That, by the way, is the good news for DOGE. The bad news is that the project seems quite likely to expand long-term budget deficits. Slashing IRS enforcement will embolden tax evasion and reduce revenues by hundreds of billions of dollars over the decade. Laying off Department of Education employees who ensure collection of student-loan repayments will increase the deficit. Illegally terminated federal employees are already being reinstated with full back pay, leaving the government with little to show for its trouble besides mounting legal fees. Even if DOGE somehow manages to end up in the black, any modest savings it achieves will be completely overwhelmed by the GOP’s push to expand the 2017 tax cut at a cost of roughly $500 billion annually.