Summary
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, leading Trump’s new DOGE, plan to cut $2 trillion in federal spending by ending remote work for federal employees and monitoring their productivity.
GOP Senator Joni Ernst supports the plan, citing remote work as wasteful, though federal data shows most eligible roles still require significant on-site work.
Critics argue the initiative overstates the issue and lacks enforcement power, as DOGE is an advisory body with no direct authority over government operations.
This guy s 100% accurate. When I was a contractor for the NWS in the mid 2010s they were working aggressively to get their HQ staff setup to telework at least some of the time to save on office leases. They built out a large fix work space in their silver spring building and when it went live they were able to vacate an entire floor, saving something like a million dollars in month in lease, utilities, etc costs.
This mindset of return to office to force attrition also seems less likely to work for federal employees that often need to work in the office at least part time anyways, and often have very strong union protections that will cost a ton for the government to fight through.
On top of that, the costs to return employees to offices will be astronomical both in fitting out those office spaces again and in terms of supporting infrastructure like transit costs. A lot of those additional costs get borne by state governments and often passed on to the federal government through grants and chargebacks for various services.