The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) reported that over 200,000 credit cards associated with more than a dozen federal agencies have been disabled after an audit revealed these cards were either not being used or did not serve any purpose.
The announcement has come as the
Elon Musk
-led organization keeps working on eliminating waste, fraud, and corruption within the federal government.
“Weekly Credit Card Update! Testing phase involving 16 agencies to review idle or unnecessary credit cards,” DOGE posted on its X account.
DOGE DISCOVERS MORE THAN 4 MILLION GOVERNMENT CREDIT CARDSPART OF NEARLY 90 MILLION TRANSACTIONS
Following three weeks, more than 200,000 cards were deactivated. This past week showed significant advancement thanks to @HHSGov [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] and @Interior [U.S. Department of the Interior].
The organization stated that when the audit began, there were over 4.6 million active cards/accounts across those agencies.
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The DOGE team noted that there was still more work to be done.
It remains uncertain how much money taxpayers will save as a result of these cancellations. According to data from last month provided by DOGE, the 4.6 million credit cards were utilized for approximately 90 million distinct transactions, amounting to roughly $40 billion in expenditures during fiscal year 2024.
Altogether, 204,801 credit cards were cancelled, including 171,120 travel cards and 33,681 purchase cards.
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The organizations whose credit cards were revoked encompass the General Services Administration (GSA), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Department of Labor, the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Department of Education, the Department of Interior, the Department of Treasury, the Department of Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Agriculture (USDA), NASA, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The Interior Department experienced the highest volume of credit card cancellations, with almost 20,000 purchase cards and about 40,000 travel cards terminated. In second place, HHS had over 43,700 travel credit cards and 2,235 purchase cards revoked.
The State Department serves as
only agency
Of those 16 individuals who did not have any of their credit cards cancelled.
Last month, Musk gave a talk at
President Donald Trump’s
At his first Cabinet meeting, he stated that he aims to identify $1 trillion in savings via DOGE to aid in reducing the national debt, currently totaling approximately $36.5 trillion.
Musk targeted the reported $2 trillion in budget shortfalls, asserting that the U.S. “cannot realistically maintain” such a high level of debt.
“If this persists, the nation will end up, effectively becoming insolvent,” Musk asserted.
Musk characterized DOGE as “not just an extra feature” and contended that it was “essential” for reshaping the American economic system.
Over the weekend, DOGE also pinpointed tens of thousands of instances involving over $300 million.
Loans were provided to kids.
.
DOGE found that the Small Business Administration (SBA) approved approximately 5,600 loans totaling $312 million for applicants where the sole recorded owner was 11 years old or under when these funds were disbursed. These transactions occurred between 2020 and 2021 during the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, but their specific usage remains unknown.
Andrea Margolis and Michael Lee from Fox News contributed to this report.
Original article source:
DOGE and agencies revoke 200,000 federal government credit cards.
