We received positive news from Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Russ Vought on Wednesday when he revealed on Fox Business that the initial bill formalizing DOGE cuts would be introduced next week.
The initial bill will address foreign aid, USAID, and NPR, among other elements. The exact financial scope is still uncertain, but these topics could engage significant amounts.
This seems like a promising beginning. House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed his enthusiasm and readiness to proceed with the bill to achieve further cuts for the American people.
But there’s more coming because they’re still working and finding wasteful spending, and there are some of the big items at the Pentagon.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered an important statement on X on Wednesday in which he said they’d identified an enormous amount in potential cuts.
Update: The important work from @DOGE continues at the pentagon. pic.twitter.com/ijavEa66kJ
— Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (@SecDef) May 28, 2025
Hegseth said their main focus and charge he’d received from President Donald Trump was to restore the warrior ethos. He said a big part of that is finding out what works and what doesn’t work. They identified an overreliance on “management consultants and contractors.” He said they likely had more contractors than they had civilian employees.
He said reviewing these contracts with DOGE, they’d identified $5 billion in savings, in addition to the $5 billion they’d already identified. So that’s “$10 billion in real savings at the Department of Defense,” Hegseth explained. “And we’re just getting started.” If they found $5 billion in two weeks, think what they could do with a little more time.
Hegseth outlined how he’d delegated Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg to work with DOGE and the services to review all their consulting contracts. They needed to be focused on financial responsibility, stewardship, and warfighters.
Hegseth also said he was issuing three memos.
The first was responsibly reducing the number of management consultants and contractors. He stressed these were not fighters, but people who “gave PowerPoints.” The second dealt with needed reforms to the Department’s usage of executive assistants. The third involved restructuring the Department’s operational and test evaluation office, which will make testing weapons more efficient. He explained how they worked with the services on this, there were changes they wanted to implement to make things work better.
“Converting consultants into combat power,” Hegseth said. “That’s what we’re doing here at the Defense Department.”
One has to think some of the biggest savings and waste to be found would be in defense spending, and they’re just getting started. Meanwhile, they’re also working on the most important goal: to focus on warfighters, not politics or woke thought, but what’s best to help us protect our fighters and win.
The DOGE account on X cheered Hegseth’s statement and work.
Great work by @SecDef @DeptofDefense.
DOD had become “overreliant on management consultants and contractors,” and they have strategically canceled ~$5B in contracts, “converting consultants into combat power.” https://t.co/Pv7L6VrPOk
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) May 28, 2025
This is what we voted for.
