Nouriel Roubini

DOGE will come nowhere close to cutting the US federal budget by $2 trillion (inferred window: fiscal year 2025).

“The "Department of Government Efficiency," an external advisory committee led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (two major Trump campaign donors), will come nowhere close to cutting the federal budget by $2 trillion, as originally promised.”

Said on

2 January 2025 · Project Syndicate column "The Good, the Bad, and the Uncertainty of the Trump Economy", republished by interest.co.nz on 2 Jan 2025

Source

The Good, the Bad, and the Uncertainty of the Trump economy · interest.co.nz / Project Syndicate

Should come true

2025

How sure they sounded

will come nowhere close

Categories

PoliticsEconomy

Importance

2 of 5 · Size of US federal spending cuts matters to the US fiscal outlook.

Outcome

Accurate Happened 30 September 2025.

Inferred window: fiscal 2025. Far from being cut by $2 trillion, federal outlays rose by about $301 billion (4%) in FY2025 to roughly $7 trillion, per CBO, and DOGE's own claimed savings were a small fraction of $2 trillion.

Evidence:

• https://www.highergov.com/news/monthly-budget-review-september-2025-6453270/
• https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61302/html