The chainsaw is still running at DOGE with the deactivation of more than 600,000 credit cards

Though billionaire Elon Musk has departed his role at Doge, the organization continues to make cuts to federal spending. Over the last few months, Doge has been working to reduce the number of credit cards used by federal workers, and on June 7, announced that so far, over 600,000 had been audited and slated for deactivation.

“After 14 weeks, the program to audit unused/unneeded credit cards has expanded to 55 agencies resulting in ~610k de-activated cards,“ read Doge’s post on social media. No details were given on the number of audits yet to be conducted, but the ‘agency’ did say that there were around 4.6 million active credit cards when they started the project, meaning around 13 percent of all cards have been deactivated.

Why federal workers and agencies rely on credit cards

Using a work credit card helps them protect the personal finances of public workers, who, in some cases, are barred from using their personal accounts to avoid the misuse of public funds.

For instance, imagine a building manager buying office supplies for over 100 employees. By giving this person access to a credit card, they can make necessary purchases, submit a report, and have the expenses reimbursed without putting their personal finances at risk. This setup helps prevent financial hardship and reduces the risk of corruption or misuse, especially if someone knows they’ll be reimbursed for their spending.

If the main goal is to cut spending, revoking credit card rights won’t achieve it. Workers can still be reimbursed with the same funds that would’ve been used to pay the credit card bill, but the government will have to make additional payments to workers instead.

Unintended consequences of DOGE’s credit card cutting project

Newsweek also covered some of the “unintended effects” that arose after the deactivation of credit cards at the Transportation Security Adminstration or TSA. In April, TSA leaders reported to the outlet that they were “unable to make purchases to support bomb-sniffing dog units” because of the freeze on their cards.

When Fortune spoke with federal workers, they emphasized the important role credit cards play in the daily operations across the federal government. According to the outlet, around $30 billion in transactions are carried out using credit cards by the federal government each year.

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