The absence of an identification code resulted in $4.7 trillion in Treasury Department payments being "almost impossible" to trace, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced on Monday.
The Elon Musk-led DOGE discovered the absence of the identification payment code, called TAS for Treasury Access Symbol, during an audit of the Treasury Department to find and cut waste, fraud, and abuse.
Democrats opposed the Treasury audit.
DOGE said the Trump administration is now requiring the TAS code.
DOGE wrote in a post to X: "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. As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going. Thanks to @USTreasury for the great work."
Zero Hedge noted: "Mind you, it's not as if such a federal tracking system wasn't already in place — it simply went casually unused for all sorts of payouts adding up to an almost unfathomable $4.7 trillion. Without Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) identification codes associated with those payouts, there's little hope in figuring out where all that money went."
Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed back on portrayals of DOGE employees as reckless rogues: "These are highly trained professionals," he told Bloomberg. "This is not some roving band going around doing things. This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings."
Democrats have returned to their lawfare roots, suing in an attempt to prevent DOGE from accessing federal data associated with the Office of Personnel Management, and the Health and Human Services, Education, Energy, Transportation, Labor and Commerce departments.
On Monday, the federal judge handling the request for a restraining order expressed skepticism over Democrats' challenge, noting that their "evidence" was largely media speculation about potential harms springing from DOGE's activities: "The courts can’t act based on media reports. We can’t do that."
Major improvement in Treasury payment integrity going live!
This was a combined effort of @DOGE, @USTreasury and @FederalReserve. Nice work by all. https://t.co/dpLmXRpufT — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025
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