GOVERNMENT WASTE

DOGE Cuts Leave Federal Staff Cleaning Their Own Toilets

Some government employees have been forced to forego basic office supplies like paper and pens, with others complaining of WiFi outages due to delayed contracts for IT staff.

Elon Musk‘s crusade against “wasteful” government spending under the Department of Government Efficiency has now reached the point that some government employees have been forced to clean their own bathrooms. Delayed approval for new contracts has resulted in a dire lack of janitorial staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), while holdups on IT hires mean the agency has also been repeatedly hit with unmanageable internet and phone service outages. The delay in getting the cleaners back in owes to new rules requiring top-level approval from political appointees at the Department of Commerce, of which NOAA is a part, with similar cost-cutting measures creating chaos at other agencies. At the Social Security Administration, the $1 spending limit placed on government credit cards by Musk’s DOGE initiative has resulted in some staff foregoing the use of basic office supplies, while officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are seeing their research stymied by having to ask permission for any new lab purchases.