The Trump administration, working with the Department of Government Efficiency, has been using a $1 limit on thousands of government-issued credit cards to manage spending.
The Washington Post reported that many government employees are upset at the spending restriction, which they say has led to some programs essentially being eliminated.
Craig McLean, a former researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Post, "No matter where you look, there is a delay and a complication based on this ludicrous requirement that the secretary has implemented." He referenced Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s requirement that contracts over $100,000 must be approved by him.
A February executive order from President Donald Trump initially placed a freeze on nearly every federal spending platform, including credit cards, with a requirement that supervisory level approval was needed to ensure "government spending is transparent and government employees are accountable to the American public."
The Post reported that University of Michigan professor Donald Moynihan said it appeared the administration was trying to slash spending across the board and "deliberately embedding red tape into government." He described the effort as making "sense if you assume that the purpose of DOGE is not to make government work better, but to stop government from working at all."
The DOGE website, as of Sunday, displayed total savings through its efforts at $14.7 billion.
A DOGE post on Wednesday reported, "The program to audit unused/unneeded credit cards has been expanded to 32 agencies. After 10 weeks, more than 500K cards have been de-activated." DOGE reported that at the start of the audit, the government had 4.6 million active credit cards.
Jim Mishler ✉
Jim Mishler, a seasoned reporter, anchor and news director, has decades of experience covering crime, politics and environmental issues.
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