The nation is more than a year removed from the start of President Donald Trump’s second administration, which came to D.C. with the idea of major cuts through the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
The result, Democrats claim, is a hollowed out civil service system.
Several Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee held a hearing in Fairfax County, Virginia, on Thursday, taking a broad look at the impact DOGE had on the federal government.
“We know the Trump-Vance administration has taken a wrecking ball to our civil service and decimated the federal workforce,” Rob Shriver, the managing director of civil service and good government initiatives at Democracy Forward, said. “In so doing, it has harmed everyone in America who relies on essential government functions.”
Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat representing California’s 42nd District and the ranking member of the committee, said a new report showed how DOGE failed to eliminate waste and its “incompetence” endangered federal workers and Americans as a whole.
The first months of the program, lead by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, saw the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, the decision to cancel the U.S. media agency Voice of America, the cancellation of thousands of government grants, contracts and programs and the departure of more than 300,000 federal employees and contractors in 2025.
The Trump administration has repeatedly defended DOGE and the changes, arguing they needed and have enhanced “efficiency” within the federal workforce.
But former and current federal employees testifying at the hearing say that’s hardly been the case. They point to figures from the Brookings Institute and others that show there are roughly three million federal employees today, and that is about the same size as it was 60 years ago, but the nation’s population has soared by more 100 million. They say they were already doing excellent work and at a high level of efficiency.
On its website, DOGE claims to have saved taxpayers upward of $200 billion initially. But some experts have pushed back, suggesting the savings are closer to between $1 billion and $7 billion, which is far lower than the $2 trillion Elon Musk said in 2025 that DOGE would save American taxpayers.
Rep. James Walkinshaw, a Democrat representing Virginia’s 11th District, said the cuts hit several critical agencies deeply.
“This administration has hollowed out the cybersecurity agency through RIFs (Reductions in Force) and politically driven reassignments, weakened NOAA by indiscriminately firing staff critical to public safety, and undermined our national security by dismantling USAID,” he said, noting the high number of federal workers who live in his district.
Many Republicans have defended DOGE saying government had grown too large, was bloated and was trying to do many missions the states should undertake.
But former GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock, who has become a vocal Trump Administration critic said the White House behavior and treatment of civil servants has been “egregious.”
“I apologize to you, as a Republican, for what has happened over the last year because it’s been so egregious and so traumatic,” Comstock said. “It’s the only promise kept by this administration.”
The more than two hour hearing included testimony from former federal employees, watchdog groups and others who described what they said were illegal activities, including the firing of the Inspector Generals and the disorganized way the job cuts were performed by DOGE.
Doreen Greenwald, the President of the National Treasury Employees Union testified how tens of thousand of federal employees who want to leave the government have been unable to get their retirements finalized and the process is taking three to four times as it normally does.
“Federal retirees are stuck in limbo as agencies slow walk their retirements, and once those make it to OPM (U.S. Office of Personnel Management), they are waiting six to nine months for their first annuity payment.”
But there was a small sliver of optimism among the speakers. They said Elon Musk is no longer in government and DOGE was officially disbanded in November 2025, instead of the summer of 2026.
Faith Williams, the director of the Effective and Accountable Government Program, Project on Government Oversight (POGO) said her group and others will be there to help rebuild what they say are the depleted government ranks.
“POGO has several solutions Congress can implement to restore the merit based civil service, strengthen whistleblower protections, protect inspectors general and other watchdogs, combat corruption, abuse of power and strengthen congressional oversight,” she said.
Rep. Glenn Ivey, who represents Maryland’s 4th District, a suburban area in Prince George’s County that is home to thousands of federal workers, said he believes there is a place in government for many of the employees who were let go.
“We’ve got cases that run the gamut of people in the government who’d been doing great work, who’ve been forced out. We’ve got to make sure we find ways to get them back so they can pick up where they left off,” Ivey said.
Ivey pointed to the hundreds, if not thousands of employees who were dismissed, only to be rehired weeks and months later, when government officials determined their positions were essential.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2026 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
