DOGE News Update: Launch of the Musk Watch DOGE Tracker - Resistance Daily Brief for 12 March 2025
Information, insight, and inspiration for resisting tyranny in America
Welcome!
In today’s Brief, we highlight the launch of a new tool to help bring transparency and accountability to the Trump-Musk regime, the Musk Watch DOGE Tracker.
What is the DOGE Tracker?
The DOGE Tracker is a new tool launched by journalist Judd Legum and designed by data analyst Brian Banks to track and verify Elon Musk's claims about savings achieved by his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The tracker breaks down DOGE's purported savings into three categories: Claimed Total Savings, Itemized Savings, and Verifiable Canceled Funding. Musk claims DOGE has saved taxpayers over $100 billion, but the tracker reveals that this figure significantly overstates verified savings, perhaps by as much as 92%.
If you want to keep up to date with what is going on with DOGE from a trusted source, you will want to bookmark the DOGE Tracker. You can read more about the DOGE tracker’s data and methodology in the write-up at Popular Information.
How much has DOGE saved so far?
While Elon Musk and his team claim to have saved $105 billion, numbers presented by the DOGE Tracker indicate that the verifiable savings are closer to $8.6 billion. “Most of these purported ‘savings’,” Legum reports, “are not backed up with any details or documentation,” concluding that “DOGE has grossly overstated the potential savings to taxpayers.”
Multiple news outlets have reported significant errors and misrepresentations in DOGE’s claimed savings. Investigations by NPR, CBS News, and others have corroborated the DOGE Tracker reporting, finding numerous inaccuracies, including confusing billions with millions, counting terminated contracts that had already ended, and claiming savings from contracts that were never actually canceled.
Are DOGE Social Security cuts next?
DOGE’s false claims are having real impacts that will only get worse for average Americans. The Social Security Administration announced last week that it is cutting 7,000 jobs. Recent reports indicate that Elon Musk’s DOGE is eyeing up to $700 billion in cuts at the agency. Musk justified such cuts in recent interviews by falsely claiming to have uncovered an overwhelming amount of fraud.
The newly elevated head of Social Security has pushed back against some of Musk’s claims, in particular that 20 million dead people are receiving benefits from the agency. Even though he expressed concerns that the Social Security system is in a precarious position since the arrival of Musk's DOGE team, he nonetheless urged patience with what he called, “the DOGE kids.”
Why it matters
Independent journalism exposing government corruption and incompetence is vital for fighting authoritarianism because it contributes to weakening an autocrat’s power sources, building public resistance capacity, and creating pressure for defections within the regime.
By exposing the gap between propaganda and reality, as in the case of the DOGE Tracker, journalists directly challenge the legitimacy narratives that dictators use to justify their rule. In this case, historian Timothy Snyder has noted that supposed “fraud” and its elimination serve to legitimize Trump and Musk’s illegal “state of exception” and resultant “need” for emergency powers. Exposing the “fraud fraud,” as Snyder calls it, directly undermines the basis for the Trump-Musk claim to exceptional power.
By exposing corruption and incompetence, journalists can help citizens overcome the "fear and habit of obedience" that Gene Sharp identified as prerequisites for destroying dictatorship. This is particularly important for moving the needle among older Americans who tended to support Trump and who remain largely unaware of the threat posed to their Social Security benefits from DOGE cuts. The DOGE Tracker reporting helps undermine the rationale for the almost certain cuts to benefits, which will not go unnoticed when they arrive and will leave recipients looking for answers.
Finally, the DOGE Tracker reporting can also contribute to pressure on potential defectors within the regime by revealing information that makes continued support for Trump and Musk more costly. When journalists document government lies and failures, they contribute to building what researchers call "alternative institutions"—in this case an alternative to DOGE’s own official, online tracker—by creating parallel information ecosystems that the regime cannot fully control. This can put regime insiders in a tough position, as seen with the Social Security Administration head’s pushing back against Trump and expectation that he will be forced out, as well as numerous reports of GOP lawmakers facing backlash from constituents at town hall meetings around the country as anger over lost jobs and cuts to government services mounts.
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