President Trump directed federal businesses on Wednesday to implement a 30-day freeze on the usage of government-issued bank cards as a part of his newest government order.
The order implements the Division of Authorities Effectivity’s “Cost Efficiency Initiative,” which goals to make sure that “government spending is transparent and government employees are accountable to the American public.”
The pause of bank card utilization comes per week after DOGE found almost $40 billion in spending final 12 months linked to government-issued plastic.
“To the maximum extent permitted by law, all credit cards held by agency employees shall be treated as frozen for 30 days from the date of this order,” reads the part on bank cards.
The order contains exceptions for “any credit cards held by employees engaged in, or charges related to employees utilizing such credit cards for, disaster relief or natural disaster response benefits or operations or other critical services” as decided by the company heads in session with DOGE.
The fee-cutting program, led by billionaire Elon Musk, has pledged to “simplify” the federal authorities’s bank card program, which is managed by the Common Providers Administration (GSA).
The US authorities at the moment has about 4.6 million lively bank cards or bank card accounts on file – greater than the full variety of federal employees (about 3 million), not together with authorities contractors and active-duty navy personnel.
Round 90 million distinctive transactions had been made on the playing cards in fiscal 12 months 2024, operating up about $40 billion in payments for the federal authorities, in accordance with DOGE, which cited publicly out there GSA knowledge.
“DOGE is working w/ the agencies to simplify the program and reduce admin costs,” the group wrote on X final week.
Bank cards, linked to main banks, are issued to federal staff in additional than 250 federal businesses and Native American tribal governments in an effort to “make purchases on behalf of the federal government in support of their agency’s mission,” in accordance with GSA.
For many years, the federal authorities has been plagued with scandals involving the usage of taxpayer-funded bank cards.
Over time, authorities watchdogs have discovered all the things from grownup leisure to Lego toys to lavish, multi-course meals being charged to taxpayers.
Trump’s government order additionally directs federal businesses to work with DOGE to “build a centralized technological system” in an effort to “seamlessly record every payment issued by the agency pursuant to each of the agency’s covered contracts and grants, along with a brief, written justification for each payment submitted by the agency employee who approved the payment.”
Company heads are additional tasked with reviewing their contracting insurance policies and personnel and analyzing “all existing covered contracts and grants and, where appropriate and consistent with applicable law, terminate or modify (including through renegotiation) such covered contracts and grants to reduce overall Federal spending or reallocate spending to promote efficiency and advance the policies” of the Trump administration.
The president’s order goes on to direct federal businesses and DOGE to construct a system that information approvals for “federally funded travel for conferences and other non-essential purposes.”
“Once an agency’s system is in place, the Agency Head shall prohibit agency employees from engaging in federally funded travel for conferences or other non-essential purposes unless the travel-approving official has submitted a brief, written justification for the federally funded travel within such system,” the EO states.
Musk goals to chop at the least $1 trillion in authorities waste, fraud and abuse via the DOGE initiative.
