Over the last few weeks I’ve sat open mouthed with astonishment at the amount of waste, mispending and politically correct and politically bent decisions made by various US governmental agencies that has been revealed by the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). DOGE, headed up by Elon Musk, but backed by President Donald Trump, has uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars of waste or inappropriate spending.

According to a report I’ve seen on Fox News DOGE inspired cuts to Federal spending has cut at least $165 million from DEI programmes, by consolidating duplicated government activities, cutting the use of external consultants and rationalising government property rentals. An examination of the books at the US overseas aid organisation USAID has revealed money wasted on all manner of stuff that many people might not consider a priority such as DEI projects in the Third World and funding projects such as HIV treatment in South Africa that should be paid for by the South African government. There seems to have been no expectation from the US government that recipient countries like South Africa improve their situation by becoming less corrupt in order to receive US funds.

These are massive cuts to Federal spending and it’s likely that DOGE will during its temporary term of existence uncover many more instances of money either being wasted or not being spent effectively. These cuts alone will not save the US economy but it may put America’s economy on a better footing and reduce the levels of indebtedness that the country suffers from.

What has shocked me is the sheer amount of spending by the US government on what could be called politically correct activities such as promoting LGBT stuff overseas. This sort of thing might not have any positive impact on the lives of LGB people in oppressive countries but it certainly provides jobs for identity politics activists both in the US and elsewhere. There also seems to have been little in the way of fiscal control in the USAID entity from what I can see. This lack of financial control brings with it other worries such as whether money that might have been intended for good works has ended up, because of incompetence and lack of proper management, in the hands of hostile actors such as terrorists or nations whose mindset is wholly at odds with that of the USA and the broader West.

Like others I’m concerned that such swingeing cuts to things like overseas aid could affect genuine programmes for famine relief but from what I can gather there’s ways and means to protect emergency aid for humanitarian projects from the DOGE cuts. It should be possible for the Americans to be able to engage in genuine good works but without what looks like a culture of jobs for the ‘they/thems’ acting as an unwanted drag on the American economy. If the waste is tackled then more effective aid can be given.

As I said earlier the amounts that have been wasted by the US government either through spending on causes favoured by Leftist activists or through bad contract design and administration is huge. This is all money that could either be spent on services for Americans or more effectively projecting American non-military power across the world. There is likely to be a whole lot more waste uncovered in the Federal government where beauracracy has grown like a tumour consuming resources that could and should have been used for more worthwhile things.

What should concern those living in countries such as the United Kingdom is that the sort of waste and inappropriate spending that has been uncovered in the USA is likely to be also occurring, although on a smaller scale, in the UK. Unfortunately here in the UK we don’t have anything resembling the US DOGE and the uncovering of waste, inefficiencies and politically correct spending priorities is left in the hands of underfunded private citizens who undertake their own digging into government departments, QUANGOS and charities funded by government both local and national. It’s likely that in the UK there are people unable to see a doctor in a timely manner because money that should be spent on front line services has instead been spunked up the wall at the rainbow lanyard classes for everything from DEI guff to overpadded management of public sector organisations.

Britain needs something like DOGE but it is unlikely that we will get such an entity unless there’s a radical change of government or the country finally runs out of money and eventually runs out of taxpayers. Americans should be showing Britain the way with regards to saving public money but it’s unlikely to be a lesson that any of Britain’s current Westminster political class are likely to want to learn unless they are forced to do so.