In a post made to X, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency found a code that corresponded to a budget line item that accounted for nearly $4.7 Trillion. According to the department, this line item was often left blank. In the same post, DOGE indicated that this item will be closely watched going forward with cooperation from the Treasury.
“The Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) is an identification code linking a Treasury payment to a budget line item (standard financial process). In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible,” DOGE posted to X. “As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going. Thanks to @USTreasury for the great work.”
In the same post, DOGE linked to an article on the treasury website explaining a TAS. “A Treasury Account Symbol (TAS) is an identification code assigned by the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), in collaboration with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the owner agency, to an individual appropriation, receipt, or other fund account,” the definition read.
“”The term “Treasury Account Symbol” is a generic term used to describe any one of the account identification codes assigned by Treasury and is also referred to as the “account”. All financial transactions of the federal government are classified by TAS for reporting to Treasury and OMB,”” the definition continued to explain.
Social media users were quick to support the DOGE. “This lack of transparency is staggering. $4.7 trillion in payments with no clear link to budget line items is a recipe for disaster and corruption,” one user reacted. ” The fact that the TAS field was optional is unacceptable. It’s no wonder we have so much waste and inefficiency in government spending.”
“We need leaders like Trump who will drain the swamp and bring accountability to our government’s financial dealings,” the same user concluded. “If the government was a business, they’d be bankrupt or in jail for failing to track where $4.7 TRILLION went,” another noticed. ” Now that transparency is mandatory, let’s see how much money was flowing to special interests, foreign governments, and deep-state cronies.”
Elon Musk, who is highly involved in the actions of the DOGE, quoted the post to express his support. “Major improvement in Treasury payment integrity going live! This was a combined effort of @DOGE, @USTreasury and @FederalReserve. Nice work by all,” said the billionaire. According to their website, the DOGE has saved US taxpayers over $55 Billion.
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The department says that the savings are made up of ” a combination of fraud detection/deletion, contract/lease cancellations, contract/lease renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings.” The DOGE has been publishing updated data on government waste twice a week and plans to move to live data reporting. They also indicate that the goal is to provide proof in an easy-to-digest and transparent way. If this $4.7 Trillion line item is canceled, it would be the largest single saving made by DOGE.