The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), designed to root out unnecessary expenses and dismantle government agencies, has faded from the limelight and left taxpayers funding civil servants on administrative leave and being paid to sit at home and not work.

According to a report from the Washington Post, the ham-handed efforts of DOGE-mastermind Elon Musk’s hires to cut government spending has not matched the hype, with the report noting that an early retirement component has been a major drag on cost-cutting.

The report states that approximately 154,000 federal employees are receiving paychecks as they accepted an offer from the Trump administration to get paid as of June until the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30 or at the end of the year.

The Post’s Meryl Kornfield, Hannah Natanson and Laura Meckler reported, “The buyouts have rapidly sped up the process of slashing the federal workforce at an unprecedented rate, the officials said. But critics have argued the administration’s tactics of using buyouts and administrative leave have been wasteful because the public is paying tens of thousands of employees not to work for months.”

According to critics in the Democratic Party, that wasted money can be added to the billions “paying workers who are on leave either through the voluntary departure program or because of ongoing litigation over mass firings, according to a report released Thursday,” the Post added.

Some experts have also questioned using administrative leave to reduce costs, with employment attorney Michelle Bercovici stating, “It’s ridiculous. I’ve never seen anything like it. It seems so wasteful.”

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