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The Verge published a politics and opinion column titled “The year the government broke,” indexed with a date of December 23, 2025. Its central claim is that 2025 was a year of serious federal dysfunction. The examples it reportedly uses are a decision not to act on TikTok despite national-security concerns, federal job cuts tied to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that reportedly eroded institutional knowledge, savings that were promised but not delivered, and evidence that judges, Congress and the public still acted as checks and balances.
Read it as a dated opinion with a point of view, not as a set of verified findings. What follows explains what the column is described as arguing, what evidence is attached to each point, and how a reader can test the claims that matter most for household budgets.
What the column argues
A decision not to act on TikTok
The column offers TikTok as one example of dysfunction: a decision not to act despite national-security concerns. The available summary does not say which institution made that decision, when it was made, or on what legal basis. The example is therefore best read as the column’s framing, not as a documented sequence of events.
DOGE, job cuts and lost institutional knowledge
The column connects federal job cuts to DOGE and argues that those cuts damaged institutional knowledge, meaning the working experience staff carry about how programs actually run. That kind of damage is hard to measure directly, so the claim stands or falls on the evidence behind it, which the summary does not supply.
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Savings that were promised but not delivered
The column characterizes promised savings as undelivered. This is the claim with the most direct household relevance, because savings promises are figures that readers hear about and can check against spending records. The summary does not name the promised amounts or any measured outcome.
Judges, Congress and the public
The column treats these three as evidence that checks and balances kept operating during a turbulent year. It is an argument that dysfunction did not mean the system stopped responding, and each part of it can be tested against court records, congressional records and public-opinion data.
How well each claim is supported
The table separates the column’s claims from the evidence the available summary attaches to them. In every row, the summary gives no figures and no primary citations, so each claim remains an assertion until checked against the records listed in the last column.
| Claim in the column | What the available summary says | Figures or sources given | How to check it |
|---|---|---|---|
| TikTok decision not to act | Decision not to act despite national-security concerns | Not stated in the summary | Congress.gov for enacted legislation; Federal Register for agency actions |
| DOGE-linked federal job cuts | Job cuts connected to DOGE | Not stated in the summary | Federal workforce data from the Office of Personnel Management; agency staffing notices |
| Lost institutional knowledge | Damage to institutional knowledge | Not stated in the summary | Agency reports and Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports on staffing and program capacity |
| Undelivered savings | Promised savings not delivered | Not stated in the summary | USAspending.gov for award and spending data; agency budget justifications; Congressional Budget Office and GAO analyses |
| Checks by judges, Congress and the public | Signs that checks and balances continued to operate | Not stated in the summary | Court dockets through PACER for federal courts; Congress.gov records; public-opinion polling |
How to test a government savings or job-cut claim
The same steps work for this column or for any future claim about federal savings or staffing. Work through them in order, because each one narrows what the claim can mean.
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- Pin down the number. Write down the exact savings figure or job count, the fiscal year it refers to, and whether it is a target, a projection or a measured result.
- Compare against spending records. On USAspending.gov, search the agency or program named in the claim and compare its reported awards and spending with the baseline you wrote down.
- Read the official budget documents. Agency budget justifications show what was requested. A requested cut and an actual reduction in outlays are different things, and the gap between them is often the story.
- Check independent scoring. Reports from the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office are produced outside the agency or political campaign making the claim, which makes them a useful cross-check.
- Look for legal reversals. If a policy was challenged, court dockets show whether it was blocked, narrowed or upheld. A policy can be announced and still be stopped in court.
- Check workforce claims against data. For job-cut claims, compare the reported numbers with federal workforce data published by the Office of Personnel Management and with staffing notices from the agency involved, matching dates to the claim.
What this column can and cannot tell you
- It is opinion. The conclusion that 2025 “broke” the government is an interpretation of events, and it should be weighed as one writer’s judgment.
- It is a snapshot from December 23, 2025. It does not cover developments after that date, so the picture as of October 2026 may differ from the one the column describes.
- This explainer relies on a secondhand summary. The byline and full text were not confirmed, so exact wording, links and any figures in the original should be checked on The Verge before anyone quotes it.
- No verbatim quotations from named officials, courts or documents are attributed to the column here, so none are reproduced.
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Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The Bottom Line
Treat the column as a dated opinion about 2025. Its claims about savings and job cuts are the ones to test against federal spending and workforce records before accepting them, and the TikTok and institutional-knowledge claims need more documentation than the summary provides.
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