‘That’s a very good start,’ the Treasury secretary said.
The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) created under the Trump administration has saved about $50 billion so far, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a new interview.
“So that’s a very good start,” Bessent told Fox News of the cuts in federal spending, adding that DOGE’s efforts could ultimately lead to “several percent” of the U.S. gross domestic product in savings.
Bessent said that Americans “don’t have to be concerned” about DOGE’s activity in the IRS and said that one DOGE employee is “looking at this outdated IT system,” which is “all they’re doing.” He also disputed claims that DOGE will investigate the IRS’s taxpayer systems.
Meanwhile, two people with DOGE have “read-only access” to IRS payment systems, and they cannot make changes.
“There are very strict guardrails around them,” Bessent said.
Since the early days of the Trump presidency, DOGE employees have gone to multiple agencies and accessed their computer systems to look for fraud, waste, and abuse. Musk has said that DOGE could potentially cut trillions in spending and lower Americans’ taxes.
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