DOGE Deactivates Nearly Half a Million Credit Card

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Newsweek

Published Apr 16, 2025 at 5:55 AM EDT


The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has suspended almost half a million government credit cards in use by federal officials. The task force, headed by billionaire Elon Musk, said it had deactivated cards used by more than 30 agencies as part of its crackdown on government spending.

The Context

On returning to office in January, President Donald Trump created DOGE via an executive order to reduce the size the federal workforce and cut government spending by eliminating waste and inefficiency. The task force has since recommended the firing of more than 200,000 federal workers, and 75,000 workers have accepted the Trump administration's offer to voluntarily resign.
What To Know

On Tuesday, DOGE wrote on X, formerly Twitter—the social media platform Musk owns—that it had deactivated about 470,000 credit cards in its crackdown on federal spending.

"Credit Card Update! The program to audit unused/unneeded credit cards has been expanded to 30 agencies. After 7 weeks, ~470k cards have been de-activated. As a reminder, at the start of the audit, there were ~4.6M active cards/accounts, so still more work to do," the post said.

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/doge-credit-card-deactivation-2060270

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So what is the time interval to determine if a card is "unused"? If you have staff who periodically (but not frequently) go on road trips as part of their jobs overseeing regulated industry, then the frequency of travel needs to be taken into consideration as it might not be "continuous enough", based on their unspoken criteria, to justify having a card

Might as well go back to the era of the "cash advance" like I always had before they eventually brought in government credit cards (the first of which back in the day in my agency, was the barely-accepted anywhere "Diner's Club" )

[sinkingfeeling]

1. America is in shambles.

[dchill]

2. This should not be possible.

[ToxMarz]

3. The time interval is whenever the last time the card was used.

They just canceld the cards, all of them, as many of them as they could, there was no criteria used to determine which ones, it's just the official rationale they used. Same as uneeded cards. According to who. Guess.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Back in February, 45 ordered that the cards be "frozen" for 30 days

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143405442

So any intermittent users would have already been SOL at that point.

But what is interestingly missing from the narrative is the fact that some bank (and I have been gone for awhile but the last one who had the contract before I retired, was JP Morgan Chase), would lose out on some lucrative business and $$$.

[LiberalArkie]

5. Like the ones that FEMA used to use to buy things when at local disasters? And FBI and other agencies with vehicles to

buy gas?

[iluvtennis]

6. Just because DOn the Con and Muskrat are unethical doesn't mean everyone else is. I was a defense

contractor for 10 years (and in Air Force prior to that). At my company we had credit cards to use for business activities (e.g., travel, lunch with clients, etc). If we used that card for anything other than business, you'd lose your job. And besides, what ethical person would do that anyway as you had your own personal credit cards to use for personal stuff.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. And what they neglect to mention

is that the local Admin Office gets a copy of EVERY credit card bill, just like the employee, so they see what is being spent on what, where, and when.

[tanyev]

8. Yep. When I worked for a local government, Pcard reports had to be done every month

with receipts accounting for each transaction and an explanation of the business use of that purchase. The cards made certain purchases a lot easier and efficient, and it would have been very difficult to get away with misusing them.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. And then there was annual training on using them

and different credit limits for purchases (whether it was a travel card or the Pcard).

I refused to use my travel card except to pay for a hotel (and Amtrak if I had to use that and one time I used it for a rental car - I think for plane travel, there was another mechanism for payment of that). Everything else was out of my pocket including MIE, but my out-of-pocket gas/toll costs were done with receipts, so I could get reimbursed).

[iluvtennis]

13. Just wanted to agree with your comments in writing. All charges were auto reviewed after each business trip

or transaction. There were check and balances in both my military defense contractor and Air Force days.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. Oh yeah

and these systems were set up specifically in case of audits!

[mzmolly]

10. This is so focking stupid. It just means that government will have to be billed.

It’s not going to save money.

[Jacson6]

11. Federal Workers will have to use paper purchase orders and travel vouchers.

We used these back in military 40 years ago. For travel you would be reimbursed for what receipts you had that proved your costs. It was a major hassle and it took months to get your money back.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. Before I retired

we still had to do travel vouchers with receipts but it was through use of one of the automated systems. The program would generate the T.O. and link to the voucher at some point (we would upload PDFs or images of receipts and the program could print out a voucher if need be). The hope was that the system was updated regularly with the latest Per Diem/Lodging & mileage rates.

[yellow dahlia]

15. Drug addled sadists should not be near repsonsibility, power, or government. n/t