They Called It Efficiency. It Was Always a Purge.

Nine out of ten DOGE layoffs targeted liberal agencies. Every single GOP proposed budget increase goes to conservative ones.

It's been five months since DOGE launched its reign of terror against the federal workforce, and now its most prominent architect is gone. Elon Musk's departure from DOGE as the deficit-ballooning GOP budget bill recently passed the House marks the perfect moment to assess what this "efficiency" initiative really accomplished.

The answer lies in the GOP's new spending bill, which exposes DOGE's true purpose. While liberal-leaning agencies continue to face mass layoffs, the Republicans' budget proposal lavishes increases on conservative priorities. The numbers tell the story: nine out of ten federal employees laid off by DOGE since March worked in agencies the civil service itself ranks as liberal-leaning. Meanwhile, every single proposed budget increase in the GOP spending bill goes to agencies rated as conservative-leaning, with the bulk going to the most conservative agencies. The Department of Defense—which DOGE initially promised to cut—is now slated for significant budget increases.

They're not cutting fat; they're performing ideological surgery with a chainsaw.

My updated analysis incorporates both more recent data on DOGE layoffs and the proposed GOP budget strips away the last veneer of legitimacy from this project. Agencies perceived as liberal face a double blow: mass firings and budget starvation. Meanwhile, their conservative counterparts like DOD, ICE, and Customs and Border Protection feast on expanded funding. The ideological targeting couldn't be clearer: agencies getting budget increases average +1.38 on the ideology scale (solidly conservative), while layoff targets average -0.99 (solidly liberal). Perceived ideological leaning is the strongest predictor of which agencies face cuts and which face increased funding.

Remember when DOGE promised to take on Pentagon waste? That commitment vanished faster than Musk's White House influence. The same Republicans preparing to gut Medicaid by $2.2 trillion over the next decade—targeting programs that serve millions of Americans—are simultaneously increasing defense spending. DOGE promised to drain the swamp but only succeeded in poisoning the well.

The pattern is familiar to anyone who studies democratic backsliding. Target agencies that constrain executive power and protect citizens: EPA, Department of Education, NIH. Protect and strengthen those that align with authoritarian goals: defense, immigration enforcement, border security. DOGE has been remarkably efficient at exactly one thing: dismantling our democracy.

What makes this particularly galling is the brazenness. USAID and CFPB—the two most liberal-leaning agencies according to federal executives—face the deepest cuts. These aren't bloated bureaucracies; they're agencies that deliver foreign aid and protect consumers from predatory financial practices. Their real crime? Operating in ways that conflict with the administration's ideological agenda.

The data on ideological targeting of agencies for layoffs was damning enough. And now, with Musk out and the GOP's spending priorities laid bare, we can see DOGE for what it always was: a political hit job dressed up as good governance. This comes as OPM now requires loyalty essays from job applicants—the spoils system reborn through HR paperwork.

Five months in, the federal government has been fundamentally reshaped—not to work better, but to work differently. To work for some Americans and against others. To enforce some laws vigorously while letting others wither through malicious neglect.

The only thing DOGE streamlined was the path from democracy to autocracy. The efficiency was always a lie. The ideology was always the point.