Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seriously considering distributing 20% of the savings generated by DOGE to the population. Trump announced this idea during an event in Miami. Another 20% could, in his opinion, be used to reduce the national debt.
🚨 PRESIDENT TRUMP: "There's even under consideration a new concept where we give 20% of the @DOGE savings to American citizens." pic.twitter.com/fV8cXCtUQ9
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 19, 2025
What does this mean for the economy?
It seems obvious that Trump wants to score points with the American people with this proposal.
First of all, it remains to be seen how much DOGE can actually save. There are currently many contradictory statements on this.
Second, it could be problematic to provide additional capital to the population given current inflation rates. On the other hand, it could provide an interesting boost to the US economy.
The crucial question, however, is whether the American economy actually needs such a boost. The economy is currently growing solidly, while inflation in particular is a concern for decision-makers.
In any case, DOGE’s website claims that savings of $55 billion were achieved.
Controversy surrounding DOGE
As mentioned above, it remains questionable how much can actually be saved by Elon Musk’s DOGE. For example, on February 18, the New York Times reported that DOGE had stated on its website that it had canceled a contract worth $8 billion, while in reality that contract was only worth $8 million.
If this is true, DOGE would have exaggerated the savings by a factor of 1,000.
DOGE responded by stating that its calculations had always used the correct $8 million.
This is inaccurate.
In September 2022, the agency contracting officer mistakenly wrote $8B instead of $8M when logging in the FPDS database. DOGE discovered this error in January 2025, and the agency updated FPDS accordingly. DOGE has always used the correct $8M in its… https://t.co/sYpfDwW9ZI pic.twitter.com/nOttcUuBGC— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) February 19, 2025
On February 19, Elon Musk wrote on his platform X that he had proposed a “tax cut” to Donald Trump based on the DOGE savings.
Do it. https://t.co/ErATB2r5Ql
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) February 19, 2025
One thing is clear: the last word has not yet been spoken about DOGE. Only time will tell whether this project can actually be successful in the USA – and whether it might even spill over into Europe.
