Donald Trump and his minions endlessly rail about “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the federal government. Meanwhile, he and his regime are the most prodigious generators of “waste, fraud, and abuse” in American history.
First and foremost, no president has ever used his office to rack up anything close to the estimated $5B Trump has hauled in for himself, selling everything from tacky gold sneakers to crypto. He has mastered the art of trading on access and enticing foreigners to pony up big bucks (and even an airplane). The most pro-corruption president in history also has stopped enforcement of foreign corruption, crypto fraud and other white collar crimes.
Beyond all that, in just over nine months the MAGA regime has been more egregious in its misuse of taxpayers’ money than any administration in memory.
Flying top brass into Quantico, Va., to hear an obnoxiously partisan pep talk from Defense Secretary (and wrinkle warrior) Pete Hegseth and Trump: $6M.That qualifies as both waste and abuse (i.e., politicizing the military).
Multiple unnecessary and unconstitutional deployments of national guard around the country (which have triggered adverse court rulings, costing a fortune in taxpayer-funded legal fees): 2/3 of a billion dollars. The Atlantic reports that the D.C. deployment will cost more than $200M while the Los Angeles invasion as of early September cost $118M. If you throw in tens of millions for deployments to other cities, the unconstitutional invasions “could wind up costing Americans roughly two-thirds of a billion dollars.” It is hard not to wonder how many NIH science grants or new air traffic controllers or SNAP meals $750M dollars would fund. Aside from the waste and abuse, the rationale for the deployments, which courts increasingly find specious, surely constitutes “fraud” as well.
Moving on to the Qatari corruption racket, Trump’s “gift”—an Air Force One, which will cost an estimated $1B to retrofit. And in the end, the government apparently does not even get to keep the jet. Waste, fraud, and abuse.
Even worse, Hegseth proudly announced that “we’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force Facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho.” Cost: Unknown. In what world is that a remotely appropriate expense for American taxpayers, let alone for our national security?
Once you start looking around, waste, fraud, and abuse seem to be key features of the Trump regime. A recent General Accounting Office detailed all three offenses in the federal oil and gas program. CNN documented the bailout to farmers (necessitated by Trump’s counterproductive and possibly illegal tariffs) and the $20B giveaway to Argentina.
Meanwhile, Nicholas Kristof enumerated the billions Trump has wasted in shuttering USAID—leaving warehouses full of everything from vegetable oil to family planning supplies, not to mention hundreds of thousands of doses of monkey pox vaccine and “donated medicines meant to prevent river blindness, schistosomiasis and intestinal parasites about to expire.” Worse, “the cost to American taxpayers of shutting down U.S.A.I.D. will be $6.4 billion over two years—enough to save more than one million children’s lives.” [Emphasis added.]
What about Trump’s frequent Mar-a-Lago trips? The Palm Beach Postreports on items such as $800,000 per Air Force One trip, one month of security at about $478,000, and other assorted costs for Marine One helicopter and county security. Sounds like a lot of waste and abuse.
Trump’s military birthday parade? That wasted $30M, which did NOT include related costs such as “Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, FBI and local police personnel to secure a chunk of downtown Washington and monitor possible threat.”
The big, beautiful ugly bill was supposed to cut out a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse, but (shocker!): it created more. The big, ugly bill that takes healthcare coverage from tens of millions to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires is a cornucopia of waste, including over $165M (with little specificity or oversight) for the Department of Homeland Security’s abusive shock troops, a $100M slush fund for Office of Management and Budget(!), incentives for states to maintain high error rates in SNAP, and 10 million in income tax-free for investing in certain startup companies (75% of which goes to millionaires).
The MAGA big spenders also added more waste to the already bloated defense budget, including $25B on the nonsensical “Golden Dome” missile shield. According to one watchdog group, “Another $2.5 billion would go to the controversial Sentinel missile program, which is currently 81 percent over-budget. Meanwhile, the $13-16 billion meant for ‘expediting innovation’ is filled with earmarks for Congress’ ‘pet projects.’” [Emphasis added.]
Put simply, Trump only wants to eliminate “Democrat programs”—those that improve the livelihoods of real people. Meanwhile, Trump habitually clears the way for more waste, fraud, and abuse. Earlier this year he fired a slew of inspectors general. More recently, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Cal.), Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary, demanded Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought “stop illegally withholding congressionally-approved funding” for items such as “websites for dozens of Inspectors General (IGs) that publish hotline numbers where whistleblowers can submit complaints of waste, fraud, and abuse and make reports detailing corruption available to the public.”
And when the MAGA regime order cuts in the name of fighting “waste, fraud, and abuse,” things get worse. Trump and Elon Musk (the real president before Stephen Miller took over) cut vital programs, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of adults and children, halting hundreds of millions to fund in cutting-edge scientific research, and destroying student aid programs. DOGE itself made gob-smacking mistakes that resulted in firing and then rehiring critical personnel. (Learning nothing, Trump’s minions repeated this mind-boggling incompetence in the firing and rehiring of CDC personnel during the shutdown.)
Since Trump is the all-time “waste, fraud, and abuse” champ, we should retire the phrase. If we really want to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse we should get rid of the MAGA regime—and before that, boot out the do-nothing MAGA congressional majorities that eschew oversight.
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