Abuse. Fraud. Waste…

Throughout the course of the 2024 presidential campaign, then candidate and 45th POTUS Donald John Trump promised to cut the budget and population of the bloated and bureaucratic Biden generated Federal government. He promised to cut budgets and reallocate the funding of various agencies including, for example, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, Health and Human Services, while eliminating the overfunded and underperforming Department of Education. And as a retired longtime educator, and not a big fan of a centralized bureaucracy, the bootlicking dregs of the corporate mainstream media, the radical, progressive Democrats and assorted unions and educrats are criticizing the shutdown of the swamp’s DOE. Each state will be responsible for the education of their children and the different skills that need to be addressed since there is no cookie cutter methodology for teaching.

President Donald John Trump announced that HHS will take over the special needs programs, as students will remain under the auspices of each states’ education department who will still receive Title One funding from the Federal Government, despite what radical advocates are pontificating. And now it’s President Donald John Trumps’s promises made, promises kept. And don’t forget that the Federal Government is one of the biggest, if not the biggest employer, in the United States. Bloated redundancy galore. Abuse. Fraud. Waste.

As I stated, I am a retired long time educator and had to deal with and maneuver through the minutia of rules, regulations, educrats and unions that are components of the bureaucratic sphere, thinking they all have singular control. As a case in point, I had informed my principal that the air conditioner in my office had died. She said go get a new one and I would be reimbursed, with the school custodian installing the unit. So I priced a 10,000 btu a/c unit for $300.00 at a local appliance store if I recall correctly. Before I completed the purchase I was informed that the a/c unit would have to be purchased from a predetermined and approved NYC DOE vendor, who would also install it. The total cost was $800.00. So the a/c unit was purchased out of school funds. Since I was not permitted to purchase the unit at a realistic price, that was a perfect example of the bureaucratic process. And the installation was poor, with the school custodian having to redo shoddy work. Abuse. Fraud. Waste.

To that end, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared with reporters that the executive order would not entirely shut down the DOE, but would “greatly minimize” it. Additionally, the Small Business Administration will oversee Pell Grants and student loans that provide financial aid for undergraduate students. And let’s not forget that the individual states are essentially responsible for the curriculum that schools implement in the first place. The states will be in charge of educating children that they are responsible for. President Donald John Trump is not cutting the DOE budget, but reallocating the money to the individual states, who are being given more responsibility and accountability. The US has spent over $4T since the late 1970’s and the standardized test scores have decreased significantly, placing us 40th in academic achievement.

Lastly, Democratic run cities, even with billions of dollars already invested, or injected, into their public school systems, have seen test scores drop across the board with rising crime in the buildings. Under the Biden administration parental participation was discouraged with the DOJ actually investigating, arresting and processing the incarceration of people who spoke out against school boards. Then there’s the spike in truancy rates, which results in higher crime. And the local school systems are lobbying and demanding billions more. Since its inception, the department has spent trillions in tax payer dollars, but standardized scores in math and reading are down in public schools. As a matter of fact, per-pupil spending increased by more than 245% since the 1970s. Abuse. Fraud. Waste.

Moreover, those DOE staff members handling student loan services were not let go, according to a department spokesperson. “No employees working on the FAFSA or student loan servicing were impacted by the reduction in force,” Madi Biedermann, a spokesperson for the Education Department, said in a statement to Fox News Digital. The DOE’s Office of Federal Student Aid processes over 17.6 million Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms annually with a staff of roughly 1,400 employees, according to its 2024 report. And at this point, the FAFSA process is 50% ahead of the Biden DOE.

As POTUSDJT, along with DOGE Secretary Elon Musk, is attempting to rein in and purge the Federal Government of abuse, fraud, waste and bogus projects. The idea of reducing government spending is not entirely new, as what is being presented by the subjective reporting by the unprepossessing mainstream media and the unhinged radical, progressive left, who are seeing their pork barrel and pet projects sliced from the Federal budget. For example:

1925–1955: Non-defense spending soared during President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and afterwards from 1.5 percent of GDP in 1925 to 5.1 percent by 1955. Defense and nondefense moved in opposite directions during the 1940s and 1950s, suggesting that Congress traded off priorities to fund the War Department to conduct WWII.

1975–2000: President Ronald Reagan cut no-defense spending, while President George H.W. Bush increased it. President Bill Clinton restrained spending while GDP grew quickly in the late 1990s.

2000–2025: After a 25-year period of relative restraint, non-defense spending soared in the new century as a result of three disasters (9/11, the Great Recession, and COVID) and the disappearance of political leaders who focused on spending reform. Presidents George W. Bush, Obama and DementiaJoe have all been big spenders, as have been most congressional leaders of both parties during this time frame.

In a recent news release from President Donald John Trump and the White House: “This order continues the reduction in the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary. These actions include reducing the scope of the Federal Bureaucracy, focusing on: the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service; the United States Agency for Global Media; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution; the Institute of Museum and Library Services the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness; the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund; and the Minority Business Development Agency. This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.”

One of the major budget cuts was The United States Agency for International Development. USAID is an independent agency of the US government responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. The agency was established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy to unite several foreign assistance organizations and programs under one agency, with statute law that place USAID under “the direct authority and policy guidance of the Secretary of State, in this case Secretary Marco Rubio. US AID was idealistically designed to implement programs in global health, disaster relief, socioeconomic development, environmental protection, democratic governance and education. With average annual disbursements of about $23B since 2001. Abuse. Fraud. Waste.

However, when President Donald John Trump was campaigning, and as previously cited, he promised to shrink the Federal budget. And one of the most wasteful, partisan and fraudulent agencies was US AID. While the initial philosophy was magnanimous with humanitarian goals, the agency has gone off the rails with the most egregious, corrupt, incompetent, ineffective and really stupid funding of projects that are anti-US, which has taken away additional and adequate funding from resources that assist American citizens.

Some of the most ridiculous projects funded by US AID, and I shortened the rather extensive list, include: The Biden administration funded $2B to former Georgia gubernatorial candidate and two time loser, Stacey Abrams “Power Forward Communities” organization with tax dollars in 2024 after reporting just $100 in revenue the year before…billions of dollars to assorted non-government organizations. Abuse. Fraud. Waste.

United States Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed that a DOJ internal task force is involved with bringing those accused of fraud to justice. The topic of government fraud was shared throughout the most recent cabinet meeting, with DOGE leader Elon Musk making the claim that he found $330 million worth of waste within the Small Business Administration. “We found a case of fraud and waste with the Small Business Administration, where they were handing out $330 million worth of loans to people under the age of 11,” Musk said. “I think the youngest was a nine year old who got a $100,000 loan.”

Moreover, the Social Security Administration has spent weeks clearing out bad data from its records, sifting out millions of cases where Social Security number holders were over the age of 120. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced the ongoing records cleanup on social media, saying the process has taken weeks. “For the past 3 weeks, Social Security has been executing a major cleanup of their records. Approximately 7 million numberholders, all listed age 120+, have now been marked as deceased. Another 5 million to go,” DOGE announced on social media. This is an example of the bogus accusations from the radical, progressive left regarding cuts to Federal entitlement programs.

Please excuse the rather lengthy, but shortened examples of how our money was being wasted:

DOGE announced it had terminated the following: 113 contracts valued at $4.7 billion, including a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) consulting contract for Peru’s climate change activities; announced the Department of Labor had canceled $577 million in “America Last” grants, totaling $237 million in savings, the funding that was canceled included $10 million for “gender equity in the Mexican workplace; $12.2 million for “worker empowerment in South America”; $6.25 million for “improving respect for workers’ rights in agricultural supply chains” in the countries of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador; $5 million to elevate women’s participation in the workplace in West Africa; $4.3 million to assist foreign migrant workers in Malaysia; $15 million for condoms to the Taliban; $5 million for a low emissions cities allowance to be carried out in China; $11 million for a cooperative agreement for US-China clean energy and climate partnership…yet the CCR still builds coal burning power plants; $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala; $20 million on “Ahlan Simsim” — a new Sesame Street show in Iraq; $66.1 million for Iraq access to Justice program; $59 million to enable grain and oilseed farmers with a special focus on female farmers; $1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia’s workplaces; $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland; $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia; $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru; $6 million to the WHO for health coordination and health surveillance activities in Gaza; $10 million worth of meals going to al Qaeda-linked terrorist group the Nusra Front; $500,000 to groups that “empowers women” in an attempt to solve sectarian violence in Israel just 10 days before Hamas’s October 7 attacks; $4.67 million to EcoHealth Alliance, one of the key nongovernmental organizations funding bat virus research at Wuhan Institute of Virology, in late 2021. Later refused to answer key questions about the funding; $20 million for the Strengthening Transparency and Accountability through Investigative Reporting program which used the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project as its implementing partner. The OCCRP was cited four times in the whistleblower letter led to the Russia-gate impeachment; $14.9 million supporting LGBQT youth in Cambodia; $3.9 million to LGBT causes in the Western Balkans; $5.5 million to LGBT in Uganda; $6 million to advance LGBT in “priority countries around the world; Hundreds of millions of dollars to fund “irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan, benefiting the Taliban.

The US AID Inspector General issued the following statement to employees of US AID: “As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally. Concurrently, USAID is beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force that will affect approximately 1,600 USAID personnel with duty stations in the United States.” I wonder how many employees were the beneficiaries of partisan political interference?

Government cutbacks is not a new story. Here is a taste:

President Theodore Roosevelt’s Committee on Department Methods, more commonly known as the Keep Commission, was established in 1905. Its mandate was to increase efficiency within federal agencies, reduce waste, and improve coordination among departments. Roosevelt, the 26th POTUS, was a progressive reformer and was deeply committed to modernizing the federal government and sought to professionalize its operations. The Keep Commission produced detailed reports on inefficiencies and made several recommendations for streamlining government operations. However, despite its good intentions, its actual impact was modest. Bureaucratic inertia and resistance from established agencies limited its effectiveness. The Keep Commission’s recommendations often lacked the political will and institutional power to enforce change, as opposed to the force of will exhibited by President Donald John Trump as he and Musk reduce the Federal government for the benefit of the American taxpayer.

On February 7, 2000 The Washington Post reported that between 1993 and 1999, the Bubba Clinton Administration reduced the size of the federal work force by 377,000 full time employees according to the budget. As surprisingly, and objectively reported by Yahoo News, that during his presidency, Clinton reduced the federal government’s workforce as part of an initiative called the National Partnership for Reinventing Government (initially called the National Performance Review, or NPR). In March 1993, just two months into his presidency, Clinton announced the creation of the National Performance Review, led by VPOTUS Al Gore. Its goal, according to Clinton’s announcements was “to make the entire Federal Government both less expensive and more efficient, and to change the culture of our national bureaucracy away from complacency and entitlement toward initiative and empowerment.”

The review lasted six months, and made 384 recommendations to improve the federal bureaucracy. The implementation of those policies took a lot longer, and some required legislation to be passed through Congress. For instance, in 1994, Clinton signed a bill that offered federal workers buyouts of up to $25,000 in an effort to reduce the workforce by 272,000 employees. According to an April 1995 statement from Clinton, the buyouts were largely offered to management positions in an effort to “reduce the layers of bureaucracy and micromanagement that were tying Government in knots.” That statement said that about 70 of the buyouts in non-Department of Defense agencies went to managers and other individuals “at higher grade levels.” Abuse. Fraud. Waste.

In 2010, shortly after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the economic impact of the health insurance reform legislation, then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi(D-CA) issued a press release that cited several key points the public needed to know about the CBO score. Pelosi stated that number one on that list was based on a preliminary analysis from CBO, “the legislation cuts the deficit.” More specifically, the release stated that the CBO report indicated that the legislation cut the deficit by $138 billion during the first ten years (2010-2019) and “cuts the deficit by $1.2 trillion in the second 10 years.” The CBO analysis stated that the health care bill passed by the Senate, together with the reconciliation proposal, “would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion over the 2010-2019 period as result of changes in direct spending and revenue.” But there was nothing that the CBO analysis identified that the health care bill passed by the Senate, together with the reconciliation proposal, “would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $138 billion over the 2010-2019 period as result of changes in direct spending and revenue.” Pelosi in 2025 is criticizing the DOGE cuts, while there was a bipartisan effort to address the budget in 2010.

As much as Senate Minority Leader Chuckles Schumer(D-NY) is complaining about the DOGE program cutting back the Federal budget, as usual the Democrats repeatedly forget history, specifically their own. In 2010, Chuckles stated that the waste, abuse and fraud in Medicare had to be eliminated. There was pushback from the GOP, led by the Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, former Representative David Camp(R-MI), who stated that money cannot be cut from Medicare. According to Schumer, one third of Medicare didn’t go to patient care, but the GOP didn’t want to cut anything. Chuckles actually was pushing the concept of finding common ground on some of the line items in the Democratic proposed bill. And more amazingly Schumer stated that the Republican Party has always stood for getting rid of the waste, fraud, and abuse in the system. Is this the Chuckles Schumer of 2025? It’s similar in 2009 when he was pushing for the mass deportation of illegal aliens. Now? He flips just like the worst Democratic presidential candidate, the word salad queen, Kamala Harris.

Moreover, in 2011 Obama had signed $1 trillion in discretionary spending cuts into law through the Budget Control Act, and his budget called for more than $340 billion in entitlement savings from Medicare and Medicaid, and $250 billion from other mandatory programs. As part of the 2011 debt agreement Obama cut $1,3 billion in discretionary spending through the Budget Control Act. Together with another $676 billion in discretionary savings through annual appropriations bills and interest savings, this reduced spending by over $2 trillion. The result was that the annual discretionary spending that was projected fell to its lowest levels on record at the time, measured as a share of the economy. Imagine, according to the radical, progressive left, their great hero was pushing budget cuts to shrink the deficit…sounds like what President Donald John Trump is currently doing. Abuse. Fraud. Waste.

In 2011, here’s Obama: “Everyone knows that getting rid of the deficit will require some tough decisions. And that includes cutting back on billions of dollars of programs that a lot of people care about. But what should be easy is getting rid of the pointless waste and stupid spending that doesn’t benefit anybody. We are calling it “The Campaign to Cut Waste.” Obama in 2011 sound just like DOGE, but no one has had the onions to stand tall against the pushback and the persistence to keep moving forward. Obama actually sounded like a moderate instead of the progressive Democratic socialist he is.

In January 2025, the Department of the Treasury reported that if the Federal government reported its finances in the same manner that large corporations are required by law to report theirs, the primary measure of federal red ink wouldn’t be $36 trillion in national debt but $143 trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded obligations. This staggering figure equals 85% of all the wealth Americans have accumulated since the nation’s founding. It also equates to an average burden of $1.1 million on every household in the nation.

At this point, since the DOGE effect kicked, the approximate savings to the US payer is $115B, which is a combination of assets, sales, contract and lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payments, grant cancellations, regulatory savings and restructuring the bloated Federal workforce. Therefore, that is an estimated $714.29 for the 161 million US taxpayers. The agencies being closely tracked are the General Services Administration, Department of Justice(Just look at the time, money and lies used in the Biden lawfare against POTUSDJT), Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Labor, Office of Personnel Management, US Postal Service, Department of the Interior, US Department of Agriculture, Social Security Administration, Health and Human Services and Department of Homeland Security. Abuse. Fraud. Waste.

Washington insiders have long protected these institutions from scrutiny. The federal government’s growing sphere has grown virtually unchecked, with few willing to challenge its expansion, which did happen in 1905, 2010 and 2011. The Biden administration was a loose cannon with our money. Musk’s DOGE is uncovering corruption unlike any fiction write could visualize. 

And despite what alarms the radical, progressive left are sounding, and protesting with stupid and silly signs that Musk is stealing, he’s returning taxpayer money that should never have been spent. He’s making sure to cut Federal waste. Additionally, there are entitlement programs that won’t be touched, including Medicare, Medicaid, despite billions in fraud, Social Security and education funding to the states, along with other Federal Government educational funded programs that will still be under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, possibly HHS. And the unions are pissed because they will lose some control of where the money goes, how much and who gets it. In other words, the unions are losing control. Democrats have been exposed with the funding of their political agendas and are afraid of losing their money train, getting caught for stealing our taxpayer money, and are losing their minds as POTUSDJT and Elon Musk expose their abuse, corruption, fraud and waste. It’s America First as President Donald John Trump pushes to move the US towards common sense governance now and in the future. And eliminating Abuse. Fraud. Waste.

One last thought…just over one year ago the radical, progressive left absolutely adored and supported Elon Musk and his Tesla electric vehicles effect on the environment. And now that he’s doing a service for the country, that same radical, progressive left is fiercely anti-Musk because he’s working on behalf of President Donald John Trump and the aforementioned American people. And in a similar vein, there are domestic terrorists who are torching, vandalizing and tagging Tesla cars and dealerships. Sounds like the left’s actions in 2020 as Minneapolis and New York City were torched. When you got nothing, you act out.

As reported by the New York Post, that as a result of the aforementioned domestic terrorism, three people have been charged with destroying Tesla cars and charging stations and are facing up to 20 years in prison according to US Attorney General Pam Bondi. “The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended,” Bondi said in a statement. She added: “ let this be a warning: if you join this waiver domestic terrorism against the Tesla properties, the Department of justice will put you behind bars.” The defendants are accused of using high powered weapons and explosives to destroy property from the Elon Musk-owned car company. One allegedly carried a suppressed AR-15 rifle while lobbing eight Molotov cocktails at an Oregon Tesla dealership, while another os accused of” trying to light Tesla cars on fire with the same explosives in Loveland, Colorado. And as the vandalism continues against Tesla, its subsidiaries and the owners of the car, not one Congressional Democrat has condemned those actions, similar to their do nothing and say nothing actions to the the burning of Minneapolis and New York City. I guess that these domestic terrorists are adhering to the words of Auntie Maxine Waters(D-CA) to push violence against Trump supporters.

So, can anyone please tell me how the US government takes in more tax revenue than any other country and ends up over $35 trillion in the red? A business cannot stay afloat this way and the US government is a rather big business.