So Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The goal? Put Elon Musk in charge of cutting waste and exposing fraud.
- $4.7 trillion with no clear destination.
DOGE discovered that $4.7 trillion in payments from the US Treasury were made without any traceability.
The error? The field identifying the destination of the payments was not required on the forms.
This means that a colossal amount of money was spent without any clear record, making it very difficult to track these payments.
- $20 million for a children's program in Iraq.
The U.S. has earmarked $20 million to fund Ahlan Simsim, a version of Sesame Street aimed at children in the Middle East.
Proponents say the program promotes countering extremism.
Critics call it reckless spending, since it doesn't appear to be a priority for American taxpayers.
- Controversial funding in Guatemala.
In 2024, USAID made a $2 million grant to the organization Asociación Lambda.
The goal of this funding was to support the provision of gender-affirming health care, which includes hormone therapies, counseling, and other related services.
However, it is unclear whether any of this money was earmarked specifically for sex reassignment surgeries.
The granting of this funding has sparked debate in the United States about the use of taxpayer funds for this type of program.
- Manual retirement processing.
The US still processes retirement documents manually, with documents stored in a limestone mine in Pennsylvania. 😳
This inefficiency limits processing to 10,000 cases per month.
This delays benefits for millions of retired workers and creates unnecessary costs for the government.
The taxpayer foots the bill, maintaining an outdated system that should have been digitized decades ago.
- Recovery of $1.9 billion.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was supposed to use $1.9 billion to manage housing-related financial services, such as subsidies and assistance programs.
But what went wrong?
These funds were “lost” in the system due to administrative failures:
• Poorly organized internal processes
• Outdated documentation
• Errors in the flow of funds release
DOGE recovered the $1.9 billion and returned it to the National Treasury.
Now, this money can be directed to other areas of the government that really need the resources.