State Department's $40M NYTimes Fiasco: The Math Doesn’t Add Up

DOGE cancels State Department's $40M NYTimes Subscriptions

The new DOGE agency, canceled $40 million in subscriptions to The New York Times, all of which came from the U.S. Department of State—but the math simply doesn’t add up, and it’s impossible to ignore the glaring facts.

First off, the $40 million spent on NYTimes subscriptions was enough to cover around 800,000 full-price subscriptions to the newspaper. But here’s the problem: the U.S. Department of State doesn’t have 800,000 employees to distribute these subscriptions to in the first place! As of 2023, the State Department employs about 77,880 people worldwide, including both domestic and international personnel.

Breaking It Down: The State Department’s Workforce vs. The Subscription Numbers

Let’s run through the numbers:

• The State Department employs around 77,000 people.

• If the government is paying for 800,000 subscriptions (as $40 million implies, assuming no discounts), the math doesn’t even come close to adding up.

• Even if every single employee at the State Department were given a full-price subscription, we’d still be well over 700,000 subscriptions short.

So where exactly are these subscriptions going? Who exactly is benefiting from this massive allocation of taxpayer dollars? It’s beyond comprehension.

The simple fact is: the math is not adding up. The government was spending $40 million on subscriptions that go far beyond what the State Department could reasonably need. The question isn't just about how this happened—it's about why this kind of wasteful spending was allowed to take place in the first place.

Where is the oversight? Who is accountable for approving such a shocking decision? It’s impossible to understand how such a large sum of taxpayer money could be spent on subscriptions for a government agency that doesn’t even come close to having the number of employees needed to justify it.

The math is simple, and it’s not adding up. That is the simple fact!

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