- Cutting government spending is popular in theory, but the devil is in the details. Americans see the specific programs targeted by Elon Musk’s bureaucracy-slashing efforts more favorably than DOGE or Musk, according to a recent Economist/YouGov poll.
Presidential cost-cutter Elon Musk claims he has a popular mandate to take a hatchet to government in his quest to find $2 trillion in savings.
But a recent poll shows his Department of Government Efficiency is far less popular with the public than many of the public programs it’s slashing.
An Economist/YouGov poll of nearly 1,600 adult U.S. citizens found majorities of respondents had positive views about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Environmental Protection Agency, USAID and free online tax filing, all areas that have recently been in the crosshairs of DOGE.
Some 50% of people had a favorable view of the CFPB, the agency Congress created in the aftermath of the Great Recession to act as a consumer finance watchdog and which Musk once said he wanted to “delete.” In comparison, just 19% said they had an unfavorable view of the CFPB, according to the poll, fielded between Feb. 9-11. The Trump administration has cut hundreds of CFPB staffers and ordered others to stop work, but the effort to dismantle the agency is on hold while a lawsuit works its way through the courts.
The Environmental Protection Agency, where hundreds of staffers have been fired and more cuts are reportedly in the works, enjoyed a favorable view by 61% of respondents. Even the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), less popular than many agencies, was viewed positively by 46% of respondents.
Meanwhile, DOGE itself had just 42% of respondents seeing it favorably, while 38% had an unfavorable view, according to the survey. A separate question about Elon Musk personally showed that 42% of respondents saw him favorably while 52% had an unfavorable opinion.
Even the IRS, historically one of the least popular government agencies, had its defenders in the survey. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of poll takers opposed ending an IRS program that allowed taxpayers to file their returns online, including 50% of Trump voters. Musk said on X that the office that built the Direct File program “has been deleted,” although Direct File is currently available on the IRS site.
Just 15% of respondents overall, and 25% of Trump voters, expressed support for ending the program.
DOGE did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.
The numbers hint at a hurdle ahead for the Trump’s administration’s efforts to dismantle much of the apparatus of federal government: While many Americans say they support cutting waste and saving tax dollars in theory, their feelings are much different when specific programs are on the chopping block.
The cuts “will touch millions of Americans across the country,” said Alex Jacquez, who was special assistant to the President for Economic Development and Industrial Strategy in the Biden administration, on a call with reporters. “When you start to think about the implications of firing the scientists who are looking at avian flu, firing the inspectors who make sure our meat is safe, firing IRS officials who make sure Americans get their checks, Americans will start seeing the impacts of that.”
Already, some moderate Republicans have balked at potentially wide-ranging cuts to Medicaid, the biggest health insurance program in America, which provides health insurance to poor people and funding to certain hospitals.
“Medicaid, you’ve got to be careful,” Steve Bannon, a right-wing podcaster and onetime Trump strategist said recently. “A lot of MAGAs on Medicaid… you just can’t take a meat axe to it, as much as I would love to.”
