{"id":255,"date":"2025-03-20T21:50:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T22:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/?p=255"},"modified":"2025-03-24T11:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T11:17:10","slug":"hegseth-touts-580m-in-pentagon-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/20\/hegseth-touts-580m-in-pentagon-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Hegseth touts $580M in Pentagon cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday announced the Pentagon is canceling more than $580 million in grants and contracts deemed \u201cwasteful spending.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a new memo, Hegseth asserts the programs are \u201cinconsistent with the priorities” of the department and don\u2019t align with President Trump\u2019s priorities. The cuts are part of the Trump administration\u2019s work with\u00a0Elon Musk\u2019s\u00a0Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is currently auditing federal departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, I\u2019m signing a memo directing the termination of over $580 million in DOD contracts and grants that do not match the priorities of this president or this department. In other words, they are not a good use of taxpayer dollars,\u201d Hegseth said in a\u00a0video<\/a> posted to the social platform X.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among the cancellations were \u201can HR software effort\u201d known as the Defense Civilian Human Resources Management System (DCHRMS), which was originally meant to take one year and cost $36 million but instead is eight years into its contract and $280 million over budget, Hegseth said in the video.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DCHRMS was intended to streamline a significant portion of the Pentagon\u2019s legacy human resources information technology, but still has at least two more years of development and testing before it can be operated, according to the memo.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurther investment in the DCHRMS project would be throwing more good taxpayer money after bad,\u201d Hegseth writes, noting that he has directed the development of a new plan within two months for the effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other slashed grants worth a combined $360 million include those that fund research efforts and other activities in areas of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and related social programs, climate change, social science, Covid-19 pandemic response and other areas \u201cnot aligned” with Defense Department priorities.<\/p>\n

Those efforts include a $6 million move to decarbonize emissions of Navy ships, $5.2 million to diversify the Navy and $9 million to create \u201cequitable\u201d artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need lethal machine learning models, not equitable machine learning models,” Hegseth said.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon also is cutting another $30 million worth of contracts with consulting firms.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration, using DOGE, has aimed to reduce expenditures within federal government agencies and slash the civil servant workforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Defense officials\u00a0in early March<\/a>\u00a0said the department, in working with DOGE, had found some $80 million in what it deemed wasteful spending largely devoted to DEI programs and climate change research, promising the actions were \u201cjust the start,\u201d with more cuts to come.<\/p>\n

And the Pentagon is\u00a0seeking to cut<\/a>\u00a05 to 8 percent of its civilian employees over the next several months \u2014 some 50,000 to 60,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

With the latest announcement of cuts, Hegseth said the total money saved by the department is $800 million since Feb. 20.<\/p>\n

Critics, however, have said the alleged savings have been grossly overblown, with withheld or inaccurate data on DOGE\u2019s digital \u201cwall of receipts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday announced the Pentagon is canceling more than $580 million in grants and contracts deemed \u201cwasteful spending.\u201d In a new memo, Hegseth asserts the programs are \u201cinconsistent with the priorities” of the department and don\u2019t align with President Trump\u2019s priorities. The cuts are part of the Trump administration\u2019s work with\u00a0Elon Musk\u2019s\u00a0Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is currently auditing federal departments. \u201cToday, I\u2019m signing a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogetterlifestylebrand.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}