Recent headlines have breathlessly reported layoffs and program cuts tied to audits by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But let’s be clear: DOGE doesn’t have the authority to fire anyone or terminate programs. They make recommendations – nothing more. Agency directors decide whether to act.

Still, critics loudly object, as if government spending is beyond question. Identifying waste, fraud and inefficiency is met with sarcasm and resistance. Yet budgets always seem to grow. Rarely do they shrink.

Having created multi-year budgets for federal grants, I’ve seen firsthand how inefficiency is baked into the system. A government agency issues a call for proposals. Professors and nonprofits submit applications. In theory, grants are awarded on merit. In practice, the same small circle of insiders reviews and receives awards, year after year.

Most grants go to state-funded universities or nonprofits – organizations already reliant on taxpayer money. Administrative costs eat away a significant portion before the real work even begins. That work often falls to graduate students or contractors, while the institution collects overhead fees, profiting whether results are meaningful or not.

The benefit to taxpayers? Published research that few read. Redundant services. Little accountability at any level.

Consider federal housing programs. Billions have been allocated over the years for homelessness prevention, yet homelessness rates in major cities continue to rise. Multiple agencies provide overlapping services with little coordination, leading to duplication and inefficiency.

A recent DOGE audit, corroborated by the Office of Management and Budget, uncovered $327 million in annual spending on outdated IT systems across more than a dozen federal agencies. In one striking case, an agency maintained a 1970s-era database that required contractors to be fluent in a nearly obsolete programming language. No private company would tolerate this kind of digital stagnation. But in government, inertia is rewarded.

Education spending is another glaring example. Since 1970, the federal government has spent at least $2.9 trillion on K–12 and higher education research and programs, according to the National Center for Education Statistics and Statista. Yet U.S. education rankings have plummeted – from first in the world in 1979 to somewhere between 13th and 20th today, depending on the metric.

We now spend over $17,000 per K–12 student annually and more than $30,000 for each postsecondary student. More Americans have college degrees – 38% in 2022 compared to just 11% in 1970 – but are we truly better educated? Standardized test scores suggest otherwise.

Taxpayers deserve better than a system that measures success by dollars spent instead of outcomes achieved. DOGE’s audits shouldn’t be politicized. They should be a starting point for serious, overdue reform.

We need to continue to apply public pressure. The federal government should move toward performance-based funding models, require competitive renewal of grants, sunset obsolete programs, enforce spending caps and mandate public audit disclosures. It’s not the government’s money being wasted. It’s ours.

– Mark Doggett is a retired professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Western Kentucky University.