Tag Archives: Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

An Interesting Coincidence

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On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a very interesting coincidence involving the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) spending cuts (the elimination of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The article reports:

Following the Trump administration’s aggressive restructuring of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a striking pattern emerged across Latin America. Left-wing governments, long dominant in several countries, suddenly stopped winning national elections.

Center-right and conservative presidential candidates have swept to victory in Bolivia, Chile, Honduras, Costa Rica, Peru, and Colombia since Trump ordered the cancellation of the bulk of USAID’s programs. While it’s normal to see some political pendulum swinging, the speed and uniformity of the recent shift, coinciding with President Donald Trump neutering USAID’s democracy and governance funding apparatus, raise uncomfortable questions.

The article notes:

A substantial portion of these now-canceled contracts fell under the Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) portfolio. These initiatives funded election support, legislative strengthening, local governance reforms, anti-corruption efforts, independent media, civil society capacity-building, and human rights advocacy. In short, this funding often helps prop up left-leaning social agendas in foreign countries.

Daily Signal’s Tyler O’Neil testified during the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in February 2025 that USAID had “troubling ties to the Left’s dark money network.”

“USAID spent millions propping up the Marxist ideology of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion;’ the unfair and divisive transgender orthodoxy; and the climate alarmist movement,” O’Neil said, adding that “Some of these grants arguably undermine America’s standing in the world.”

We were supplying people with the rope to hang us!

The article concludes:

Traditionally conservative countries don’t typically elect far-left ideological candidates on their own. The U.S. saw the same thing happen here. In just two generations, the U.S. went from an overwhelmingly conservative nation to throwing PRIDE festivals with stripper poles for kids.

This wasn’t an organic shift in culture. It took the full weight of the major institutions (education, government, entertainment, etc.) to make this even somewhat socially acceptable. Thankfully, the pendulum is swinging back to reality. Americans are less tolerant of these behaviors than they were over the last decade, when support for them peaked.

Something structural shifted in Latin America when the Trump administration neutered USAID, and it can’t be ignored. As in the U.S., voter discontent with left-leaning governance found its voice again when it didn’t have to battle upstream against American funding. As a result, right-leaning and populist governments will have a chance to correct some of the damage that has been done.

Ironically, ending USAID payments may be part of the solution to the large numbers of people trying to sneak into America illegally.

Bringing Sanity To The Federal Firing Process

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On June 4th, USA Today posted an article about a change in the process of firing federal employees.

The article reports:

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order converting nearly 8,000 federal workers who are in “senior policy-influencing positions” into at-will employees, making it easier for the administration to fire them.

About 97% of the reclassified positions are among the highest-ranking career positions, such as directors, chiefs of staff, senior advisers and policy analysts who are involved in drafting regulations and guidance and determining who gets federal grants.

At an Oval Office event June 3 to sign the executive order, Trump invited James Sherk of the Domestic Policy Council, the mastermind behind the change, to share his thoughts.

Sherk said federal employee removal procedures are often lengthy.

“If you have employees who are trying to undermine the wishes of American people by pushing of their own agenda or just incompetent in what they’re doing, agencies have a longstanding typical time getting rid of them. And that’s a particular problem,” Sherk said.

“What this does is basically treats those employees like private sector workers. They can be hired on the basis of merit … but if they’re messing up, then they can be removed real quickly rather than taking a year longer.”

A fact sheet issued by the White House put the idea behind the change in starker terms. It said that because firing employees is burdensome, “agencies seldom remove career employees” for “subversion of Presidential priorities.”

Only about 50,000 employees will be affected by this change–they would be reclassified to Schedule Policy/Career.

The article concludes:

Since the start of the second Trump administration, the federal government has reduced the workforce by more than 300,000 civil service jobs. The cuts were driven by layoffs, buyouts and deferred resignation offers in concert with the Department of Government Efficiency.

We are definitely moving in the right direction.

We Are Finally Seeing Some Results

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On Monday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about some serious cuts made to the Department of War spending.

The article reports:

The Deep State’s endless gravy train just collided with a massive brick wall.

In a direct and no-nonsense video announcement, Hegseth revealed the Department of War is immediately terminating $5.1 BILLION — yes, BILLION with a capital B — in wasteful contracts for consulting, nonessential services, DEI, climate nonsense, and duplicative IT work.

According to Hegseth, one of the largest savings comes from contracts awarded through the Defense Health Agency to consulting giants, including Accenture, Deloitte, Booz Allen, and other firms.

Those cuts alone are expected to save taxpayers approximately $1.8 billion.

Another $1.4 billion will be saved by eliminating a software reseller contract tied to enterprise cloud IT services.

Hegseth also highlighted a staggering $500 million Navy contract dedicated to what he characterized as bureaucratic “business process consulting.”

The article concludes:

So, if you’re keeping score at home, today’s cuts bring our running total to nearly $6 billion in wasteful spending over the first six weeks of the DoD-DOGE effort here at the Defense Department.

Their job is to go out and find the stuff that we can get rid of and then flow back into—drive back into—warfighting capabilities here at the Defense Department.

So, we want to thank our friends at DOGE. We want to thank all the folks here that have contributed to this effort.”

This is only a small percentage of the federal budget, but it is a good beginning. The problem has never been the lack of income from taxes–the problem has always been the runaway spending. It looks as if some of the things that DOGE discovered are now being acted on.

One Of The Side Effects Of Shutting Down USAID

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The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was a taxpayer-funded agency that provided money for a number of non-governmental (NGO) agencies. Over the years it evolved into something you could reasonably call a money laundering scheme. When a country needed something from America, rather than give the money directly to the need, the money went through an NGO and then to where it was needed. Obviously, the NGO got their cut. What the NGO used their cut for was not necessarily reported. I don’t know if President Trump fully understood what would happen when the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) caused the end of USAID, but the consequences are politically significant.

On February 12th, Hot Air posted this headline:

Look at What Happens When the NGO>Democrat Pipeline Shrinks

The article reports:

Presidential years tend to be high-turnout elections, and off-years not so much. And since elections are won by margins, every bit of voter motivation matters. Getting a larger share of your voters to the polls can make all the difference, even in situations where the majority of people disagree with you. You need the majority of people who VOTE to win, not the majority of people who have an opinion.

With all that said, the Democrats face one very big problem: after Harris’s disastrous 2024 performance, which burned through so much cash to no effect, donors are not excited to give Democrats money. And, more importantly, DOGE and the fraud investigations have put a huge dent in the supply of reliable Democratic cash: government spending that goes into a black hole and then comes back to fill the party’s and its candidates’ coffers.

…Democratic voters may be foaming at the mouth, but it turns out that the mouth foamers have never been the big source of cash that the Democrats always claimed. ActBlue has been a money laundering machine, and USAID and other government programs have been handing over billions of dollars to NGOs that do the Democrats’ dirty work, and that firehose of cash has been cut to a trickle.

The article concludes:

Now that the money spigots are being turned off one by one, starting with USAID but going far beyond that, the Democrats can’t seem to tap into that sweet flow of cash anymore.

And no, the cash disparity can’t be attributed to Republicans being in power again—the Democrats had a huge cash advantage in Trump’s first term. Trump and the Republicans may be doing well in raising money, but the Democrats’ money supply really has crashed.

I can’t predict what the cash advantage will mean come November. The evidence seems to be that spending makes a marginal difference, but far less than you would expect given how often you see ads on TV. Probably the best money spent is on “Get Out the Vote” (GOTV) efforts, which Democrats are quite good at.

Or at least they were, using all those phony NGOs. We’ll see this year.

I am not crazy enough to try to predict the results of the midterms. There are too many factors–the economy, the propaganda, voter integrity, etc. But this is definitely turning out to be an interesting year.

The Power Of The Primary

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North Carolina voters have not been thrilled with their representation in Washington for a while. Thom Tillis never seems to pass up an opportunity to stab his voters in the back. Our representation in the North Carolina legislature also has some serious problems. They don’t seem to understand that eastern North Carolina is part of the state and contributes to the general welfare of the state.

On Thursday, The Daily Haymaker posted an article about the importance of primary elections. If you want to elect Representatives and Congressmen who actually represent you, you have to show up at the primary elections.

The title of the article is, “Tired of being *played* by the GOPe? Get their attention with the power of the primary.” Yes!

The article notes:

We told you earlier about how DOGE has been reduced to something being run out of the Office of Management and Budget.  Now we hear Ed Martin has been bounced out of the Government weaponization office at the Department of Justice. 

A grand total of ONE cut recommended by DOGE has passed the GOP-controlled Congress. We’veactually got elected Republicans reinstating wasteful spending the Trump White House cut via Executive Order.  We’ve got a lot of elected Republicans — including our not very smart junior US Senator — trying to sabotage the illegal alien cleanup efforts being led by ICE and DHS.

…We can’t even get Republicans in Washington to approve voter ID.

…Getting Phil Berger out of elected office would be another great grassroots victory.  According to what I’m hearing out of Rockingham and Guilford counties, that is very possible. (Berger has led the NCGOP’s transformation into an even bigger whoring-for-lobbyist-dollars operation than Basnight or Black could have ever dreamed of.)

…You’ve got a good conservative option out there in the 11th.  A guy with a great free-market name: Adam Smith.  He’s a special forces veteran and a successful small businessman.  He turned out to be one of the real heroes of the Hurricane Helene relief effort.  (You know, the operation Whatley was supposed to be running.)  

…In the US Senate race, DC and Raleigh have been trying to shove Michael Whatley down our throats.  Trump has been hyper-pissed at Thom Tillis.  Yet, his political operation is trying to replace Tillis with Tillis’s protege and preferred successor.  The DC party goons have gone overboard scaring all vendors, consultants, donors, and media away from anyone not named Whatley.  The result of all that?

…Someone slipped up and ran a poll showing Don Brown performing about as well against Cooper as Whatley is.  Brown has not been blessed with fundraising and strategy help from DC and Raleigh like Whatley has.  But he’s hanging right with The Chosen One, St. Michael of Gastonia.

The GOPe has been trying to pretend there is no primary for the Senate seat. A primary might have forced Whatley to have to answer for his sycophant protection of Tillis, and his penchant for screwing MAGA activists at every opportunity.

If you ever want to drain the swamp, you need to vote in the primary election!

Things That Make Me Furious

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We elected President Trump and a Republican Congress to cut government spending. The Department of Government Efficiency showed us much of the wasteful spending. Congress just passed a bunch of spending bills loaded with earmarks. Is Congress listening to the people who elected them?

On Monday, Open The Books reported:

Most universities dream of wealthy alumni who will send massive donations to their alma maters. The kind who contribute millions of dollars year after year, funding libraries, laboratories and more.

A select few universities have found such a wealthy, if unwitting, donor for 2026: the U.S. taxpayer, by way of pork-hungry senators.

Twenty-four senators requested $636 million of earmarks for the universities they attended as students. That’s more than 20% of the $3.7 billion of earmarks requested for universities in the 2026 federal budget, according to Open the Books’ review of congressional disclosures.

The list includes 13 Democrats and 11 Republicans. However, it was Republicans who requested $470 million (74%) of the cash.

The average alma mater earmark request is worth $4.9 million this year. Earmark requests for universities that are not affiliated with a senator were worth only $3 million on average.

This is a partial list:

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville
7 earmark requests worth $164.9 million

Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV)
Marshall University
9 earmark requests worth $57.5 million

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)
Washington State University
2 earmark requests worth $50.9 million

Sen. John Boozman (R-AR)
University of Arkansas-Fayetteville
2 earmark requests worth $4.3 million

The article concludes:

The government will shut down on Jan. 31 if Congress cannot agree on a 2026 federal budget. Unfortunately for taxpayers, alma mater earmarks appear to be one of the few items that lawmakers from both parties support.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) introduced an amendment on Jan. 22 to strike all earmarks from the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill, calling them “partisan pet projects” that are “outside the core mission” of the bill.

He was unsuccessful. Seventy-six House Republicans joined 215 Democrats in voting to keep the earmarks intact. Another eight Republicans and one Democrat abstained. The results were unsurprising, given that 31 House members secured $131 million for their own alma maters last year.

Each one gets an “F” for fiscal sanity.

This is unacceptable.

This is the link to download the full list of donations to alma maters.

Moving From Accepting Benefits To Theft

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On Thursday, Issues & Insights posted an article wondering how easy it is to steal from the American government.

The article reports:

Some of us are old enough to remember Matthew Lesko, the lanky, fast-talking late-night TV pitchman who promised people free government money to those who bought his books.

There are, Lesko said in one of his countless ads decades ago, “15,000 programs you can use to get a better job, get an education, or start your own business. Those who know about the programs are the ones who get the money!”

The article notes:

But Minnesota is hardly the only place where scammers have gone way beyond what Matthew Lesko promised in his books.

As Charles Silver and David Hyman note in the City Journal,

Frauds against government health-care programs are both common and costly. Fraudsters routinely scam (Medicare and Medicaid) for billions of dollars. States themselves run schemes of their own. COVID-related frauds, for example, exceeded $280 billion, with another $123 billion wasted or misspent. Obamacare enrollment fraud is pervasive, likely costing taxpayers $27 billion in 2025 and $21 billion in 2024.

California is under federal criminal investigation for wasting $37 billion to fight homelessness. It lost $20 billion in COVID-19-related federal unemployment money — the most of any state. Nearly half of the state’s increase in Medicaid spending went to pay for health care for illegal aliens. And it’s under investigation to see where the $4 billion in federal money for California’s never-ending bullet train project ended up.

Fox News reports that the Education Department found that “during a 12-month period between 2024 and 2025, scammers stole at least $10 million in federal financial aid from community colleges in California.”

The article concludes:

Why is it so easy to steal from the federal government? Because, unlike a private business, nobody in government really cares if money is wasted. Who has lost their job after some major scam was uncovered?

Plus, as we pointed out in this space, fraud is good for big-government types because it creates new constituents and new sources of campaign cash.

The answer to this problem isn’t just to unleash armies of auditors and federal police. It’s to close the spigot entirely.

The federal government spends more than $3.6 trillion on what it calls “direct payments for individuals” and another $833 billion in grants to states that are supposed to end up in individual pockets.

That’s about two-thirds of the entire federal budget!

As long as there’s that much money flying around, fraudsters will flourish. And taxpayers will be bilked.

It’s time to act on the waste and fraud that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) found. People are never as careful with other people’s money as they are with their own money.

President Trump And The Deep State

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On Tuesday, The Daily Signal posted an article detailing four steps President Trump has taken since he took office in 2025 to dismantle the deep state.

The article reports:

1. Reinstating ‘Schedule F’

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to reinstate Schedule F, which makes it easier for the president to fire bureaucrats. 

2. DOGE

The Department of Government Efficiency reportedly reduced federal employment by about 271,000 jobs. 

3. Shutdown Cuts

During the recent government shutdown, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought cut $8 billion of blue state energy projects. 

4. Investigating ‘Deep State’ Abuses

In July, a CIA report found that John Brennan, the agency’s director in the Obama administration, overrode internal concerns to claim that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

The deep state is still with us. Congress has codified very little of what President Trump has done, making it very easy to undo. The 2026 midterm elections are so critical because if the Democrats win either branch of Congress, all of the economic progress we made in the last year will end. Instead we will have non-stop impeachment hearings and a return to the tax and spend agenda that has nearly bankrupted our country. The easiest way to prevent the Democrats from taking over Congress is to insure an honest election. A bill to do that is currently in Congress.

Meanwhile, where are the orange jumpsuits that should be the result of all of the investigations we are hearing about?

Quietly Doing Their Work

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On Monday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced this past week that more than 100 federal contracts have been terminated with a value of nearly $6 billion.

Multiple agencies “terminated and descoped 108 wasteful contracts” that have a ceiling value of $5.8 billion and resulted in savings of $397 million,” DOGE wrote in an Oct. 10 post on X.

That includes a $3.1 million State Department contract titled, “Tanzania National Coordination Office Development,” it said, and a $46,500 U.S. Agency for Global Media lease for “office space for the Voice of America East Asia and Pacific Service.”

Other terminated items include a $5.8 million Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) contract for “organizational development, executive coaching, and leadership training” and a $44 million State Department contract for “professional services in Doha, Qatar.”

After being established by President Donald Trump on his first day in office, DOGE has slashed around $214 billion in estimated savings, or around $1,329.19 per taxpayer, according to an Oct. 4 update.

So far, 13,440 contract terminations totaling approximately $61 billion, 15,887 grant terminations worth around $49 billion, and 264 lease terminations totaling around $113 million have been posted on DOGE’s website.

On Friday, Fox News reported:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Wednesday released data showing the federal government ran a $1.8 trillion budget deficit in fiscal year 2025 amid mounting interest costs on the nearly $38 trillion national debt.

The article at The Epoch Times concludes:

While the number of layoffs is unclear, a group called the Partnership for Public Service says that more than 201,000 federal employees have left the government as of Sept. 23.

Earlier in the year, the Trump administration also had offered to pay federal workers who do not want to return to offices the option of a “deferred resignation,” meaning they would agree to resign but get paid through Sept. 30.

Efforts to lay off more employees, known as reductions-in-force, are ongoing in the midst of a nearly two-week-long government shutdown that started Oct. 1, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought confirmed this past week. Court papers that were later submitted by the administration said that around 4,100 workers across several agencies received layoff notices.

A memo released by the budget office stated that for federal programs that would have a funding lapse during a government shutdown, “such programs are no longer statutorily required to be carried out.”

It also directed all federal agencies to submit reduction-in-force plans to the budget office for review.

I know that there is some serious griping among federal employees about the Reduction In Force (RIF), but RIF’s have been happening for a long time–the last major one was in 1994. The country cannot survive without seriously cutting government spending.

The Health Care Heist

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On Wednesday, PJ Media posted an article about the biggest health care heist in American history. The heist was discovered thanks to the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), artificial intelligence (AI), and basic law enforcement techniques.

The article reports:

If you didn’t hear about the bust of 324 people; the U.S.-based cartel shell medical supply companies; the pill mills pushing opioids; the doctors on the take; or how law enforcement captured many of the bad guys at the U.S. border and airports as they rushed to escape, that’s understandable. The feds revealed this potential $14.6 billion “depth charge” planted inside the Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance programs in June, while most people were away on summer vacation.

Why did transnational organizations go after these particular programs? “Criminals go where the money is,” Acting Health and Human Services Inspector General,Juliet Hodgkins said at a news conference about “the largest health care fraud takedown in American history.” There’s more than $1.4 trillion spent by these government programs per year, and the bad guys have tried, by hook or by crook, and even with the aid of AI, to set into motion plans to steal nearly $15 billion. They got away with just shy of $3 billion before they were caught, and their other frauds were frozen in their tracks.

If this bust looks to you like it had Elon Musk’s old Department of Government Efficiency fingerprints on it, you’d be right. Using AI and law enforcement tactics, the DOGE team worked with HHS, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid, and an all-hands-on-deck array of federal agents from the DEA, FBI, and health care agencies to track down all fraud leads, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). As a result, the feds are setting up a healthcare data fusion center to detect where fraud spikes are occurring in near real time.

The article concludes:

Other scams used a network of Phoenix-based sober living houses to demand government payments for people who never got addiction treatment at the facilities. The facilities, run by ProMD, received $560 million before the feds caught on to the scam.

In Atlanta, medical professionals ordered skin grafts for dying patients who didn’t need them. By the time the grift was discovered, they’d scammed Medicare out of $760 million.

People from as far away as Estonia have been arrested. Seven people were found trying to scuttle over the southern U.S. border but were stopped before they got away. Another bunch were caught trying to leave the country from U.S. airports.

The bad actors from Russia, Pakistan, and Eastern Europe used the American health care system like their “personal piggy bank,” the Department of Justice’s Acting Criminal Division leader, Matthew Galeotti, said. He said that “this was a staggering breach of trust” and they “will prosecute these criminals as aggressively as we would any drug dealer because that’s exactly what they are.”

Musk, who stepped away from the White House after a rift with President Donald Trump, is the one who conceived and executed the DOGE project, and he’s a damned American hero. Let’s give that guy a medal for saving American taxpayers yet another tranche of billions.

All of this fraud was paid for by the American taxpayers.

Extortion Or Negotiation?

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On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the ongoing budget negotiations in Congress. The House of Representatives has passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) which represents a ‘clean bill’ which generally continues things as they are rather than adding additional items. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York is demanding some major Democrat additions to the CR that represent Democrat priorities in order to pass the CR (which needs 60 votes in the Senate). If the CR does not pass, the government shuts down.

The Daily Caller reports:

House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York’s demand that Congress allocate $500 million for certain media outlets Friday, saying, “We’re not doing that.”

The House of Representatives passed both a short-term funding measure and a resolution honoring assassinated Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Friday. Democrats have demanded that the stopgap funding measure add over $1 trillion in funding for various priorities, including reversing the rescission of funds for public broadcasting.

…“He (Senator Schumer) also wants to make sure, he wants to reinstate health care to be provided free by American taxpayers for illegal aliens. We’re not going to do that either,” Johnson continued. “He also wants to add $500 million to prop up left-leaning media organizations. We’re not doing that either.”

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has identified $206 billion in savings since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, despite drawing fire from Democrats over various cuts it identified, including the closure of the United States Agency for International Development.

A CR is not really the answer to America’s financial problem. We need to get back to the legal budget process. The Congressional Budget Process is supposed to involve individual budget requests for each area of the government. Those requests are to be passed individually. We have not correctly followed that procedure since 2008. It is time to get back to the way the law is written.

The Impact of DOGE

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On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about some of the changes President Trump is making in the federal workforce.

The article reports:

New Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor told several news outlets, most recently the New York Times, that the federal workforce will drop from 2.4 million to 2.1 million employees, largely as the result of the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts.

In a lengthy interview this week with Washington, DC, station WTOP, Kupor said that up to 80 percent of the reductions come from federal workers choosing to access buyouts or another program that paid them while they looked for other work.

The article concludes:

CNN has featured a tracker of employee reductions implemented by the Trump administration. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) dismissed some 10,000 employees when it was dismantled entirely.

Others, as Breitbart News reported,  include more than 20,000 employees reportedly cut or accepting buyouts at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Some 7,300 have been dismissed at the Internal Revenue Service, according to the CNN tracker.

Kupor told the Times he doesn’t expect any significant new layoff announcements this year, Forbes reported.

Kupor, confirmed to his position in July, comes from the private sector, where he was a managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm.

He told the TV station he’s well aware of the personal consequences for some of those who no longer have federal jobs.

“I recognize and understand we’re talking about very serious things. Anytime we do layoffs or reductions, you know, that impacts people’s families, it impacts people’s friends, it impacts their ability to be contributing members to their community,” he said. “And look, we need to recognize and understand that is a difficult thing for people to live through.”

Slowing Down A Major Part Of The Money Laundering In Washington

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Some of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) spending cuts are actually happening.

On Friday, Yahoo News reported:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday lifted an injunction that required the U.S. State Department to continue making foreign aid payments, handing a victory to President Donald Trump.

In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said a lower court erred by ordering the Trump administration to restore foreign assistance payments previously approved by Congress.

Trump imposed a 90-day pause on all foreign aid on January 20, the same day he was inaugurated for a second term in the White House. His executive order was followed by aggressive moves to gut USAID, the main U.S. foreign aid agency, including by placing much of its staff on leave and exploring bringing the formerly independent agency under the State Department.

Two nonprofit groups that receive federal funding, AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and Journalism Development Network, brought litigation alleging Trump’s funding freeze was unlawful.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, ordered the Trump administration to pay nearly $2 billion in outstanding aid to its humanitarian partners worldwide.

Writing for the two-judge majority, Circuit Judge Karen Henderson said the nonprofit groups “lack a cause of action to press their claims” and therefore failed to satisfy the requirements for an injunction.

The article concludes:

A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget, the White House’s budget office, said the ruling stops “radical left dark money groups” from “maliciously interfering with the president’s ability to spend responsibly and to administer foreign aid in a lawful manner in alignment with his America First policies.”

The problem with foreign aid is that it does not always get to the people it was intended for or to the places it was supposed to go. In many cases, America has built palaces for dictators while the people in their country starved. In a country ruled by a tyrant, it is very difficult to get foreign aid money to the people who need it.

It’s Time To Make The Cuts

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The amount of fraud and waste discovered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is amazing. It’s time to see the waste they discovered removed. If you found termites in your basement, you would call an exterminator. Somehow not all of Congress wants to deal with the termites!

On Monday, The Daily Caller reported:

Speaker Mike Johnson is putting pressure on Senate Republicans to pass President Donald Trump’s rescissions package.

Johnson told reporters Monday that clawing back just $9 billion in funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid should be an easy vote for Republican senators. The speaker’s remarks come as several GOP senators have said they oppose some of the proposed cuts and signaled they will vote against the rescissions request if the package is not amended.

If the Congress wants to remain in Republican hands, they need to respect the wishes of the voters and cut!

The article concludes:

Collins and other GOP senators, including Lisa Murkowski of Alsaka and Mike Rounds of South Dakota, have expressed concerns about the potential impact of cuts to public broadcasting programs for rural areas in the respective states.

“I hope you feel the urgency that I’m trying to express on behalf of the people in rural Alaska and I think in many parts of rural America where this is their lifeline,” Murkowski told White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought during an appropriations hearing in June.

The White House and congressional leadership have countered that the proposed cuts are necessary to begin making headway on the country’s $37 trillion national debt.

“This is supposed to be the lower hanging fruit,” Johnson continued. “As usual, I asked them [the Senate] not to modify our work.”

Trump has said that he will not take kindly to the Senate weakening cuts to public broadcasting within the rescissions package.

“It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Rescissions Bill,” Trump wrote Thursday on the social media platform Truth Social. “Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement.”

If Public Broadcasting were an unbiased network supplying unbiased news and programming to Americans, it might be worth funding. But that is not what it is. Also, it is time we got back to funding the things that the Constitution tells the federal government to fund and defunding everything else. That would surely balance the federal budget quickly!

This Will Be An Interesting Debate

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On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the debate that will happen in Congress at some point to decide whether any part of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) savings should be returned to the taxpayer. I emphatically say, “YES!” The taxpayers were not responsible for the fraud and reckless spending–Congress was supposed to be exercising oversight. Let’s give taxpayers a portion of the savings and cut some Congressional perks to make up some of the difference.

The article reports:

Some House Republicans say they would rather use Department of Government Efficiency savings to pay off the national debt than to hand out the funds to taxpayers.

President Donald Trump floated giving $5,000 stimulus checks to taxpaying households in February, saying: “We’re thinking about giving 20% back to the American citizens, and 20% down to pay back debt.”

Investment CEO James Fishback first proposed the idea of a one-time payment of $5,000 for eligible taxpayers. The checks were to be funded with 20% of the $2 trillion in federal budget cuts Elon Musk said could be achieved, meaning around $400 billion split between 79 million taxpaying households.

What about the other 60 percent?

The article continues:

Fishback “continue[s] to advise the effort from the outside and will fight to ensure that a chunk of identified savings are sent back to hard-working American,” he told The Daily Signal in an email.

But fiscal conservatives in the House of Representatives would rather see DOGE savings entirely go toward paying off the debt, some tell The Daily Signal.

The article concludes:

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also said paying off the debt is the highest priority.

“Let’s focus on tackling our $36 trillion debt, while also helping hardworking Americans prosper by making the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent and spending less of their tax dollars,” Lee told The Daily Signal.

Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, agreed that the “big beautiful bill” is the best way to deliver on promises to voters.

“DOGE savings coupled with tax cuts will ensure Iowans and Americans can keep more of their hard earned money in their pockets while also restoring fiscal sanity and addressing deficit spending,” Hinson told The Daily Signal.

Why should the taxpayers have to pay for the government’s corruption and inefficiency?

Exactly What Are The Medicaid Cuts Cutting?

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On Monday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the fraud and waste found in Medicaid.

The article reports:

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator, said his agency and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have identified at least $14 billion in fraud, waste, and abuse.

“There’s about $14 billion we’ve identified with DOGE, of folks who are duly enrolled wrongly in multiple states for Medicaid,” Oz told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

As an example, Oz said: “You live in New Jersey, but you move to Pennsylvania, and which state gets your Medicaid? Turns out both states collect money from the federal government.”

There are other areas, he said, that constitute abuse of the federal health care system. He said some people who are eligible to get a job or seek education are receiving Medicaid. Oz echoed statements made by GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.)., who in recent days said that able-bodied individuals and illegal immigrants have received Medicaid benefits.

Oz urged that Medicaid be cleaned up so that it can provide services to individuals such as people with disabilities and others, suggesting that Republicans keep a work requirement to be eligible for the program.

“I think there’s a moral hazard if we don’t, because you’ve got people who are not working who could work, who should work, and it’s better for them and better for the country if they do,” he said, referring to Republicans’ having added work requirements to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that passed in the House of Representatives on May 22.

The article notes:

The bill, which is now in the hands of the Senate, would impose work requirements for low-income adults to receive Medicaid health insurance and would increase those requirements for food assistance. Supporters of the bill say the moves will save money, root out waste, and encourage personal responsibility.

Starting next year, many able-bodied Medicaid enrollees under age 65 would be required to show that they work, volunteer, or go to school in exchange for the health insurance coverage under the measure. Only Arkansas has had a work requirement that kicks people off for noncompliance.

It’s time for everyone who can to get out and help pull the wagon rather than sitting in the wagon and expecting everyone else to pull it.

Efficiency Makes A Difference

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On Tuesday, American Greatness posted an article about a new automated payment verification system spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The article reports:

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has blocked its first improper payment requests using a new automated payment verification system spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

DOGE announced Tuesday that Treasury identified and rejected $334 million in improper payment requests due to missing budget codes, invalid budget codes, and budget codes with no authorization.

Invalid budget codes include budgets that had already been fully spent. Unauthorized codes refer to payments not linked to the budget.

Prior to DOGE’s intervention, the Treasury’s accounting code was optional for the $4.7 Trillion in payments that go out each year, making traceability almost impossible.

The kind of bookkeeping in place before DOGE intervened would never be acceptable in a private company. The Internal Revenue Service would never tolerate that kind of sloppiness in a private enterprise.

The article concludes:

“This is a big deal,” DOGE Chief Elon Musk commented on X. 

Back in February, the Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) became a required field, increasing transparency into where U.S. tax dollars are going.

Treasury went live with its new payment verification system last week, resulting in the rejection of over $300 million in fraudulent accounting entries.

Taxpayers should rejoice in this change.

Creating Efficiency By Tossing Out The Trash

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On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article that explains why a lot of the Washington deep state would really like to get rid of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. He has begun to drain the swamp. Of course when you drain the swamp, you expose some pretty unsavory animals.

The article reports:

Everyone who has been serving on Department of Defense advisory committees is to be thanked for their service and told that said service ‘is concluded‘ aka ‘out of a cushy post.’

The article includes a screenshot of the letter sent to the committee members.

The article continues:

Of course, there’s going to be all sorts of caterwauling about the move. But just like the programs that Biden initiated that now it seems Trump cannot undo, there is precedent for this as well.

While press releases call it a ‘tit-for-tat,’ they also acknowledge that lumpy Lloyd Austin removed every Trump appointee and then some serving on a committee from their chairs. 

We need to remember that last sentence when the media starts caterwauling.

The article notes:

…The Pentagon’s bloated advisory panels have ballooned to 41 groups—many duplicative or focused on political pet projects rather than warfighting readiness. Since 2021, these committees cost taxpayers over $220M annually while producing bureaucratic inertia. The Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services alone burned $8.7M last fiscal year debating gender initiatives instead of lethality. 

Realigning resources means cutting dead weight—like Susan Rice’s seat pushing DEI dogma—to prioritize missile defense modernization and countering China’s naval expansion. The Department of Government Efficiency’s $160B savings blueprint proves real reform starts with axing non-essential programs. 

Advisory boards shouldn’t be retirement perks for political allies—they should deliver battlefield advantage.

…The Defense Policy Board (DPB) has always been packed with long-term D.C. establishment insiders and power brokers and was targeted by recently fired adviser Dan Caldwell, who accused it of being the source of the leaks for which he took the blame. Caldwell claimed that the board is chock to the brim with anti-Trump members who are resistant to any changes the president, and by extension his SecDef, wants made.

Maybe when this is all over, we can go back to winning wars. We haven’t won a war since World War II (with the exception of the invasion of Grenada).

The Numbers Keep Growing

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On Saturday, Breitbart posted the latest numbers from the Department of Government Efficiency Audit (DOGE) of our federal government. It is very obvious that any oversight on government spending that was supposed to come from Congress or from various inspectors general has not happened.

The article reports:

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has saved U.S. taxpayers roughly $150 billion, according to the latest update.

DOGE updated its website again this week with the latest figures on massive savings for the American people. According to this update, U.S. taxpayer savings now reach $150 billion — up from $140 billion in the last update. That results in a savings of $931.68 per taxpayer.

…The latest wall of receipts displays 7,279 contract terminations totaling $25 billion in savings. For example, it shows a Department of the Interior contract listing Family Endeavors, Inc as the vendor. The description reads:

Office of Refugee Resettlement Influx Care Facility. Influx Care Facility (ICF) for up to 3,000 unaccompanied alien children (UAC). The contract provided facilities and full wraparound child care and case management services.

The cancellation of that contract resulted in $2,902,177,562 in savings, according to DOGE.

DOGE also showcases 9,283 grant terminations totaling $33 billion in savings, as well as 676 lease terminations totaling $400 million in savings.

At the time of this writing, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stood as the federal agency generating the most savings, followed by the Department of Education and General Services Administration. Those generating the least savings include the Department of Commerce, Department of Justice, and Department of Veterans Affairs.

How has this waste and fraud continued for so many years without someone becoming aware of it and doing something about it?

The Center Of Fraud

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On Saturday, Legal Insurrection posted an article about the location of a large part of the fraud found in unemployment claims.

The article reports:

On Thursday, the Department of Government Efficiency revealed that three deep-blue states—California, New York, and Massachusetts—were responsible for $305 million, or 80%, of the $382 million in fraudulent unemployment payments issued since 2020.

DOGE also reported that 68% of unemployment benefits paid to parolees flagged by Customs and Border Protection as being on the terrorist watchlist or having criminal records were issued in California.

The DOGE team found that $59 million in unemployment benefits was paid to 24,500 people listed as over 115 years old. Another $254 million went to 28,000 people between the ages of 1 and 5, while $69 million was distributed to 9,700 people with birthdates more than 15 years in the future.

It is interesting that California, New York, and Massachusetts were responsible for 80 percent of the fraud. Slightly less than one-third of Americans live in California, Texas, Florida or New York. Having a large population makes it more difficult to track every case and makes fraud easier.

The article also notes:

DOGE also reported this week that since 2023, the U.S. Border Patrol (under the Biden administration) has paroled over 6,300 individuals flagged on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist or with criminal records into the country with “minimal screening.” Though their paroles have now been revoked, all received Social Security numbers and could access federal benefits. Among them:

    • 905 received Medicaid, including 4 on the terrorist watchlist ($276K paid out)
    • 41 collected Unemployment Insurance ($42K total)
    • 22 received federal student loans ($280K)
    • 409 got tax refunds in 2024 ($751K)
    • An undisclosed number received SNAP (food stamps)

I believe in helping people, but I also believe that charity begins at home and ideally does not involve the government. If I want to help my neighbor, good for me. However, for the government to take what I have earned and give it to someone who didn’t earn it is not a viable business plan for a nation. As Margaret Thatcher once stated, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

One Problem With America’s Financial Situation

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On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about some of the abuses in Medicaid, food stamps and income tax returns.

The article reports:

A bombshell report from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) revealed that migrants on the federal government’s “Terrorist Watch List” were able to secure Medicaid after being released into the United States by former President Joe Biden’s administration.

According to DOGE officials, about 6,300 of Biden’s migrants — paroled into the U.S. interior with no immigration status — were either on the Terrorist Watch List or had criminal records and yet were still rewarded work permits and Social Security numbers.

The DOGE report found that 905 of the migrants, including four on the Terrorist Watch List, had been collecting Medicaid benefits totaling $276,000 in American taxpayer dollars. Another 41 were collecting unemployment benefits totaling $42,000.

Similarly, 22 of the migrants received tax refunds in 2024 totaling $751,000 and several more received food stamp benefits.

That’s more than a million dollars that taxpayers should not have had to spend. Americans cannot afford to continue giving money to people who are not American citizens.

As Milton Friedman once stated (article here):

A decade ago, Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman admonished the Wall Street Journal for its idée fixe on open-border immigration policy. “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state,” he warned. This remark adds insight to the current debate over immigration in the U.S. Senate.

The article concludes:

This week, DOGE official Antonio Gracias said not only were Biden’s parole migrants taking taxpayer-funded benefits like Medicaid, but thousands were found on a handful of states’ voter rolls.

“We looked at voter rolls and we found that thousands are registered to vote in friendly states. And we looked even further in those friendly states and found that many of those people had actually voted,” Gracias said. “It was shocking to us. If I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it … it is shockingly bad.”

The people who voted illegally need to be deported. They have broken the law in coming here illegally, and they have broken the law by voting.

Where Your Tax Dollars Are Going

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On April 10, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about some of the fraud the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is finding in government benefits.

The article reports:

On Wednesday, The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced its findings from an initial survey of unemployment insurance claims since 2020 and uncovered three stunning discoveries regarding unemployment fraud.

…24,500 people over 115 years old claimed $59 million in benefits.

28,000 people under the age of five claimed $254 million in benefits.

9,700 people with birth dates over 15 years in the future claimed $69 million in benefits. In one case, a person with a birthday in 2154 who claimed $41,000 in benefits.

The article concludes:

President Trump also told reporters aboard Air Force One last week that DOGE found something “horrible” but refused to elaborate.

“We have found hundreds – think of it – just hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud and abuse and waste. They’re still going strong. They found something today that is horrible, it’s horrible,” Trump said.

Was Wednesday’s unemployment fraud the discovery Trump was referencing?

The problem with government benefits is the lack of connectivity between the Washington bureaucracy and the people actually getting the benefits. Ideally, there would be local supervision to determine if a claim was real. I can remember back in the age of dinosaurs when the company I worked for closed, I had to report to the unemployment office weekly to get my check and to search the computers for job opportunities. If a person were required to show up at the local unemployment office, it would be very obvious if they were over 115 years old, under 5 years old, or not born yet.

It seems to me that cleaning out the fraud in some of our government programs might be a serious step on the road to a balanced budget.

Pay Attention To The People Who Are Opposing The DOGE Cuts

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On Saturday, Stephen Moore posted an article at Hot Air about the opposition to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts.

The article reports:

If you haven’t watched the Bret Baier interviews on Fox News with Elon Musk and the other executives who have given their time and expertise to exposing the rampant fraud and inefficiency of our federal government, I urge you to do so.

It will infuriate you — and that’s what we need right now.

These Department of Government Efficiency volunteers are on a patriotic mission to repair our ship of state. They are hunting down the rats and scoundrels who have played us (we the taxpayers) for fools for so many years. It’s the greatest robbery — more than $1 trillion of fraud and corruption — in world history.

Yet too many Democrats are reacting as though Musk himself is the scoundrel.

The “Musk-ateers” have marked nearly 10 million Social Security recipients over the age of 120 as deceased. (How many monthly checks were sent out?) How about $10 billion in rent for empty office buildings? Hundreds of millions of dollars for foreign aid programs that went to “nongovernmental government organizations” and then disappeared down a rabbit hole? Billions of dollars in fraudulent Medicaid spending? A federal workforce that has been MIA for three years?

In the wake of this epic failure of governance, nearly every leading Democrat in Washington has protested: “Elon Musk is going too far.”

The article cites an example of why the Democrats oppose the budget cuts:

Or maybe the real answer is that THEY ARE IN ON THE SWINDLE. This could explain how so many politicians spent their careers in Congress and retired as multimillionaires.

In other words, what is most revealing about the Washington slime that we are waking up to in real time thanks to DOGE is that the waste and fraud is the currency of Washington. It pays the bills, and everyone in the swamp gets their cut. Remember: One third of $7 trillion is the stuff of fortunes.

How else does one explain the $2.7 million that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse allegedly directed/laundered to his wife via a nonprofit environmental group she worked for? This would clearly be graft, but it has gone unpunished.

We are living through the harrowing last scene in a Hollywood murder mystery in which you discover that the chief of police was in on it all along.

The article concludes:

In reality, perhaps the greatest public service of the Musk-ateers is that they have taught voters that Washington should never get another penny of our tax dollars until the sewer is completely drained and the tens of thousands of fraudsters inside and outside of government are put out of business and hopefully behind bars.

I agree.

DOGE And The Cloward-Piven Strategy

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The Cloward-Piven strategy was developed by two sociologists and activists (Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven) in 1966. It aims to overload the US public welfare system and replace it with a national guaranteed income. This theory was the basis for a lot of policy changes that have taken place in recent years. We have all heard the cries that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are all going broke. Some recent discoveries by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may explain some of the reasons for those programs having financial challenges.

On Monday, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog quoted a post on X by Elon Musk reporting that in 2021, 270,000 non-citizens got social security numbers. In 2024, 2.1 million non-citizens got social security numbers. Human traffickers made $13-15 billion dollars during the time our southern border was open. Elon Musk has stated that DOGE is going to stop the Social Security payments that are going to illegals. Because these illegals have Social Security numbers, many of them have registered to vote and have voted. This is voter fraud.

I don’t know how the people responsible for this thought they were going to get away with this unless they planned on preventing any investigation of the fraud and keeping control of the Department of Justice indefinitely. Obviously, they have not been successful in either area.

The problem has now been identified. There are three steps that need to be taken. The first step is to stop any benefits being paid to people who are not American citizens. The second step is to identify the people behind the fraud and put them in jail. I don’t care how well-connected or powerful they are—they need to go to jail. The third step is to set up a system that will ensure that this never happens again. I have no idea how to do that, but I am sure that Elon Musk and his team of geniuses can find a way.

I suspect we may hear more about the discovery of this fraud in the near future.

How Much Did The Inflation Reduction Act Actually Cost?

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On Monday, Just the News posted an article about the actual cost of the Inflation Reduction Act. The Inflation Reduction Act was not about inflation–it was about subsidizing green energy.

The article reports:

When former President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in 2022, it did so along party lines with not a single Republican voting for it. At the time, a Senate one-pager summarized the law as costing taxpayers $369 billion, based on Congressional Budget Review (CBO) estimates. 

A new study from the Cato Institute finds that the law could cost as much as $4.67 trillion by 2050. That’s roughly 12 times the stated cost. The study also concludes that the subsidies are undermining innovation and driving investments toward subsidy farming rather than satisfying consumer demand. 

“The government should not have a hold on the economy in such a way that it can truly distort entire markets, and that’s what the Inflation Reduction Act is,” Joshua Loucks, research associate with Cato Institute and co-author of the analysis, said in a video explaining the study. 

…The subsidies for the IRA come in two forms — production tax credits (PTC), which provide tax credits per unit of energy produced, or investment tax credits, which provide tax credits for various investments in carbon-free energy. Which one developers take depends on the project and their business preferences. With the ITC, the subsidies provide an infusion of cash up front, whereas the PTCs provide payouts over time. 

Some of these are not capped, and others are only phased out when certain greenhouse gas emission reductions are met. Using models from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the study shows there’s little likelihood that these reductions will be met in the next 25 years, meaning the subsidies have no meaningful end date. 

The article concludes:

The study’s authors argue that, in light of the IRA’s actual costs, a full repeal of its energy subsidies is needed. If a full repeal isn’t possible, Congress should limit taxpayer liabilities by placing caps on the dollar value of the subsidies, add expiration dates instead of emission reduction targets — or both. 

“Delaying action only strengthens the political and economic interests tied to its subsidies, making reform even more difficult as the web of government handouts expands,” Loucks and Fisher warn in an article on “The Fishtank,” Fisher’s Substack. 

Repealing the energy subsidies in the IRA is a wonderful idea. This is another budget cut the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) needs to look at.