Elon Musk has said the federal government spent almost $1 billion on a short survey asking whether or not people liked the US National Parks. This is among a number of things his Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE is cracking down on.

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“We routinely encounter a waste of a billion dollars or more. Casually. This 10 question-survey could’ve been done with Survey Monkey for $10,000. The government was being charged almost a billion dollars for that,” Musk said during a Fox News interaction along with some DOGE staff on Thursday (Mar 27).

 

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Below are the ways in which DOGE says it's saving money by cutting government waste:

Crackdown on small business loans 'to babies and people not alive'

This month, the Small Business Administration (SBA) mandated that business loan applicants must provide date and proof of birth, after it emerged that some of the loans allegedly went to people aged above 120. In DOGE's view, these are cases of identity theft or social security fraud.

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In the new online loan application form on the SBA website, there is now an entry for date of birth that the applicants have to fill.

Any direct application with ages below 18 years or above 120 years will not be approved.

“Basic sanity checks like these are initial steps towards minimizing fraud in government payment programs,” DOGE said in a post on its X handle, which Musk reshared.

He said it will ensure the SBA does not provide loans to children or to people considered too old to be alive.

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“No more loans to babies or people too old to be alive (ie stolen Social Security numbers),” he wrote, implying that some people were using stolen Social Security numbers for these loans.

This comes after DOGE found, from data examination of 2020-21, that SBA had granted 3,095 loans worth $333 million to those aged above 115, including one 157-year-old who got a $36,000 loan.

Savings by cutting grants

DOGE also said in a post on Thursday (Mar 27) that $577 million grants have been cancelled by various government agencies, giving savings of $237 mn. It called these "America Last' grants.

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 The cancelled grants include: 
> $10mn for "gender equity in the Mexican workplace"
> $12.2mn for "worker empowerment in South America"
>  $6.25mn for "improving respect for Worker's rights in agricultural supply chains" in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador
> $5mn for "elevating women's participation in the workplace" in West Africa
> $4.3mn for "assisting foreign migrant workers" in Malaysia
> $3mn to "enhance social security access and worker protections for internal migrant workers" in Bangladesh
> $3mn for "safe and inclusive work environments" in Lesotho

Credit card deactivations

DOGE is also targeting credit cards given to federal workers and contractors.

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A 'pilot programme' with 16 government agencies carried out an audit of unused or unwanted credit cards. After five weeks of this audit, nearly 298,000 credit cards were de-activated.

DOGE said that there were 4.6mn active cards or accounts at the start of this audit, so there is more work left.

(With inputs from agencies)