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  • Did Musk and DOGE Save Any Money at All?

    Did Musk and DOGE Save Any Money at All?


    In an investigative report, The New York Times demonstrated that Elon Musk failed to deliver on his claim that he could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. Not only did he fall short, but his efforts were so reckless that they might cost money instead of saving it.

    Having launched his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (which is not a department at all and was never authorized by Congress), Musk and his then-partner Vivek Ramaswamy promised to cut $2 trillion. Their goal dropped to $1 trillion, and Vivek left the team to run for Governor in Ohio.

    Some of DOGE’s claims turned out be be inflated (one alleged saving of $8 billion turned out to be a saving of only $8 million.

    Musk eventually reduced his saving claim to only $150 billion.

    Since DOGE began, thousands of federal employees have been fired. Some have been rehired after courts decided their firing was illegal. Some have been fired, rehired, and fired again. Some career employees have taken buyout offers. Tens of thousands of federal employees have been laid off, without regard to their experience. There was no time for DOGE workers to evaluate each person they ousted, nor did DOGE have the competence to judge its victims.

    The New York Times concluded that DOGE’s activities may actually save nothing at all. Firing workers is expensive when you do it the wrong way, the DOGE way.

    Elizabeth Williamson of The New York Times wrote:

    President Trump and Elon Musk promised taxpayers big savings, maybe even a “DOGE dividend” check in their mailboxes, when the Department of Government Efficiency was let loose on the federal government. Now, as he prepares to step back from his presidential assignment to cut bureaucratic fat, Mr. Musk has said without providing details that DOGE is likely to save taxpayers only $150 billion.

    That is about 15 percent of the $1 trillion he pledged to save, less than 8 percent of the $2 trillion in savings he had originally promised and a fraction of the nearly $7 trillion the federal government spent in the 2024 fiscal year.

    The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that studies the federal work force, has used budget figures to produce a rough estimate that firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers will cost upward of $135 billion this fiscal year. At the Internal Revenue Service, a DOGE-driven exodus of 22,000 employees would cost about $8.5 billion in revenue in 2026 alone, according to figures from the Budget Lab at Yale University. The total number of departures is expected to be as many as 32,000.

    Neither of these estimates includes the cost to taxpayers of defending DOGE’s moves in court. Of about 200 lawsuits and appeals related to Mr. Trump’s agenda, at least 30 implicate the department.

    The errors and obfuscations underlying DOGE’s claims of savings are well documented. Less known are the costs Mr. Musk incurred by taking what Mr. Trump called a “hatchet” to government and the resulting firings, agency lockouts and building seizures that mostly wound up in court.

    “Not only is Musk vastly overinflating the money he has saved, he is not accounting for the exponentially larger waste that he is creating,” said Max Stier, the chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service. “He’s inflicted these costs on the American people, who will pay them for many years to come.”

    Mr. Stier and other experts on the federal work force said it did not have to be this way. Federal law and previous government shutdowns offered Mr. Musk a legal playbook for reducing the federal work force, a goal that most Americans support. But Mr. Musk chose similar lightning-speed, blunt-force methods he used to drastically cut Twitter’s work force after he acquired the company in 2022.

    “The law is clear,” said Jeri Buchholz, who over three decades in public service handled hiring and firing at seven federal agencies, including NASA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. “They can do all the things they are currently doing, but they can’t do them the way they’re doing them. They can either start over and do it right, or they can be in court for forever.”



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  • Ethnic studies standards can’t save California’s deeply flawed mandate

    Ethnic studies standards can’t save California’s deeply flawed mandate


    Alison Yin / EdSource

    Members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus recently introduced a new bill (AB 1468) to address concerns that the state’s new ethnic studies mandate has been and will continue to be used as a vehicle for sneaking dangerous antisemitism and anti-Israel content into our classrooms. Unfortunately, AB 1468 will only serve to exacerbate, rather than mitigate, these concerns.

    In 2021, California became the first state to require an ethnic studies course for high school graduation with the passage of AB 101. Despite good intentions, this mandate has been plagued by fundamental and unresolved problems. Chief among them is that it allows school districts to choose their own curriculum, leading many to adopt materials and training from consulting groups such as the Liberated Ethnic Studies Consortium, which promote a highly politicized approach to ethnic studies, exacerbating concerns about classroom bias and antisemitism.

    Recognizing this looming threat and knowing that content standards are required for all other California courses required for high school graduation, the Jewish legislators have introduced a bill to establish state-approved standards to prevent antisemitic content and ensure ethnic studies is taught in a way that respects all communities.

    The lack of content standards, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. Far more troubling is the absence of any consensus on what kind of subject ethnic studies even is. Some proponents view it as an inclusive, objective examination of the history, culture and contributions of various ethnic groups in the state. This understanding appears to have guided California legislators in passing the ethnic studies mandate with AB 101, whose author stated, “California is one of the most diverse states in the country, and we should celebrate that diversity by teaching a curriculum that is inclusive of all of our cultures and backgrounds.”

    Others, however, hold a radically different view. They believe high school ethnic studies should replicate the university-level discipline, which focuses primarily on four racial groups and is rooted in ideologically driven frameworks that emphasize systemic oppression and promote political activism, often incorporating antisemitic content. This approach, championed by state university ethnic studies faculty, teachers unions and Liberated consulting groups, has infiltrated many school districts.

    The lack of consensus about the very nature of ethnic studies has led to fierce battles over curricula, which have played out in contentious school board meetings and costly legal challenges, underscoring the folly of implementing a mandatory ethnic studies course without any common understanding of the subject.

    The folly becomes even graver when considering that the primary justification for an ethnic studies mandate — its supposed improvement of student outcomes — is wholly unfounded. The single empirical study claiming to demonstrate the academic benefits of ethnic studies was thoroughly debunked by scholars at the University of California and the University of Pennsylvania, who warned that “no conclusion” could be drawn from its data. Worse, an ethnic studies mandate forces students to take a controversial course with no demonstrable academic benefits in place of one with clear value, such as world history.

    The mandate’s serious flaws were well-known before the passage of AB 101, which raises the question: How could state legislators establish a law requiring all students to take a course with no agreed-upon subject matter, content standards or proven academic benefits and, under the Liberated approach to ethnic studies, that was likely to sow divisiveness and incite antisemitism?

    Unfortunately, the Jewish Caucus’ idea of adding standards to a deeply flawed mandate, though well-intentioned, will not fix the problem. Given the entrenched influence of teachers unions, university ethnic studies faculty and Liberated consultants over who teaches high school ethnic studies and how it’s taught, any attempt to add standards will inevitably be co-opted by these groups, further entrenching an ideological version of ethnic studies that is divisive, controversial and harmful to Jewish students. Moreover, AB 1468 risks giving a false sense of security to concerned parents and community members while failing to address deeper issues.

    Now is the time to reconsider — not reinforce — the ethnic studies mandate.

    Thankfully, a critical provision in AB 101 has been largely overlooked: The mandate is only operative when the Legislature provides funding for it, which has not yet occurred. And given California’s current financial crisis and the fact that the mandate is estimated to cost the state a whopping $275 million annually, it’s unlikely to become operational anytime soon. This presents an opportunity for legislators to do what is best for all California students: Instead of trying to salvage a foolhardy mandate that is beyond repair, legislators must work to repeal it.

    Without a state-funded graduation requirement, school districts could still offer ethnic studies as an elective or even a local graduation requirement, allowing communities to decide whether the course serves their students’ needs. However, given the cost, controversy and administrative burden involved with implementing an ethnic studies requirement without state support, it is doubtful many districts will proceed with it on their own. As a result, the ethnic studies industry — especially consulting groups like Liberated and university-based teacher training programs —will lose their primary source of demand and begin to wither, removing a major driver of politicized and antisemitic content in California classrooms.

    Legislators now face a clear choice: double down on a mandate that divides communities, burdens schools, and fails students, or take this opportunity to end it before it does further harm. Repealing AB 101 isn’t just prudent policy — it’s a necessary course correction.

    •••

    Tammi Rossman-Benjamin is the director of AMCHA Initiative, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to combating antisemitism at colleges and universities in the United States. She was a faculty member at the University of California for 20 years.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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