The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) trumpeted billions in savings last year, plastering figures across a self-congratulatory “Wall of Receipts.” But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has since exposed a troubling truth: some of those headline-grabbing figures — including more than $1.7 billion tied to an IT contract supporting more than 700 military treatment facilities — were never realized because the contracts were never canceled. This is not a mere bookkeeping error. It is an institutional failure with fiscal, operational, and national-security implications that demand an aggressive, evidence-based response.

What the GAO found and why the discrepancy cannot be dismissed as clerical

The GAO report is straightforward in its findings. DOGE identified a five-year, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity IT services contract with the Defense Health Agency (DHA) as a target for elimination and then reported $1.7 billion in savings when that elimination supposedly occurred. Yet, after discussions with Pentagon officials, DOGE did not terminate the contract and no scope reductions or funding cuts were implemented. Despite this, the contract’s value remained on the Wall of Receipts.

This was not an isolated incident. According to GAO, DOGE reported $61 billion in savings by cutting more than 13,000 contracts, but a deeper matching to the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) revealed that roughly 2,503 contracts—accounting for $27.4 billion—were never terminated. That scale elevates the problem from embarrassing to dangerous: if reform efforts are being presented to the public and to Congress on a foundation of phantom savings, the entire enterprise of fiscal accountability is compromised.

Why accuracy in claimed savings matters more within defense and health IT

Fiscal credibility and policymaking

Public policy is supposed to be evidence-driven. Congressional appropriators and defense planners rely on accurate budget projections to prioritize capabilities and manage risk. Inflated savings claims warp that calculus. If Congress or the Pentagon internalizes supposed efficiencies that don’t exist, other programs may be underfunded, creating capability gaps or forcing unfunded policy choices later. Presenting unverified savings as realized reduces not just DOGE’s credibility, but also the trustworthiness of any budgetary assumptions that depend on those figures.

Operational risk to military health services

IT support within the Defense Health Agency isn’t a peripheral contract you can terminate without consequences. It underpins medical records, prescription processing, telehealth, and myriad administrative systems that keep treatment facilities functioning. Terminating or even hollowing out IT services without a robust transition plan could degrade clinical operations, delay patient care, and expose Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to risk. The fact that the DHA contract remained in place is a relief; the fact that it was nearly presented as canceled is a red flag that warrants structural safeguards.

Cybersecurity implications

Hospitals and medical contractors are high-value targets for cybercriminals. The federal government already struggles with aging infrastructure and patchwork modernization across civilian and defense health systems. Any initiative that cavalierly targets IT contracts without rigorous risk analysis risks increasing exposure to ransomware and other disruptive cyberattacks. For systems that handle life-critical operations, “savings” that come at the expense of resilience are false economy.

Why did DOGE target IT contracts in the first place?

DOGE’s mission—eliminate waste, fraud, abuse, and reduce federal spending—has an intuitive appeal. But efficiency missions that operate with political urgency often prioritize quick, visible wins over nuanced, sector-specific analysis. IT contracts are tempting because they are large line items that can be quantified and displayed. They also fit a narrative of streamlining an oversized federal workforce and vendor base. The problem arises when that narrative supersedes a rigorous assessment of mission-criticality and systemic risk.

Another structural issue is opacity. DOGE has often declined to explain why specific contracts were targeted. This secrecy makes it difficult for subject-matter experts—particularly within agencies like the DHA and DOD—to challenge decisions before they are enacted or before they are presented as wins. Without a transparent, consultative process that includes operational stakeholders, efficiency efforts will remain vulnerable to both error and politicization.

The argument for robust verification and institutional guardrails

There is a strong case for a government-wide, independent verification mechanism to validate claimed savings before they are announced. Independent third-party verification—ideally by auditors with deep procurement and programmatic expertise—would protect both the integrity of efficiency campaigns and the national interest. GAO is already playing that role in part, but the gap here is procedural: savings were reported and celebrated before GAO confirmed them. The sequence should be reversed.

Actionable policy reforms

  • Mandatory pre-announcement verification: No public declaration of contract terminations or savings should be allowed until independent verification confirms the change is final, funds are obligated for alternative uses, and transition risks are mitigated.
  • Risk assessments for mission-critical services: Any proposal to modify or cancel contracts that support critical infrastructure—healthcare, emergency services, cybersecurity—must include a formal risk assessment signed by agency mission leads and IT security officers.
  • Transparency and stakeholder consultation: Require a formal comment and mitigation period for agencies affected by DOGE recommendations, ensuring operational leaders can present consequences and alternatives.
  • Improved data linkage: Ensure DOGE’s tracking systems reconcile with FPDS and other procurement databases in real time to prevent phantom savings from lingering on public dashboards.
  • Congressional reporting standards: Tighten statutory reporting obligations so that any cross-agency efficiency office must provide granular audit trails and only report net realized savings after remediation steps are complete.

Political dynamics: performance theater versus durable reform

Efficiency campaigns are politically attractive because they offer neat narratives: cut the fat, fire the bureaucrats, save taxpayers’ money. But governance is not a photo op. When the political imperative to show results outpaces the discipline of verification, you get performance theater—big visuals like a Wall of Receipts and sound bites about billions saved—without the policy maturity to ensure those savings are real. In the long run, this undermines faith in reform efforts and empowers critics who claim that efficiency drives are more about ideology than effective governance.

Moreover, performative savings create perverse incentives. Agencies may be pressured to accept unrealistic targets or to underreport transition costs to align with a centralized narrative of fiscal prudence. That not only skews internal decision-making but also risks degrading essential capabilities in the name of abstract efficiency metrics.

Practical stewardship: marrying efficiency with mission assurance

Efficiency is a legitimate and necessary goal for any modern government, especially given the scale of America’s defense budget. The problem isn’t the aim—it’s the methodology. Real stewardship demands that efficiency offices embed themselves within the operational realities of the agencies they seek to reform. That requires subject-matter expertise, transparent processes, and a default presumption that mission assurance trumps optics. If savings are to be celebrated, they must be demonstrably real, sustainable, and achieved without increasing systemic risk.

DOGE and similar entities should be evaluated on both the magnitude of their savings and the soundness of their process. Savings that require prolonged litigation, emergency reprocurement, or that degrade resilience should be treated as liabilities rather than victories. In practice, that means shifting performance metrics from headline totals to validated, post-implementation outcomes: cost avoided, transition costs borne, operational continuity maintained, and cybersecurity posture preserved.

There is an important lesson here for policymakers and watchdogs alike: transparency plus verification equals legitimacy. Without that equation, efficiency campaigns risk becoming little more than political theater, capable of generating headlines but incapable of delivering the durable fiscal and operational improvements the country needs. If reformers are serious about saving taxpayers’ dollars while protecting national security and critical services, they must build systems that privilege evidence over optics and operational continuity over applause.