so clearly the mission was not to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse.
  government programs are usually forced to operate with absolutely minimal funding
  Not the military, that’s a massive source of expenditure. That’s where I saw the waste happening.
  
  Yeah, that is terrible! Spending $50k on something that might be helpful or useful in the future! We should have used that money to purchase one JDAM kit so we can bomb more people.
  
  bought a ton of at the end of the year to use their whole budget so they didn’t lose it the following year.
  This kind of thing is infuriating. I've seen that before as well (not the tossing, but using money they didn't have to to, to not lose it next year)
  
  So you agree with him then

Government contractors are the largest source of waste and it should be no surprise. Anything purely government-run has been forced to function on shoestring budgets for decades now. Meanwhile the government pays top dollar for anything farmed out to private business because of how the contracting system is set up, largely thanks to unfettered lobbying.
This is why the military budget is over a trillion dollars now. Even as overextended as the US military is, defense contracts get the lion's share. The military itself is stuck working with minimums.
If lobbying and contract bidding rules were fixed we would see crazy opportunities to make budget cuts.

Cool, you ruined a lot of people’s lives…congrats. Hope it was worth it I guess. Glad you learned something or whatever.
- But also, thank you for the candid (if defensive) admission and insider’s perspective. That took guts, given what social capital you must know it will cost.

Any fraud they uncovered was likely run-of-the-mill stuff that would've been found even without DOGE, probably with less overhead than DOGE as well. Thinking some 20yo without even a college degree will come in and immediately spot fraud is laughable.
As for waste, Musk thinks anything that doesn't directly contribute to "the product" is waste. I wouldn't be surprised if one of his factories had outhouses and water troughs to save on plumbing.

This administration’s idea of “waste” is determined by the groups of people the programs help.
- Which we have found are largely comprised of gullible morons.
  
  Half them, half the most vulnerable people.

Worldview: governments bad, companies good. Why?
Because goverments don't have skin in the game. Business people play with their own money, so don't want to waste anything. Besides, if they do a bad job they'll go bankrupt, whereas government agencies just get new funding no matter how bad a job they do.
I mean, there's some logic to this line of reasoning, no doubt. But you could plead the reverse and there's logic to that as well.
People working for government actually care about what they do, they have the public interest at heart, not just their own bankaccount. Government employees know that they're using taxpayer money, and that they'll be held accountable if they waste it. Business employees don't give a shit about about their companies, particulary the very big multinational conglomerates, that we have so many of these days. Any money made only goes to the boss anyway, and he's an asshole, or the shareholders, and so are they. Aslong as we get away with it, who gives a fuck what gets done with all the money.
But this worldview 'governments bad, companies good', is certainly dominant among DOGE folks and rarely questioned. The west had to have this worldview, or else the ideas of "communism can only ever fail no matter what exact shape or form it takes" and "capitalism is the only thing that works" crumble. Let's be real here, the inefficiencies of capitalism are never ever questioned. Surely ads and marketing are for the benefit of all right. Spending tons to get everyone to smoke and drink sugarwater and alcohol, not by free choice but by clever manipulation. That shit is not inefficient in any way is it? Big pharma spending more money on marketing than on research is not inefficient in any way is it? No, quite the reverse, scientist getting government funds to do fundamental research, with no business agenda in mind, surely that would be inefficient. Companies just need to be companies and everything will be fine. Don't think about it, just go with it. It's our religion.
- You don't even need to argue based who cares more: businesses are allowed to fail, governments are not.
  
  Except those too big to fail. Those are the ones that need to fail. No consequences for those people is one of the reason we are in this shit show.
- Even in most corrupt countries, many government employees will still blow the whistle on corruption within the government.
  I think American conservatives are a different case. The idea of 'governments bad, companies good' is a hold over from classical liberalism of skepticism on government and championing individualism, private property and free trade. Classical liberalism stemmed from when European countries practiced mercantilism from 17th-18th century. It was indeed stifling so capitalism and liberalism was born from that condition. However, as with most ideologies, the theory is never applied perfectly in practical reality. Now, there is too much emphasis on individualism, private property and free trade which unfortunately disenfranchised much of collective humanity.
  The American conservative mindset is stuck in that time period as if we still practice mercantilism and absolute monarchies still exists (although Trump wants to go back to it and Americans are enabling him). But the main reason they want "little government" is so that they can have a blank cheque to be corrupt themselves without having to deal with government regulations on health and safety, financial and worker rights.

And DOGE just created more waste because ALL those federal workers fired, are still getting paid without actually performing any work. They are still getting paid until September. When they most likely will sue again. So the actual savings were ZERO. Idiots always forget you can get sued in the US and DOGE AI equation didn't take into account the ton of lawsuits it created.
- This comment implies DOGE is for what it says it's for.
  DOGE is a political purge and fiscal responsibility is its smokescreen.

A lot of the inefficiencies come from being understaffed. You end up waiting on another department to do something so you can move forward. The work on site mandate and the buyout have made this insanely worse. I work as a consultant in the public sector for tech. The team I'm working with now went from 5 people down to two and they have one that they have hired but is still waiting for the paperwork to go through to start working. They were hired in December. The on site mandate fucked this military base. They have 8000+ employees and ~4500 parking spots. Everyone is basically expected to show up late and the police stopped giving parking tickets because it was too much work. With everyone on base the internet access is almost unusable until about 4:30 pm when people start leaving. We put in a request for a service account that our product requires 3 weeks ago and are still waiting for it because that team downsized and can't keep up... And on, and on, and on...
These over worked, under staffed teams are spinning plates right now. When those plates come crashing down they're going to end up hiring IBM, VMware, General Dynamics, Microsoft, Red Hat, etc... consultants to fix the mess and get them back to spinning. That's going to be so much more expensive than just keeping those previous people on staff. It's going to be wild in 6-12 months imo.
- "When those plates come crashing down they're going to end up hiring IBM, VMware, General Dynamics, Microsoft, Red Hat, etc... consultants to fix the mess and get them back to spinning" That's not a bug it's a feature those contract will go to someone who "donated" to the Taco.
  
  It's just going to be all the same people that he cut contracts from. What they did was get a list of the companies they were spending the most with and started cutting contracts. They're going to end up having to go back to those same companies. This time with desperation.

What is this LOSER Talking about? We were spending MILLIONS Feeding Starving American Children! That's HUGELY Wasteful!
-Republicans who are OK with Elon giving HIMSELF Billion Dollar Contracts!

And that is most likely why they are now a "former" DOGE engineer.

The only bloat in the government is the defense department and means testing. Defense spending needs a 75% reduction in spending, nearly all in private contracts. And 99% of means testing. Just creates a whole bureaucracy just to get access to what society and government is for.

federal waste, fraud and abuse that his agency was supposed to uncover were "relatively nonexistent"
Same in UK. Most on welfare are pensioners, disabled and jobless. Those committing welfare fraud are in miniscule minority. And yet, conservatives obsess on welfare fraud as if it is an epidemic. But I think at the end of the day, the conservatives got what they want-- government cuts and shifting tax payer's money to fund their rich lifestyle. The campaign on the supposed huge welfare fraud is a distraction to the actual welfare fraud of the rich.
- The anti-benefits rhetoric is fucking dystopian. When I highlight the harms of making vulnerable people jump through hoops to get basic support, people often respond that it's a necessary evil to prevent "scroungers and cheats" claiming benefits.
  The minuscule number of people committing fraud is a large part of why I oppose this, but I would feel the same if there were 100x more fraudulent claims than there is now. Fundamentally, there are always going to be people who slip through the gaps, and the only choice we have is whether we'd rather that involve: disabled people and other vulnerable groups not accessing support they need; or people getting away with fraud and getting money they aren't entitled to. For me, the choice is obvious, because I think by sacrificing vulnerable people's wellbeing to prevent fraud is absurd when the entire point of the system is to help those vulnerable people. It undermines the whole concept — though I imagine that for many politicians, undermining it is the point

"I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was,"
was
- They sure put a stop to that.

Boy, I could have saved you a bunch of time, energy, and money if you had just ASKED me first.

The rampant fraud, waste, and abuse is plain to see. It’s every goddamned republican swine in government.

No shit

what?!? no! it's like there's policies and laws and rules and watchdogs and thinktanks and oversight and good people that actually do their fucking job to prevent that kind of thing!
but a few silicon valley assholes think they can step into any environment and start shitting gold.
even if there were waste and fraud it'd take you months, if not years, to learn the systems and policies enough to find any of it let alone get it fixed realistically.
the US, which I am a part of, just showed the perfect example of cut off our nose to spite our face. but we didn't stop at the nose. we took the whole fucking head off with all the brains and now the asshole and dick is the only one left to attempt to make any descison. and we're just going to keep fucking ourselves.

Refused to get onboard with the false narrative and got fired. Shocking.

As usual, the republican search for the corruption they’re doing themselves. DOGE was a fraud and a waste on top of as-yet-to-be-suffered damage.

Well, better late than never. The question is if they're going to connect the dots and realize everything else the right wing says is nonsense and projections.
- So long as they get paid, the DOGE mercenaries will refuse to connect dots.

A man in the inside?!!

46 comments