For decades, Americans and their businesses have paid high taxes and fees. The national debt continues to grow. The federal government collected $1.08 trillion in revenue during fiscal year (FY) 2025. It spent about $1.6 trillion.
What happened to all those dollars collected and spent? The nation’s infrastructure remains inadequate, its schools produce dramatically and increasingly underperforming students, it armed forces are not sufficiently prepared in the face of global challenges, poverty continues to plague portions of the population, services on the federal, state and local level are unimproved, and the national debt continues to grow.
Upon taking office, President Trump moved to examine how Washington spends taxpayer dollars, and what it spends them on. Whatever one’s views are on the 47th President, his policies, or his political party, his move was both urgently needed and logical. With a national debt of $36.5 trillion dollars that continues to grow with each second, not doing so would be irresponsible at best and disastrous at worst.
The means the White House chose to fulfill the task was to create a Department of Government Efficiency. According to the Executive Order establishing the organization, “Agency Heads shall take all necessary steps, in coordination with the USDS [United States Digital Service] Administrator and to the maximum extent consistent with law, to ensure USDS has full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems. USDS shall adhere to rigorous data protection standards.”
No broad area of government has been held immune. There has been no ideological or partisan emphasis on the areas to be reviewed. Targets are as diverse as the USAID, the Department of Education and the Pentagon. However, the response from the Democratic Party and their media supporters has resembled a chorus of scorched cats.
Rather than a rational discourse, Democrat partisans have threatened violence and more.
Dr. Steve Caudle of the Greater Second Missionary Baptist Church Chattanooga, TN wrote on X that: “No one likes violence, but sometimes violence is necessary. When Elon Musk forces his way into the U.S. Treasury and threatens to steal… Sometimes the devil will act so ugly that you have no other choice but to get violent and fight.”
Democrat elected officials have threatened to withhold funding from the federal government.
In New York, Governor Hochul has threatened to raise property taxes if the White House moves to shut down the waste at the Department of Education.
Up to forty members of Congress appeared at the Department of Education in an attempt to intimidate workers from cooperating with the elected president.
The reason for the over-the-top response is clear. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), writing in the Wall Street Journal, gave an example of the type of fraud and waste being targeted from one source: “…The U.S. Agency for International Development, entrusted with disbursing tens of billions of aid dollars to other nations annually, often acts at odds with our nation’s best interests and uses intimidation and shell games to hide where money is going, how it’s being spent and why…We learned that the aid that was supposed to alleviate economic distress in the war-torn nation was spent on such frivolous activities as sending Ukrainian models and designers on junkets to New York City, London Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week and South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.”
Hannah Knudsen reports in Breitbart that “The Biden administration wasted $8 billion of taxpayer money teaching Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid ‘binary gendered language…$20 million for a new Sesame Street show in Iraq. $25 million for Deloitte to promote green transportation in the country of Georgia. Nearly $8 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid quote ‘binary gendered language.’ Binary gendered language in Sri Lanka…Another $5 million, she said, went to one of the key…non-government organizations — funding bat virus research at the Wuhan lab…’”
With such obvious waste, with taxes so high, and with Washington so deeply in debt, why are so many elected and Progressive individuals and groups so rabidly opposed to imposing fiscal sanity?
The answer is political funding. So much of the money spent on programs winds up supporting not just the issue they appear to. They actually serve to launder funds that wind up in the pockets of Democrat donors and Progressive causes.
Just one example: Open Secrets discloses that “Close to $1 million of the alternative energy industry’s donations went directly to Biden…Such groups also spent proportionately more on outside spending than ever before, giving $3.9 million to primarily liberal outside groups.”
It’s a scandal with a rich legacy. During the Obama presidency, Vast federal funds were sent to a private company which supported Democrats. Newsmax Solyndra Scandal: 8 Facts About Barack Obama’s Green Energy Company Controversy | Newsmax.com reported that In 2009, the California-based green energy solar panel manufacturer Solyndra received a $535 million loan. It was revealed that the Office of Management and Budget officials felt pressured to approve the loan, despite an awareness of Solyndra’s financial instability. ABC News reported, “The deal later came under scrutiny from independent government watch dogs and members of Congress, which said the administration had bypassed key taxpayer protections in a rush to approve the funds.”
The Week noted that “The family foundation of billionaire George Kaiser, an Obama fundraiser, is one of Solyndra’s big investors. The GOP says that Team Obama interfered to speed up the loan approval, cutting short due diligence so that Vice President Joe Biden could announce the loan at the Sept. 4, 2009, groundbreaking of a new Solyndra factory being financed by that government cash.”
For decades, funds meant for programs designed to fight poverty, racism, or climate change have failed to address those problems, but have effectively provided a wealth of dollars for left wing causes and volunteers for Democrat campaigns.
Establishing common-sense fiscal accountability threatens to derail that gravy train.
Illustration: Pixabay