Tag Archives: federal contracts

Quietly Doing Their Work

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On Monday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced this past week that more than 100 federal contracts have been terminated with a value of nearly $6 billion.

Multiple agencies “terminated and descoped 108 wasteful contracts” that have a ceiling value of $5.8 billion and resulted in savings of $397 million,” DOGE wrote in an Oct. 10 post on X.

That includes a $3.1 million State Department contract titled, “Tanzania National Coordination Office Development,” it said, and a $46,500 U.S. Agency for Global Media lease for “office space for the Voice of America East Asia and Pacific Service.”

Other terminated items include a $5.8 million Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contract for “organizational development, executive coaching, and leadership training” and a $44 million State Department contract for “professional services in Doha, Qatar.”

After being established by President Donald Trump on his first day in office, DOGE has slashed around $214 billion in estimated savings, or around $1,329.19 per taxpayer, according to an Oct. 4 update.

So far, 13,440 contract terminations totaling approximately $61 billion, 15,887 grant terminations worth around $49 billion, and 264 lease terminations totaling around $113 million have been posted on DOGE’s website.

On Friday, Fox News reported:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Wednesday released data showing the federal government ran a $1.8 trillion budget deficit in fiscal year 2025 amid mounting interest costs on the nearly $38 trillion national debt.

The article at The Epoch Times concludes:

While the number of layoffs is unclear, a group called the Partnership for Public Service says that more than 201,000 federal employees have left the government as of Sept. 23.

Earlier in the year, the Trump administration also had offered to pay federal workers who do not want to return to offices the option of a “deferred resignation,” meaning they would agree to resign but get paid through Sept. 30.

Efforts to lay off more employees, known as reductions-in-force, are ongoing in the midst of a nearly two-week-long government shutdown that started Oct. 1, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought confirmed this past week. Court papers that were later submitted by the administration said that around 4,100 workers across several agencies received layoff notices.

A memo released by the budget office stated that for federal programs that would have a funding lapse during a government shutdown, “such programs are no longer statutorily required to be carried out.”

It also directed all federal agencies to submit reduction-in-force plans to the budget office for review.

I know that there is some serious griping among federal employees about the Reduction In Force (RIF), but RIF’s have been happening for a long time–the last major one was in 1994. The country cannot survive without seriously cutting government spending.