In a stunning revelation of government inefficiency, the Department of Veterans Affairs was found to be paying $380,000 per month for minor website maintenance — a contract that has now been scrapped and replaced by a single in-house software engineer working just 10 hours a week.
This discovery, made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), underscores the kind of bureaucratic excess President Donald Trump tasked the agency to uncover when he created it via executive order on January 20.
“Good work by @DeptVetAffairs,” DOGE announced on X, praising the VA for dropping the exorbitant contract.
According to DOGE’s audit, the contract — which reportedly covered only routine website tweaks and updates — was quietly draining nearly $4.5 million annually from the VA’s budget. Now, with the contract terminated, the same scope of work is being handled internally, by a single VA software engineer, requiring roughly 10 hours per week.
No official VA response has been issued yet, though the development has raised significant questions about how such a bloated expense went unchecked for so long.
VA Secretary Doug Collins has defended DOGE’s aggressive reforms. In February, the department announced the dismissal of more than 1,000 employees, part of a broader plan to redirect over $98 million annually back into core services like health care, benefits, and veteran support.
This is far from an isolated win for the cost-cutting watchdog agency led by Elon Musk, who has become the public face of the Trump administration’s federal overhaul. DOGE has taken a machete to a slew of questionable contracts and programs across multiple agencies.
Just last week, DOGE canceled:
-
113 federal contracts worth $4.7 billion, including a USDA consultancy for Peru’s climate change policy.
-
$577 million in “America Last” grants through the Department of Labor, including:
-
$10 million for “gender equity in the Mexican workplace”
-
$12.2 million for “worker empowerment in South America”
-
$6.25 million to “improve respect for workers’ rights” in Central American agricultural supply chains
-
Each line item tells a story — not just of misaligned priorities, but of taxpayer dollars being funneled abroad or into projects with little relevance to the average American worker or veteran.
As of April 2, DOGE claims it has saved taxpayers $140 billion, or $869.57 per taxpayer, since its launch. The agency has 18 months to complete its full audit and reform mandate, and momentum is building.
Still, not everyone is applauding. Critics argue DOGE has too much access to federal systems, wields too much authority over agency budgets, and has the potential to become a blunt instrument in the hands of an administration determined to centralize control.
