GAO flags problems with estimates in Trump administration DOGE “Wall of Receipts” report

The Government Accountability Office said Thursday that parts of the Department of Government Efficiency’s “Wall of Receipts” report include inaccurate data or estimates that lack sufficient evidence to support the claims, according to a GAO report referenced by The Hill.

GAO’s review identified “several issues” with the way the “Wall of Receipts” estimated savings, The Hill reported, saying the problems “limit” what the estimates can be used to support. The watchdog focused in part on the report’s estimate of $110 billion in savings across government contracting, grants, and leases, as presented in DOGE’s materials.

The Hill reported that GAO concluded some of the estimates were not properly supported, including questions about the underlying basis for certain numbers and how they were calculated or evidenced. The report’s findings raised concerns about whether the figures should be treated as firm or fully documented savings claims rather than preliminary estimates.

DOGE’s “Wall of Receipts” has been positioned as a compilation of alleged waste reduction and efficiency gains, and GAO’s criticism targets the evidentiary quality of the data used for at least some of those savings assertions. The discrepancy matters because governmentwide savings estimates can be used to justify follow-on policy decisions and contracting, grant, and leasing enforcement steps.

The Hill’s account described GAO’s assessment as limiting the reliability of the “Wall of Receipts” figures, meaning the watchdog’s concerns may affect how closely policymakers and oversight bodies can rely on those totals. The practical impact is likely to be greatest for any internal or external uses of the figures that assume they are fully supported by documentation.

A DOGE response was not included in the supplied reporting, and GAO’s full methodological findings were not reproduced in the account available for this write-up. The next step for oversight and for any agency efforts to quantify savings is to reconcile the disputed items with documentation standards and update figures where GAO identifies deficiencies.