Pentagon Cuts Put Consultants on the Chopping Block
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon is terminating $5.1 billion in contracts he called nonessential. The list includes consulting deals, IT services, and other spending that sounds urgent only until someone asks what it actually does. Hegseth said the savings will be shifted back toward military priorities instead of flowing to firms that make a comfortable living explaining the obvious to the government.
Big Firms Lose DHA, Cloud, and Navy Work
Hegseth said one of the biggest cuts hits Defense Health Agency consulting contracts with Accenture, Deloitte, Booz Allen, and other firms, which he said will save $1.8 billion. He also pointed to a software reseller contract tied to enterprise cloud IT services that he said will save another $1.4 billion. A Navy business process consulting agreement worth about $500 million is also being ended. In plain English, the Pentagon is trying to stop paying high hourly rates for people to shuffle paper in circles.
DEI, Climate, and Duplicate IT Jobs Get Cut
The secretary said 11 more contracts are being canceled for DEI, climate, COVID-19 response, and related activities he described as nonessential. He also said a DARPA contract for IT help desk work duplicated services already handled by the department’s DISA workforce, saving another $500 million. Bureaucracy has many hobbies, but paying twice for the same job should not be one of them. Hegseth said the department is still digging, which is a bad day for waste and a good day for taxpayers.
Universities Face Funding Pauses as Costs Keep Rising
Hegseth said the Pentagon is also pausing more than $500 million in funding to Northwestern and Cornell, citing the administration’s effort to stop money for schools that tolerate antisemitism or push divisive DEI programs. He said earlier pauses totaled $70 million at Columbia, Penn, Brown, and Princeton. Hegseth said the current round of cuts brings the Defense Department’s DOGE-related savings to nearly $6 billion in six weeks, which is what happens when someone finally asks why so much federal money disappears into consulting fog.
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