GAO said Doge savings overstated by $110 billion in the Wall of Receipts, finding that claims tied to contracts, leases and grants lacked support or used incorrect estimates as of July 7, 2026. The report released Thursday said the ledger did not give policymakers and the public enough information to judge the numbers.
Gary Peters, who requested the review with Richard Blumenthal, called DOGE a "slapdash and deceptive effort" in a statement Thursday. He also said Elon Musk and the Trump administration claimed billions in savings they could not substantiate and took credit for work already underway.
GAO review of Wall of Receipts
The Government Accountability Office said the Wall of Receipts "can have significant value," but only if DOGE gives clearer calculations and more detail on data limits. In the report, GAO said the ledger would be "more useful to policymakers and the public if DOGE provided more information about how it calculated savings and disclosed data limitations."
That finding came from a probe covering contracts, grants and leases DOGE listed from Jan. 20, 2025, through July 7, 2026. GAO said DOGE used incorrect or unsupported savings estimates across the public-facing tally, which was posted in itemized form on DOGE's account on X.
Contract, lease and grant claims
GAO said 108 of the 264 leases DOGE said it terminated were already in the process of being eliminated before DOGE was established by President Trump in January 2025. It also said DOGE reported $1.7 billion in savings tied to a Pentagon Defense Health Agency IT contract it said it would terminate, but DOGE never followed through on ending the contract or cutting the funding.
For contracts, GAO criticized DOGE for lack of transparency and for failing to use its own stated methodology in calculations of the majority of savings tied to contracts reported as terminated. For grants, GAO said DOGE did not provide enough information to verify the method used to calculate 96 percent of DOGE-reported savings.
GAO disclosure recommendation
GAO said the Wall of Receipts does not sufficiently disclose limitations affecting data quality and recommended that DOGE prominently display those issues on the ledger. The watchdog said the report was about the public record DOGE used to show taxpayer savings, not just a dispute over one number.
With DOGE having concluded its operations on July 4, the remaining question is how much of the savings still listed on the Wall of Receipts can be independently supported from the underlying records.
