It's funny that this question isn't answered anywhere in the news!
The question is a bit vague, let's split it up into different options:
1. The government does exactly the same work as it does today, but with 20% fewer employees. The US spends $270B on civilian employees. So 20% of that is $54B. US GDP is 27.72T. 54B is totally irrelevant.
2. The government spends 20% less on everything it can. Most of what the government spends on cannot be cut, it's fixed. Social security, medicare, defense, healthcare, veterans benefits, interest in existing loans, etc. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... If you take away the parts that cannot be cut, you're left with discretionary spending. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-of-the-federal-budget... That's about $300B (because we need to leave out defense and things like veteran's benefits and income security which are discretionary but must be paid). What remains is education, parks, research, etc. If we cut 20% of that about $300B which is left over, we're still talking $60B.
So no, a magically 20% more efficient federal government won't do anything to GDP, because it won't do anything for government spending. Pretty much all government spending is in direct payments to help people and in defense. That's why DOGE and others cannot possibly make any difference at the large scale, they can only hurt people while providing nothing meaningful to the country.
The question is a bit vague, let's split it up into different options:
1. The government does exactly the same work as it does today, but with 20% fewer employees. The US spends $270B on civilian employees. So 20% of that is $54B. US GDP is 27.72T. 54B is totally irrelevant.
2. The government spends 20% less on everything it can. Most of what the government spends on cannot be cut, it's fixed. Social security, medicare, defense, healthcare, veterans benefits, interest in existing loans, etc. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... If you take away the parts that cannot be cut, you're left with discretionary spending. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-of-the-federal-budget... That's about $300B (because we need to leave out defense and things like veteran's benefits and income security which are discretionary but must be paid). What remains is education, parks, research, etc. If we cut 20% of that about $300B which is left over, we're still talking $60B.
So no, a magically 20% more efficient federal government won't do anything to GDP, because it won't do anything for government spending. Pretty much all government spending is in direct payments to help people and in defense. That's why DOGE and others cannot possibly make any difference at the large scale, they can only hurt people while providing nothing meaningful to the country.