Nearly 40 per cent of the federal contracts that the Trump administration claims to have cancelled as part of its signature cost-cutting programme aren't expected to save the government any money, the administration's own data shows. The Department of Government Efficiency run by Elon Musk last week published an initial list of 1,125 contracts that it terminated in recent weeks across the federal government. Data published on DOGE's Wall of Receipts shows that more than one-third of the contract cancellations, 417 in all, are expected to yield no savings. That's usually because the total value of the contracts has already been fully obligated, which means the government has a legal requirement to spend the funds for the goods or services it purchased and in many cases has already done so. It's like confiscating used ammunition after it's been shot when there's nothing left in it. It doesn't accomplish any policy objective, said Charles Tiefer, a retired University of Baltimore law