COLUMN: DOGE cuts to the bone — IRS, students, Pentagon: the bitter toll of budget cuts

Introduction: When the DOGE scalpel leaves deep scars

A tax season declared "successful" despite cuts — really?

On June 25, 2026, the IRS — the American federal tax agency — officially declared that the 2026 tax season had proceeded in a manner "largely successful," despite the cuts imposed by DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk. A statement that reads like a victory declaration in a war where one merely managed to survive. Because behind that official self-congratulation, the data tell a far more complex and, at points, genuinely troubling story.

DOGE imposed massive personnel reductions across virtually every American federal agency. The IRS, the Department of Federal Student Aid, the Pentagon in its civilian functions — none was spared. The stated ambition was to eliminate waste, reduce bureaucracy, and save hundreds of billions of dollars. The reality documented in June 2026 reveals that the DOGE scalpel sometimes cut bone rather than fat.

The shock of the cuts: a forced transformation of the federal administration

DOGE operated with a speed and radicalism that caught the American federal agencies off guard. Thousands of civil servants were fired, placed on administrative leave, or pushed into voluntary departures within weeks. The underlying doctrine is simple: reduce the size of the American federal government to the maximum, starting from the assumption that any reduction in personnel mechanically translates into savings without an equivalent cost in service quality.

That doctrine ran into more complex reality in three areas documented by sources available in June 2026: the management of the tax season by the IRS, the administration of federal student aid, and the functioning of the Pentagon. These are the three cases this column examines in detail.

The IRS: a tax season completed, but at what cost?

The official declaration versus the ground-level data

The IRS's declaration that the 2026 tax season went "largely successfully" deserves to be read with a critical eye. In the language of government institutions, "largely successful" can mean that minimum obligations were met despite degraded conditions. That is not the same as saying that service to American taxpayers improved or even held steady compared to pre-DOGE levels.

The contextual data are eloquent: DOGE significantly reduced IRS staffing. That means each remaining tax agent had to process a higher volume of files. It also means that refund processing timelines, audit capabilities, and telephone services to taxpayers were inevitably under pressure. Millions of Americans who needed help filing their returns may have experienced a degradation of service.

The structural risks for tax collection

Beyond the 2026 tax season, DOGE cuts to the IRS raise structural questions about the agency's capacity to perform its tax oversight functions. The IRS does not simply receive returns — it is also responsible for auditing taxpayers, combating tax fraud, and collecting unpaid taxes. These functions require qualified, experienced agents whose training takes years.

Tax law advisors and American tax law experts signaled in 2026 that the IRS's audit capabilities had been significantly reduced by forced departures. Paradoxically, reducing IRS staffing can have a net cost for the American Treasury if uncollected tax revenues exceed the savings realized on the salaries of eliminated agents. That is an arithmetic reality that DOGE's defenders prefer not to address directly.

Student aid: minus 40% of staff to manage $1.7 trillion in debt

An unprecedented cut in an already strained system

The most alarming data point of June 2026 on the effects of DOGE concerns federal student aid. According to Benzinga on June 24, 2026, DOGEreduced Federal Student Aid staff by 40%. This federal department manages one of the most consequential portfolios in American financial history: the federal student loan system of $1.7 trillion. Yes, $1.7 trillion. That number deserves to be written out: one point seven trillion dollars.

This colossal sum represents the accumulated debts of tens of millions of Americans who borrowed to finance their university education. These borrowers need a competent and accessible service to manage their repayment plans, process their deferral requests, review their loan forgiveness files, and answer their questions. Reducing by 40% the staff managing this portfolio is to guarantee a degradation of service whose consequences will be felt for years.

Alarms from the education and financial sector

The 40% staff reduction at Federal Student Aid triggered alarms in the higher education sector and among associations defending indebted students. Universities reported longer delays in processing financial aid files. Students reported difficulty reaching the appropriate services for questions about their repayments.

Even more concerning: in a system of $1.7 trillion in debt, processing errors, delays in forgiveness files, and communication failures can have catastrophic consequences for individual borrowers. A student who misses a repayment deadline because the relevant service was understaffed risks serious financial penalties and lasting impacts on their credit score. DOGE promised savings. It also created risks for millions of borrowers.

The Supreme Court invalidates Hawaii's strict gun law

A ruling in the continuity of post-Bruen jurisprudence

In the series of major decisions handed down on June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court invalidated Hawaii's strict gun law. That decision follows the jurisprudence established by the Bruen ruling of 2022, which had considerably expanded the scope of the Second Amendment to the American Constitution. Since that landmark ruling, several states that had adopted restrictive gun laws have seen their legislation struck down by federal courts.

Hawaii, one of the American states whose island geography and cultural tradition historically distance its inhabitants from firearms, had adopted a particularly strict law in the wake of the Uvalde massacre in 2022. The Supreme Court, in its conservative majority of 6 justices including 3 appointed by Trump, held that this text went beyond what the Second Amendment, interpreted according to American historical tradition, permits states to regulate.

Over 400 million firearms in circulation: an irreducible American reality

This ruling comes in a context where the United States counts over 400 million firearms in circulation — more than one weapon per inhabitant. The proliferation of firearms in the United States is a sociological and cultural reality of unmatched scale among Western democracies. That a conservative-majority Supreme Court should have decided to further expand gun possession rights in this context seems, from outside America, difficult to comprehend.

Defenders of the Second Amendment argue that the right to bear arms is a fundamental constitutional right, as important as freedom of expression or freedom of religion. Its opponents respond that no other constitutional right directly kills 45,000 Americans per year. This debate is as old as the American Republic and, evidently, far from resolved.

DOGE at the Pentagon: the GAO report of June 23, 2026

A report that documents the impact of cuts on civilian military staff

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) — the independent audit body of the United States Congress — published on June 23, 2026 a report documenting the impact of DOGE cuts on the Pentagon's civilian workforce. This report, covered by DefenseScoop, constitutes the first independent institutional assessment of the effects of DOGE cuts on the operational capacity of the American Department of Defense.

Without entering into classified data specifics, the GAO report identifies massive reductions in Pentagon civilian personnel — personnel who provide support, logistics, maintenance, human resources, and contract management functions that are essential to the functioning of the American military machine. These civilian positions are not useless bureaucracy — they allow service members to focus on their operational missions.

Hegseth and the initial $350 billion in cuts

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had proposed initial reductions of $350 billion in the American defense budget before new investments would be made. This approach — cut first, invest later — rests on the assumption that the Pentagon contains sufficient inefficiency to allow massive savings without impacting operational capacity.

The GAO report of June 2026 seems to indicate that this assumption is at least partly wrong. Critical functions have been affected by staff reductions. The House of Representatives, concerned about the implications of these cuts for national defense, sought to lock down certain spending lines in the FY2027 appropriations bill, thereby limiting the Pentagon's budget flexibility — and thus Hegseth's and DOGE's capacity to make further cuts.

The trade deficit and Trump 2.0 tariffs: a silent record

A record deficit that nobody is celebrating

While DOGE was making headlines with its spectacular cuts, another significant economic data point was quietly accumulating: the American merchandise trade deficit reached a record level since the imposition of the massive Trump 2.0 tariffs in early 2025. That figure is paradoxical for an administration that presented its tariffs as the means to reduce the trade deficit and bring manufacturing production back to the United States.

Economic reality is more complex than the political promise. The tariffs certainly altered trade flows, but they also increased costs for American businesses and consumers, triggered commercial retaliations, and created uncertainty that discourages long-term investment. The record trade deficit under an administration that had promised to reduce it is one of the most striking paradoxes of Trumpian economic policy in 2025-2026.

The Warren-Kelly letter: a bipartisan alert on the economy

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Mark Kelly, Democrats from Massachusetts and Arizona respectively, sent a formal letter to the USTR (United States Trade Representative) to denounce the economic record of Trump's tariff policy. This formal move, which acknowledges the hard data — 108,000 manufacturing jobs lost since the beginning of Trump's second term according to CNBC data from June 2026 — illustrates how economic critiques of the administration are becoming formalized in legislative institutions.

The loss of 108,000manufacturing jobs is particularly stinging in the context of Trump's electoral promises, which made American industrial revitalization one of the cornerstones of his program. Reducing bureaucracy via DOGE while losing manufacturing jobs due to tariffs creates an internal economic tension within the Trump agenda that the numbers are beginning to make undeniable.

KPMG and the USMCA: persistent commercial uncertainty

The KPMG Navigator: a sober reading of the global economy

The KPMG Navigator of June 2026 — a monthly publication on global economic trends — devotes particular attention to the potential expiration of USMCA, the free-trade agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. USMCA, which governs more than $300 billion per year in trade among the three countries, is subject to a review clause whose expiration creates structural uncertainty about the future of North American trade.

In the context of Trump 2.0 tariffs and persistent trade tensions, uncertainty about USMCA adds to an already turbulent commercial landscape. Companies that structured their supply chains around USMCA do not know whether they will be able to rely on this framework in the coming years. This uncertainty translates into investment deferrals and costly supply-chain reorganizations.

The $166 billion in refunds following judicial rulings against IEEPA tariffs

Another revealing figure about the American commercial situation under Trump 2.0: $166 billion had to be refunded to companies following judicial rulings invalidating certain tariffs imposed under the IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act). This colossal sum testifies to the legal limits of Trump's aggressive trade policy and the resistance that American courts have mounted against it.

These refunds represent not only a judicial defeat for the administration, but also a real financial cost to the American Treasury. Billions collected under tariffs had to be returned, proportionately reducing the revenues expected from Trumpian trade policy. Combined with the 108,000 manufacturing jobs lost and the record trade deficit, these data points form a picture that the Trump administration struggles to present in a favorable light.

Presidential immunity and tax protection: the legal dimension

Presidential immunity jurisprudence in 2026

In the context of relations between Trump, the IRS, and the judiciary, the question of presidential immunity remains an important backdrop. The Supreme Court's 2024 ruling on presidential immunity had considerably expanded protections for former presidents regarding their official acts. This jurisprudence continues to influence the decisions of the IRS and the Department of Justice on questions touching on presidential finances.

The Trump administration's capacity to orient IRS policies — notably on questions of auditing companies linked to Trump, tax treatment of certain real-estate transactions, or the handling of political figures' tax information — is a sensitive matter. DOGE cuts to the IRS could have a secondary effect, perhaps unintentional, of reducing audit capacity on politically sensitive files.

Midterms as the backdrop to every fiscal decision

The Trump administration's decisions in fiscal matters — cuts to the IRS via DOGE, tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill, handling of IEEPA refunds — all sit within the context of the November 2026 midterms. The administration is seeking to present a favorable economic record to its voters before these elections, which are crucial for control of Congress.

But the real record is more mixed than the Trump narrative suggests. DOGE cuts that undermine essential public services, tariffs that have destroyed 108,000 manufacturing jobs, a record trade deficit, forced refunds of $166 billion: these objective data points form a counter-narrative that Democrats are using to challenge Trump's account of his own economic record.

The Supreme Court as a political actor in the Trump era

Four major decisions in a single day

June 25, 2026 was an extraordinary day for the American Supreme Court, which handed down four major decisions simultaneously: the invalidation of Hawaii's gun law, the TPS decision allowing the deportation of 330,000 Haitians and Syrians, the asylum decision, and a decision on tariffs. This concentration of landmark decisions in a single day illustrates the central role the Supreme Court now plays in defining American policy.

This Supreme Court, with its conservative majority of 6 justices including 3 appointed by Trump, has become a major political actor of the Trump era. It systematically validates and reinforces the most conservative positions of the administration on guns, immigration, tariffs, and presidential powers. This convergence between the Court and the executive represents a concentration of power within the American conservative camp whose consequences will outlast Trump's second term by far.

Progressive states facing federal jurisprudence

States with Democratic governments — Hawaii, California, New York, Illinois — that had adopted more progressive laws on guns, immigration, or the environment, find themselves systematically defeated by a federal Supreme Court that restricts their regulatory autonomy. This tension between progressive states and conservative federal jurisprudence creates an increasingly fragmented legal landscape across the United States.

The strategy of these states now consists of seeking innovative legislative pathways that can withstand Supreme Court jurisprudence, or waiting for a change in the Court's composition. With relatively young conservative justices — some appointed by Trump in their fifties — this waiting strategy implies generational timelines. The laws these states wish to adopt to protect their citizens could be blocked for decades.

The international impact of American domestic decisions

NATO allies observe America's internal fractures

America's domestic decisions of June 2026 — DOGE cuts, legislative gridlock, Supreme Court rulings — are watched closely by NATO allies, just days before the Ankara summit scheduled for July 7-8, 2026. These allies need predictability and institutional stability from their main defense partner. What they observe in June 2026 is an America in permanent political ferment.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who had just met Trump at the White House on June 25, 2026 to present the progress of European defense spending — now exceeding the cumulative trillion-dollar mark since 2016 — is perfectly aware that the reliability of American commitment depends also on the stability of American institutions. DOGE cuts to the Pentagon do not entirely reassure him.

Ukraine and the meaning of American military cuts

For Ukraine, which partly depends on American military and financial support in its resistance to Russian aggression, DOGE cuts to the Pentagon carry particular resonance. If the Pentagon's administrative and logistical capabilities are weakened by massive staff reductions, that could affect — even indirectly — the effectiveness of American support for Kyiv.

Volodymyr Zelensky and his team track every development in American defense policy with vigilance. The GAO report of June 2026 on DOGE cuts to the Pentagon will not have gone unnoticed in Kyiv. The Ukrainian resistance needs a fully functioning American ally, not a Pentagon weakened by improvised budget cuts. This is a concrete geopolitical stake obscured by DOGE's efficiency-focused rhetoric.

DOGE's defenders and their arguments

The case for reducing the federal government

It would be dishonest not to present the arguments of DOGE's defenders and advocates of a smaller American federal government. These proponents argue that the American federal administration has seen uncontrolled growth for decades, accumulating layers of redundant bureaucracy that cost hundreds of billions per year without always delivering proportional value to citizens. They point out that other countries have managed significant administrative reforms without paralysing public services.

They also argue that organizations subjected to staff cuts often find efficiency gains they would never have sought without constraint. Budgetary pressure forces prioritization, eliminates duplication, and accelerates the digitization of services. The IRS declaring a tax season "largely successful" despite the cuts is, for them, proof that this adaptation is possible.

The limits of the thesis and the dangers of short-termism

But honest advocates of administrative reform acknowledge that DOGE's methods — cut rapidly, without prior risk assessment, without a transition plan — are far from ideal. Successful administrative reforms require an analysis of critical functions, a managed transition period, and an evaluation of impacts. What DOGE practiced looks more like amputation without anesthesia than a methodical administrative reform.

The risk is that the short-term savings generated by mass layoffs are largely offset by long-term costs: loss of institutional expertise that cannot be rapidly rebuilt, degradation of citizen services generating indirect social and economic costs, and the undermining of critical functions like national defense or the management of $1.7 trillion in student debt. These costs do not appear in DOGE's dashboards.

The political consequences for the 2026 midterms

The DOGE record heading into the midterms

The November 2026 midterms are approaching, and the DOGE record will be one of the electoral debate's key issues. The Trump administration will point to realized savings and the reduction in federal government size. Democrats will rely on concrete service degradation data: a less effective IRS, gutted student aid, a weakened Pentagon. Voters will arbitrate between these two narratives.

The issue is particularly high-stakes in states where DOGE cuts have direct effects on large populations. Millions of indebted students, millions of taxpayers who encountered difficulties with the IRS, families of service members who see Pentagon capacity shrink: these citizens hold views on DOGE that are not reducible to the abstract question of the size of the federal government. They have lived the concrete consequences of the cuts.

The Democratic strategy facing DOGE

Democrats have a political opportunity in this situation, but also a communications challenge. For many Americans, the promise of reducing government waste remains popular. Defending the IRS, Federal Student Aid, or civilian Pentagon staff is not the most mobilizing argument in a political culture that is suspicious of the federal bureaucracy. Democrats will need to find ways to personalize DOGE's impact — telling the concrete stories of penalized students, poorly served taxpayers — rather than abstractly defending the size of the state.

This ground-level work is already underway in several key states. Associations defending indebted students, taxpayer organizations, and federal employee unions have launched awareness campaigns about DOGE's real effects. The result of this grassroots work will be visible at the ballot box in November 2026 — if Democrats know how to amplify it effectively.

The 2026 midterms and the political arithmetic of DOGE

The American voter facing the austerity record of DOGE

The November 2026 midterms are approaching, and Republicans will have to defend a mixed record. On one hand, Trump can boast of a completed tax season despite IRS cuts. On the other, millions of Americans experienced longer refund delays, jammed phone lines, and weakened student aid. According to polls from June 22-25, 2026, Trump's approval rate oscillates between 41 and 43% — far from a triumph.

The problem for Republicans is that DOGE cuts affect services that Americans use daily, regardless of their political affiliation. A Republican farmer from Kansas needs a functioning IRS to receive their refund just as much as a Democratic voter from California. Cuts to federal student aid, with staff reduced by 40% to manage a portfolio of $1.7 trillion, threaten a central part of the youth vote that Republicans wanted to win back.

The Supreme Court strategy as a counterweight to DOGE

Confronted with DOGE's damage, the Trump administration is betting on the Supreme Court to consolidate its ideological legacy. The June 25, 2026 decision invalidating Hawaii's strict gun law is emblematic: while DOGE cuts services, the six conservative justices — three of them appointed by Trump — are embedding in jurisprudence decisions that even a future progressive government will struggle to overturn.

That is the two-pronged strategy of the Trump era: deregulate, cut, and restructure the federal government via DOGE, while using the Supreme Court to crystallize ideological positions in American constitutional law. The record trade deficit, the 108,000 manufacturing jobs lost, the disruptions to student aid — all of that can be reversed by a future government. Supreme Court decisions last generations.

The trade deficit and the betrayed promise of American industry

The 108,000 vanished manufacturing jobs: an economic alarm signal

The 108,000 manufacturing jobs lost since the beginning of Trump 2.0 — confirmed by CNBC data of June 23, 2026 — are the numerical refutation of a central electoral promise. Trump had promised to bring American industry back to its former greatness, to protect workers in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania from international competition. The tariffs were supposed to be the shield. They became a boomerang.

The formal letter from Senators Elizabeth Warren and Mark Kelly to the USTR documents the damage: American companies dependent on imported components — Asian semiconductors, Canadian steel, Mexican parts — face cost increases their end customers cannot absorb. The result is counter-intuitive but economically logical: tariffs intended to protect American jobs are destroying them in certain sectors.

KPMG, the USMCA, and the continental commercial fracture

The KPMG report of June 2026 assesses at $300 billion per year the continental commercial flows threatened by uncertainty surrounding USMCA. Canada and Mexico, the United States' primary trading partners, live with permanent uncertainty about the rules of commercial engagement. This uncertainty carries a real cost: investments in continental supply chains are frozen, factory location decisions deferred, long-term contracts avoided.

Goldman Sachs revised its forecast for Brent crude downward to $80 per barrel in the fourth quarter, from the $90 anticipated at the start of the year. That revision reflects global demand weakened by trade disruptions. For the Canadian and Mexican economies, deeply integrated with the American economy, the stumbles of Trump's trade policy have direct consequences for employment and growth.

Conclusion: DOGE, a hazardous bet on the resilience of American public services

A reform that bets on adaptive capacity as its only safety net

At the end of this analysis, the DOGE record in June 2026 looks more like a bet than a planned reform. The bet that American public services will find within themselves the capacity to adapt to massive cuts without substantial quality degradation. The IRS says it succeeded in its tax season"despite" the cuts. But this resilience carries a cost in overtime hours, burnout among remaining staff, and degraded service quality that official statements do not measure.

A genuine administrative reform takes time, method, and institutional humility. It identifies critical functions before touching them. It assesses risks before taking them. It creates transition plans before laying people off. DOGE did the opposite: act fast, measure the damage afterward. The data from June 2026 — 40% cuts to student aid, Pentagon weakened according to the GAO, IRS under strain — suggest the damage is real.

The West as a model of governance under pressure

For Western democracies observing the DOGE experiment, this is a real-world test of the resilience of public institutions in the face of radical cuts. Ukraine, which has maintained public services under wartime conditions since 2022, shows it is possible to govern under extreme constraint. But war imposes its own priorities. Administrative reform, by contrast, can and must be conducted with more care, more method, and more respect for critical functions that no institution — however bureaucratic — can afford to lose.

The West at the center of the world is also a West that governs well. That ensures its public services function. That protects its most vulnerable citizens. And that does not sacrifice essential state functions on the altar of a short-term political ambition. That is the challenge DOGE poses to American democracy — and, by extension, to all democracies that might consider emulating it.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Editorial positioning

This column is based exclusively on facts documented by identified and dated sources. Italic passages represent the columnist's personal opinions and are clearly marked. The columnist has no ties to American political parties, federal employee unions, or lobbying groups linked to American public finances.

Limits of the analysis

Numerical data on DOGE cuts — 40% reduction in Federal Student Aid staff, GAOPentagon report — come from sources dated June 23 to 25, 2026. The full record of the IRS 2026tax season had not been published in its entirety at the time of writing. The long-term impacts of DOGE cuts on the quality of American public services will require additional analysis over several years.

Sources

Primary sources

NOTUS — IRS 2026 tax season largely successful despite DOGE cuts — June 25, 2026

Benzinga — DOGE cuts Federal Student Aid staff by 40%, $1.7 trillion loan system under alarm — June 24, 2026

Secondary sources

DefenseScoop — GAO report on DOGE cuts and Pentagon workforce — June 23, 2026

The Guardian — Supreme Court Hawaii guns and Trump news June 25, 2026 — June 25, 2026

CNBC — 108,000 manufacturing jobs lost under Trump 2.0, Warren and Kelly — June 23, 2026

ArentFox Schiff — US commercial context June 2026, IEEPA tariffs — June 25, 2026