DHS Contracts: Reported Potential Cost Avoidance from Terminations Will Not Fully Materialize

Filed 15h ago · Via GAO · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Bad Ideas (clean)

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Patrick Lattin · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A GAO report finds that the Department of Homeland Security, working with DOGE, terminated 438 contracts between January and September 2025 and deobligated $92 million, but its public claim of $10.5 billion in potential cost avoidance is overstated. GAO found 95% of that figure came from 30 canceled IT contracts, and DHS already obligated over $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2025 through other government-wide contracts to get the same work done.

GAO's conclusion is blunt: the savings will not fully materialize because DHS just moved the same spending to different contracts, with more erosion expected through 2034 as those replacement obligations continue.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Anybody who has ever paid off a credit card with another credit card knows exactly how this trick works. The bill didn't shrink, it just changed envelopes, and somebody upstairs decided that counts as thrift. Ten and a half billion in savings that mostly turns out to be the same work bought from a different window, and the erosion runs out to 2034, which is a long time to keep a straight face.

Source: Read the original at GAO → Scored: Bad Ideas (clean) · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

Read it scored.

Every story, every clown, every kazoo — in your pocket. Music plays automatically. Regret is optional.

GET IT ON iOS GET IT ON ANDROID