In one sense, the answer is no. If the federal government is spending $4,000 promoting abortion and Musk and company get rid of it, that’s a very good thing even if does not appreciably bring down federal spending — for that matter, even if the money is still spent, but on something else. Even with respect to shrinking the scope of the federal government, the number of programs fully uprooted might be more important than the total dollar savings.

But in another sense, the answer is obviously yes. Trump and Musk keep talking about DOGE as though it is going to slash or even eliminate the deficit (sometimes, they say DOGE cuts plus deregulation-induced growth will eliminate it). So the fact that the actual spending cuts have been underwhelming and grossly exaggerated matters.

It also matters because DOGE keeps running into practical, legal, and constitutional objections, and these keep getting met by reference to the need for a move-fast-and-break-things ethos. Maybe it would be worth looking the other way at an increase in presidential power at the expense of Congress if the outcome were a substantial downsizing of the federal government. If we’re having to look several places past the decimal for percentage savings, that kind of trade-off looks a lot less worth making.