Watchdog: DOGE savings dwarfed by Medicare, Social Security

OpenTheBooks released a report this week finding that the Trump administration’s DOGE-era rescissions and agency cuts (roughly $150 billion attributed to DOGE measures and about $9 billion from a July rescission package) are small compared with U.S. mandatory entitlement spending — Medicare ($912 billion) and Social Security ($1.5 trillion) in 2024. The watchdog highlights concentrated Medicare prescription‑drug outlays (the top 1,000 providers accounted for $10.9 billion in 2024) and cites Department of Justice enforcement figures (324 defendants charged in a Medicare fraud scheme totaling $14.6 billion) to argue that tackling entitlement inefficiency and fraud, not discretionary cuts alone, is central to long‑term deficit reduction.