Page Reader AI | DOGE Says 470,000 US Agency Credit Cards Deactivated

DOGE Says 470,000 US Agency Credit Cards Deactivated | The Epoch Times

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Key Findings

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, announced the deactivation of approximately 470,000 federal credit cards across 30 agencies. This follows an earlier audit revealing 4.6 million active cards.

Agencies Affected

Numerous agencies were impacted, including the Office of Personnel Management, General Services Administration, Department of Defense, and others.

Context and Background

DOGE was established to reduce government waste and spending. While initially finding 4.6 million active cards and 90 million transactions totaling about $40 billion, the organization has faced legal challenges from various states concerned about privacy and national security risks.

Legal Challenges

Federal judges have issued injunctions on DOGE's activities within certain agencies, but some rulings have been overturned, allowing DOGE continued access to certain government systems. A recent case involved partial lifting of a ban on Treasury Department system access for a DOGE staffer.

Further Developments

A DOGE staffer has been appointed as the acting director of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance.

Spending Data

The Department of Veterans Affairs had the highest spending at over $17.3 billion, followed by the Department of Defense at over $11.2 billion. Justice and Homeland Security each exceeded $1 billion in credit card spending.

The task force announced earlier this year that it found more than 4.6 million cards being used across various federal agencies.

Nearly half a million credit cards used by various federal agencies and officials have been deactivated, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced on April 15.

The organization, which was created by President Donald Trump via an executive order and is led by Elon Musk, wrote in a post on social media platform X that credit cards used by more than 30 agencies had been deactivated as part of its bid to reduce government spending.

“Credit Card Update! The program to audit unused/unneeded credit cards has been expanded to 30 agencies. After 7 weeks, ~470k cards have been de-activated. As a reminder, at the start of the audit, there were ~4.6M active cards/accounts, so still more work to do,” the main X account associated with DOGE said in a post.

A breakdown of deactivated cards included ones used in the Office of Personnel Management, General Services Administration, Department of Labor, Small Business Association, Treasury Department, Commerce Department, Department of the Interior, Education Department, Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Holocaust Memorial Museum, Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, State Department, and many others.

In response to DOGE’s statement, Musk wrote on X on Wednesday that “twice as many credit cards are issued and active than the total number of government employees,” a figure that he described as “crazy.”

The latest figure is an increase from the 315,000 credit cards that DOGE said were deactivated in late March, according to a post at the time. In February, the task force initially announced that it had found 4.6 million cards and 90 million unique transactions amounting to around $40 billion in fiscal year 2024.

When it announced the figure in February, DOGE also released a breakdown of several agencies’ year-to-date spending, active accounts, and transaction amounts. For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs had the highest spending at more than $17.3 billion, while the Defense Department was No. 2 at more than $11.2 billion.

The departments of Justice and Homeland Security also each spent more than $1 billion via their credit card accounts, while smaller government agencies and organizations recorded more than $2.3 billion combined in spending.

Since its creation in January, DOGE has targeted different federal agencies to reduce what it calls fraud, waste, and abuse and to downsize the size and scope of the federal government.

But DOGE has faced legal ups and downs. Federal district judges have placed holds on its activities inside various agencies, including the Social Security Administration, the Education Department, and the Treasury Department, among others. Some judges have allowed the group to access government systems or have overturned lower court rulings that barred it from doing so.

This past week, a judge in New York partially lifted a ban that blocked DOGE staffers from using Treasury Department systems, allowing one official with the task force to gain access to the department’s Bureau of Fiscal Services. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by 19 Democrat-led states that said DOGE’s efforts could lead to privacy and national security risks.

On April 15, an official with the State Department confirmed to The Epoch Times that a DOGE staffer is now the acting director of the agency’s Office of Foreign Assistance, which doles out foreign aid and works with USAID.