DOGE Cuts Leave U.S. Paying $1.6 Million a Week for VOA Staff

More than 400 Voice of America employees remain on paid leave as the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle the broadcaster stalls in court and Congress

The Trump administration’s campaign to slash the federal bureaucracy has produced a striking contradiction: the DOGE cuts aimed at eliminating government waste are now costing taxpayers about $1.6 million a week to pay more than 400 Voice of America employees who are not working.

Journalists, technicians and other VOA staff were placed on paid administrative leave after the administration moved to dismantle the broadcaster and its parent agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, or USAGM. More than a year after Voice of America went largely silent, the effort has become a costly legal and political battle involving the White House, Congress and the courts.

The expense cuts to the heart of the promise that accompanied the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, during President Donald Trump’s second term: shrinking the federal bureaucracy, eliminating duplication and stripping away waste.

Instead, the attempt to shut down USAGM has left the government paying salaries while the employees remain barred from doing their jobs.

The administration moved to eliminate the agency, which oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, with projected savings of about $153 million in the fiscal year. But the Constitution gives Congress the exclusive “power of the purse,” and the White House could not simply eliminate an agency created and funded by Congress.

The resulting legal fight has produced dozens of lawsuits and court injunctions. While the cases move through the courts, employees cannot be permanently dismissed and their salaries must continue, leaving hundreds of professionals outside their workplaces but still on the federal payroll.

Congress has meanwhile moved in the opposite direction. Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill allocated $643 million to USAGM for the fiscal year, allowing the agency to continue its operations and begin rebuilding parts of the organization dismantled during the opening months of Trump’s second term.

The restoration is proceeding on a much smaller scale. Only eight divisions have been reactivated, compared with the operation Voice of America maintained before March 2025, when its services were available in 49 languages.

Bringing back canceled contracts, rehiring employees and purchasing equipment is generating additional costs running into the millions of dollars, according to a new report from the State Department’s inspector general.

For Patsy Widakuswara, VOA’s White House bureau chief, the consequences go well beyond the balance sheet. Widakuswara was placed on leave and is among those involved in legal action against the administration.

“You cannot dismantle U.S. international broadcasting without a plan,” Widakuswara told Adnkronos. “The administration has robbed itself of a trusted voice that the world was accustomed to hearing.”

The vacuum is already being exploited by U.S. rivals, she said, pointing to China, Russia and Iran.

“At our peak, we reached 360 million people a week,” Widakuswara said. “All of that is gone, representing a huge loss not only for journalism, but for American soft power.”

Voice of America is only one example of the costs generated by the administration’s approach. The same pattern has emerged at other agencies targeted by DOGE.

The administration has effectively dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. Freezing contracts with global reach on short notice has resulted in multimillion-dollar penalties for breaches of contractual obligations. Court intervention over violations of congressional directives has also forced the government to bring back outside consultants at higher rates to restore basic administrative continuity.

The problem has extended to the government’s scientific institutions. Deep cuts at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have broken up research teams and laboratories and interrupted studies that had been designed to run for years. Federal employee labor disputes have generated additional costs, while lost data and infrastructure have forced the government to turn to emergency contracts with private organizations to rebuild technical capabilities.

At the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, efforts to drain operational resources have left the agency mired in months of regulatory paralysis. Congress has had to provide extraordinary funding for litigation costs and the minimum maintenance required to keep its infrastructure functioning.

The broader financial record has also fallen short of DOGE’s original ambitions. Federal spending has not been reduced overall; it has increased. The administration failed to achieve its initial goal of cutting $2 trillion.

Independent analyses by Politico and CBS News found that DOGE substantially overstated its savings, including figures that lacked supporting evidence or were linked to contracts that had never actually been canceled.

DOGE did reduce the federal workforce by 9% by eliminating smaller programs. But 80% of the cuts involved relatively minor contracts that did not affect the government’s largest structural spending commitments.

By the time DOGE ended its activities in July 2026, the rapid cuts had generated about $165 billion in additional costs stemming from legal disputes, settlements and administrative disruptions.

Public-finance and administrative-law experts have described the result as a fiscal and institutional “boomerang effect.”

Gordon Adams, a professor at American University who previously served as the national security budget official during President Bill Clinton’s administration, said the fundamental problem was the assumption that dismantling an institution was equivalent to making it more efficient.

“DOGE has confused efficiency with simple cancellation,” Adams told Adnkronos. “In government, dismantling an agency established by law without coordinating with the courts and Congress does not save a dollar. It multiplies expenses.”

The government ends up paying twice, Adams said: first for termination penalties, legal fees and the salaries of employees placed on forced leave, and then again when courts or practical realities require workers to be rehired and institutions rebuilt.

“That is the paradox of austerity that ends up costing more than the status quo,” he said.

Adams described the longer-term consequences in similar terms.

“The efficiency being showcased turns into a passive debt that taxpayers will pay with interest when the activities are inevitably restored,” he said.

USAGM has become the clearest example of that dynamic. Congress has now directed hundreds of millions of dollars toward keeping the agency operational, while the administration’s effort to dismantle it has left behind legal disputes, suspended operations and the costs of rebuilding what was dismantled.

For Voice of America, the contradiction has a precise price tag: $1.6 million every week to keep more than 400 employees on the federal payroll while the broadcaster remains largely unable to operate.

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(Photo: © AndKronos)