Trump orders 30-day freeze on use of US government credit cards

President Trump directed federal agencies on Wednesday to implement a 30-day freeze on the use of government-issued credit cards as part of his latest executive order. 

The order implements the Department of Government Efficiency’s “Cost Efficiency Initiative,” which aims to ensure that “government spending is transparent and government employees are accountable to the American public.”  

The pause of credit card usage comes a week after DOGE discovered nearly $40 billion in spending last year linked to government-issued plastic. 

“To the maximum extent permitted by law, all credit cards held by agency employees shall be treated as frozen for 30 days from the date of this order,” reads the section on credit cards. 

The order includes exceptions for “any credit cards held by employees engaged in, or charges related to employees utilizing such credit cards for, disaster relief or natural disaster response benefits or operations or other critical services” as determined by the agency heads in consultation with DOGE. 

The cost-cutting program, led by billionaire Elon Musk, has pledged to “simplify” the federal government’s credit card program, which is managed by the General Services Administration (GSA). 

The US government currently has about 4.6 million active credit cards or credit card accounts on file – more than the total number of federal workers (about 3 million), not including government contractors and active-duty military personnel. 

Around 90 million unique transactions were made on the cards in fiscal year 2024, running up about $40 billion in bills for the federal government, according to DOGE, which cited publicly available GSA data. 

“DOGE is working w/ the agencies to simplify the program and reduce admin costs,” the group wrote on X last week.

Credit cards, linked to major banks, are issued to federal employees in more than 250 federal agencies and Native American tribal governments in order to “make purchases on behalf of the federal government in support of their agency’s mission,” according to GSA. 

For decades, the federal government has been plagued with scandals involving the use of taxpayer-funded credit cards. 

Over the years, government watchdogs have found everything from adult entertainment to Lego toys to lavish, multi-course meals being charged to taxpayers. 

Trump’s executive order also directs federal agencies to work with DOGE to “build a centralized technological system” in an effort to “seamlessly record every payment issued by the agency pursuant to each of the agency’s covered contracts and grants, along with a brief, written justification for each payment submitted by the agency employee who approved the payment.”

Agency heads are further tasked with reviewing their contracting policies and personnel and examining “all existing covered contracts and grants and, where appropriate and consistent with applicable law, terminate or modify (including through renegotiation) such covered contracts and grants to reduce overall Federal spending or reallocate spending to promote efficiency and advance the policies” of the Trump administration. 

The president’s order goes on to direct federal agencies and DOGE to build a system that records approvals for “federally funded travel for conferences and other non-essential purposes.” 

“Once an agency’s system is in place, the Agency Head shall prohibit agency employees from engaging in federally funded travel for conferences or other non-essential purposes unless the travel-approving official has submitted a brief, written justification for the federally funded travel within such system,” the EO states. 

Musk aims to cut at least $1 trillion in government waste, fraud and abuse through the DOGE initiative. 

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Stephen Collopy

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