The Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Musk, says it has saved taxpayers $55 billion since its January inception.
A Monday event in Harrisburg gathered 300 marchers to protest the Trump administration’s actions since the President’s January inauguration. The protest prominently featured signs and chants attacking the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
“The point of the protest is to try to unite as many people as possible to make sure our elected officials know what the people are looking for and to make our voices heard and to limit executive overreach,” Cristin Wormuth, one of the protest organizers, told a local news station.
The rally served as the Pennsylvania iteration of the “50501 Movement” – a series of protests across the country that calls itself a “decentralized rapid response to the anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies.” The organization’s website includes a “partners” section that promotes various progressive groups, such as a “black and queer-led” one that seeks “reproductive freedoms.”
Many protestors in attendance told local reporters they opposed DOGE and Musk’s involvement in the federal government. DOGE has received immense pushback from progressives for its candid statements exposing government spending under the Biden administration and advising the President to defund programs deemed to be wasteful.
The DOGE website shares that, since its January inception, it has saved an estimated total of $55 billion taxpayer dollars coming from “a combination of fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings.”
While 50501 Movement protestors expressed their disdain for DOGE, Musk’s efforts have received widespread approval at the national level. New polling conducted between February 7 and 9 reveals that 49 percent approve of the work Musk is doing through DOGE.
“Any attempt to disrupt entrenched bureaucracy is bound to ruffle feathers,” writes U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R) in an op-ed for Lancaster Online published over the weekend. “But what we’re seeing from the left-wing media — and even in opinion pieces published in LancasterOnline — goes beyond reasonable debate.”
Smucker went on to criticize mainstream media outlets for manufacturing “hysteria” and “attacking President Trump no matter what he does.”
“Why would anyone oppose efforts to streamline government operations, root out waste and improve efficiency? After all, similar initiatives under President Clinton did not generate this level of resistance,” Smucker continued.
PA Gov. Josh Shapiro, however, appears to be of the same mind as the 50501 protestors when it comes to the Trump administration. Last week, Shapiro filed a lawsuit against the administration over the temporary freezing of federal funds as federal agencies reevaluate spending under new leadership.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has made no indication of intending to back down from cuts to federal spending. President Trump issued a new executive order Tuesday directing his cabinet to make public, to the extent appropriate, the complete details of any terminated program or previous recipient of government funding that has been eliminated.
“The United States Government spends too much money on programs, contracts, and grants that do not promote the interests of the American people,” the executive order reads. “The American people have a right to see how the Federal Government has wasted their hard-earned wages.”
