The ill-defined U.S. Department of Government Efficiency Service (DOGE) has brought Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” mantra to the federal government.

The problem is, “move fast and break things” doesn’t translate and is not an effective governing principle. Taxpayers deserve a government that works for them. And moving fast—cancelling contracts, eliminating entire agencies, and firing probationary employees—doesn’t reshape government. At least, not in a way that creates government efficiency and gets the fiscal restraint that is badly needed. In fact, these moves may cost more than they save.

Let’s dig a little deeper.

Virtually all government contracts can be canceled for “convenience,” which means the government is not breaching the contract, it just doesn’t want it to continue it. But that doesn’t mean there’s no cost to the government. There are often costs associated with failing to complete whatever the government was paying for, and contractors can still negotiate how much they’ll be paid in these situations. If you believe the public interest is not served by the service or product delivered by a contract, that’s a legitimate position. But eliminating a contract certainly won’t “save” the full original amount and may, in fact, save nothing.

Eliminating entire agencies by Executive Order is unconstitutional. Doing so violates the Impoundment Control Act and other statutes. These agencies were established by law, and Congress has appropriated money to them. DOGE cannot simply rewrite these laws. The Administration can and should work with Congress to rescind funds or change laws—but cannot simply act by administrative fiat. This isn’t a new position. The Impoundment Control Act has been around since 1974. The Anti-Deficiency Act dates back to the 1870s.

When federal employees are hired—or, in some cases, change jobs within government—they are in a probationary status for a year and up to three years, depending on the position. During this period, they can be more easily fired as long as there is documented cause. The problem with DOGE’s approach is that it seems everyone was fired for vague “performance issues”—even those with exemplary performance reports. Undefined performance issues may not meet the legal standard for dismissal, and some employees may have union protections. Bottom line? Predicted savings—which DOGE claims are in the tens of billions of dollars (of nearly $7 trillion in annual federal spending)—may never materialize. But the messes these firings create are very real.

And they’re not just messy for the federal government, but for taxpayers as well. Take, for example, the estimated 7,000 IRS probationary employees the administration is laying off. Undoubtedly, many of them were likely hired in the last year to fix existing systems, answer phone calls, and respond to taxpayer inquiries. Now, in the thick of tax season, they’re gone. Not smart.

A better approach? Follow the lead of an earlier, more successful effort to remake government. During the Clinton administration, the federal workforce was reduced by 20 percent—but only after assessing needs and conducting targeted buyouts and reductions in force. That effort didn’t result in accidentally firing workers handling issues like avian flu at the Department of Agriculture or those responsible for nuclear weapon safety at the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Presumably, these kinds of mistakes are what DOGE head (or not?) Elon Musk meant when he admitted they would “make mistakes.” Others include touting $8 billion savings from canceling an $8 million contract. Oops. Or claiming $50 million went to condoms for Gaza. Nope. Or implying that millions of deceased Americans over 100 years old were still receiving Social Security payments. Again, wrong.

Even some of the canceled contracts may have to be rebid—because they made sense before they were hastily axed. While contract cancelations may provide short-term optics of fiscal restraint, they ignore the long-term costs of rebidding processes and delaying mission-critical projects. True efficiency requires renegotiating underperforming contracts through rigorous cost-benefit analyses—but that’s not very sexy, is it?

And despite DOGE’s boasts of transparency, their wall of receipts fails at our basic test. True transparency means data should be:

• Online (check)

• Downloadable (nope)

• Sortable (nope)

• Searchable (kind of).

To be sure, the nation needs to align revenues and spending more closely to reduce the deficit and start shrinking the debt—at least as a percentage of GDP. And there is low-hanging fruit. Eliminating the COVID-era Employee Retention Credit could save $80 billion. Canceling the 81-percent-over-budget Sentinel ICBM replacement would help. Means-testing and capping payments for agriculture subsidies, reforming federal contracting—these are real opportunities. But most of all, we need a bipartisan, bicameral fiscal commission to tackle the really difficult items that neither President Trump nor Elon Musk say they are touching: the major entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—as well as a tax code riddled with costly loopholes, special interest carve-outs, and outdated provisions that fail to generate sufficient revenue or promote economic efficiency.

The nation’s fiscal issues aren’t a game. Solving them will take real solutions—not tweets.