President Trump’s cost-cutting creation, the Department of Government Efficiency, is diving toward an ambitious trillion dollar goal. Nobody can be sure but officially, Elon Musk-led DOGE claims to have already slashed more than $130 billion in federal spending. That’s your tax money. Today, Scott Thuman hears from three men who are experts at unearthing waste to get their ideas on where the axe should fall.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Three taxpayer watchdogs whose groups are famous for unearthing government waste joined us to talk about Trump’s cost-cutting blueprint and pitch their own razor-sharp fixes.

Scott Thuman: Do you all think that wasteful spending is as big of a problem as Musk claims it is?

Steve Ellis: It’s certainly a problem, Scott.

Steve Ellis is with Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit known for spotlighting waste with its Golden Fleece Awards, given in 2003 to Republican Congressman Don Young for pushing an infamous $190 million “bridge to nowhere.” His group contributed to a recent report suggesting Pentagon cuts.

Steve Ellis: We were hopeful when DOGE started that they were actually going to target and go into major areas of government spending, but it’s been a little bit scattered.

John Hart is with Open the Books, which has exposed billions in wasteful government spending. Its 2016 report revealed that while the EPA claimed to be cash-strapped, it spent $92 million on luxury furniture, including $1,500 ergonomic chairs.

John Hart: Back in the 1980s, President Reagan put something together called the Grace Commission, and their key finding was that one out of every three tax dollars is wasted. If you extrapolate that to today’s numbers, that’s over $2 trillion. So they’re only getting about half the way there.

Justin Goodman’s group, the White Coat Waste Project, focuses on government-funded animal experimentation and is famous for exposing painful experimentation on beagles at taxpayer expense under Dr. Fauci’s leadership.

Justin Goodman: We’re excited about the slash-and-burn approach that they’re taking at an agency like HHS that has a nearly $2 trillion budget.

Scott Thuman: Steve, looking at defense systems—fighter jets, ships, missiles—are there realistic cuts for balanced savings and national security?

Steve Ellis: You have the F-35, the fighter jet that is only fully operational 30% of the time for all its missions. That’s $12 billion a year that you could save by not buying any more of those. You have the Sentinel, which is the replacement for the intercontinental ballistic missile. It was 31% over budget in 2024. You could get rid of that for $310 billion.

Scott Thuman: John, President Trump recently signed that executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, citing declining test scores as evidence of its failure. How has the education department been spending those tax dollars if not improving student performance?

John Hart: Well, they haven’t been spending it very well, that’s for sure. We found that there’s a 14% growth of staff since 2000, but a 749% increase in spending. The question taxpayers are asking is, what value are we getting for our money? Have we seen test scores increase 750%? No, we haven’t. We’ve seen test scores arguably flatline or go down.

Scott Thuman: Another department that you’ve put under the microscope is the IRS, but what you’re suggesting for cuts sounds a lot more like something that would apply for the Department of Defense.

John Hart: So this is astonishing. In the past 20 years, we’ve spent at the IRS almost $35 million on military-style equipment. Body armor, ballistic shields, submachine guns. There may be legitimate reasons, but we have other agencies—or even better, local police departments. It makes no sense to be spending $35 million creating a paramilitary division within the IRS.

Scott Thuman: Let’s talk about Medicare and Medicaid, because both are often targeted for cost reductions in federal spending. Is there one simple thing that could be done to cut down on those massive expenses?

John Hart: So there’s a dispute within Medicare where we pay more to code something as an outpatient visit when it’s really an inpatient visit. So just by simply doing better administration of the program in a way that has no, zero, impact on wellness and patient outcomes, we could save $140 billion.

Scott Thuman: Justin, the White Coat Waste Project looks into federal spending on animal experiments. One of the more egregious examples is the tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer grants that funded the Wuhan lab in China.

Justin Goodman: What happened in Wuhan is exhibit A, right? So Dr. Fauci and USAID were actually secretively funneling tax dollars through different nonprofits and colleges and universities to Wuhan with very little paper trail to conduct dangerous experiments that would not have been allowed in the United States. Even after what happened in Wuhan, we still have over 20 laboratories in China that are still eligible to receive funding from the NIH.

And while the government continues to fund risky international research, here at home, there is growing scrutiny over how taxpayer dollars are being spent. Since March, DOGE has cut funding to 10 animal experiments that have already tapped into some $8 million in taxpayer money. Had they been allowed to continue, it would have cost $9.3 million more.

Justin Goodman: We have to be looking at what the return on investment for taxpayers is. Every dollar wasted is a dollar less for Medicare or other important programs that actually protect and improve people’s health. Some critics say it’s the system itself that encourages this waste—an environment where agencies feel compelled to spend every last dollar, to prove they need it, and will again, the next year.

John Hart: Every federal agency, at the last quarter and the last month, throws billions and billions of dollars out the door because of the way the budget rules work. If they don’t empty their account, their coffers, they’re worried they’re going to get their spending cut. So what we see is this perverse kind of throwing money out at things like lobster tail at the Pentagon or $20 million ribeye steaks, $200 million on furniture just at the Pentagon. Great nations don’t stay great very long when they do that.

For Full Measure, Scott Thuman, Washington, D.C.

Watch video here.