Yahoo Finance:The US economy added 172,000 jobs in May, blowing past expectations, according to the government’s closely watched jobs report. The unemployment rate remained flat at 4.3%.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had anticipated payroll growth of 88,000 for the month.
April’s jobs report — which itself was a massive beat — was also revised to show an even better 179,000 jobs gained, compared to the 115,000 reported earlier. March’s payroll growth was similarly updated to show 214,000, bringing the first monthly gain above 200,000.
Construction up 17K jobs, manufacturing up 7K, leisure and hospitality up 70K (!)
The Jobs Report Delivered a Big Surprise
Heading into today’s release, economists surveyed by major financial outlets expected the U.S. economy to add approximately 85,000 jobs in May while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%. Instead, BLS reported that nonfarm payrolls increased by 172,000 jobs while unemployment matched expectations.
That is not a small beat. The economy generated more than double the expected number of jobs at a time when many investors believed higher interest rates, rising prices, and geopolitical uncertainty would finally begin weighing on hiring. Instead, employers kept adding workers at a pace that suggests the labor market remains remarkably resilient
“This is the best jobs report in Trump’s second administration,” says Acting Labor Secretary Acting Secretary Keith Sonderling
“The jobs reports continue to demolish expectations… we saw 172,000 jobs. The experts, 75/75 ‘experts’ at Bloomberg surveyed predicted 85,000 — so it DOUBLED it.”
The economy added 172,000 jobs in May, more than double the 85,000 forecast, eliminating the case for near-term Fed rate cuts.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-06-06 06:51:222026-06-06 06:51:22SMASHING RECORDS: Huge May Jobs Report DEMOLISHED All Expectations
Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday to testify about his 2027 “America First” State Department budget request.
While most department budgets increase significantly, this is the second consecutive year the State Department continues to make significant cuts, no longer operating as “the world’s ATM.”
“Our foreign policy is one that is solely focused on the interests of the United States of America,” Rubio told the committee. Rubio’s request for a $35.6 billion budget is a 30% decrease from the $51.1 billion enacted in fiscal year 2026.
This effort reflects the Trump administration’s efforts to limit unnecessary global spending and a “bloated bureaucracy.” Most of the spending cuts have been in the U.S. Agency for International Development and grants to nongovernmental organizations, as well as shrinking the department workforce significantly.
Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, began the hearing by congratulating Rubio for implementing this agenda “quite well.” The senator supported the cuts and said the United States is no longer “the world’s ATM.”
Rubio agreed, saying, “The United States government is not a charity.”
The secretary is familiar with this committee, last appearing before members prior to the war in Iran. Rubio is also a former senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The secretary will continue his budget justification tour and will appear before three more committees this week.
On Tuesday, members began challenging him on nearly every issue, including the war in Iran, funding for Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the recent Ebola outbreak in Africa, artificial intelligence, actions against drug cartels in the South Pacific, and his cuts to the department.
U.S. operations in Iran are still underway. The ceasefire continues, but the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for global oil exports, remains closed. The Department of War has increased its budget request 44% to $1.5 trillion, breaking records as the largest increase since the Korean War. It will also likely need supplemental funding to support the war in Iran.
In late April, the Pentagon told the House Armed Services Committee that it had spent $25 billion on the war. Since then, however, reports indicate it could have reached nearly $35 billion.
While the administration is operating by putting America first, Rubio said the United States government needs to be involved in strategic actions abroad “on behalf of American interests.”
“Sometimes in foreign policy the choices are not between a good choice and a bad choice—it’s between two less-than-ideal choices,” Rubio said, standing by decisions he has made as secretary.
Congress is set to vote on, and will likely pass, another funding authorization bill to loan Ukraine an additional $8 billion this week. This would bring the total U.S. aid to Ukraine to nearly $200 billion since 2022.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-06-03 04:51:502026-06-03 04:51:50Amid War in Iran and Funding Ukraine, Rubio Tells Congress the State Department Is ‘America First’
CFACT has officially joined the newly formed Fix the EPA Veto Coalition, a broad alliance pressing the Trump administration to issue a strong executive order reining in the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to retroactively sabotage major energy, mining, and infrastructure projects.
At the heart of the issue is Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act — a little-known provision that gives the EPA power to veto dredge-and-fill permits issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, even years after projects have been approved, funded, and built. While used sparingly in the past, this authority has become a potent political weapon capable of destroying billions in investment and thousands of jobs with the stroke of a pen.
A History of Weaponized Regulation
The precedent that alarms industry most came during the Obama years, when the EPA retroactively revoked a lawfully issued permit for the Spruce No. 1 coal mine in West Virginia — four years after approval. The Biden administration later took the tactic even further, using 404(c) preemptively to kill Alaska’s massive Pebble Mine project before it could even break ground.
This regulatory whiplash creates devastating uncertainty for developers who spend years and hundreds of millions navigating the federal permitting maze, only to have the rug pulled out once they’ve finally secured approval.
Billions at Stake
The stakes could hardly be higher. Under the Trump administration, critical projects now moving forward — including the Alaska natural gas pipeline, Arctic energy development, new LNG terminals, Minnesota’s Duluth Mining Complex, and strategic critical mineral mines across the country — all remain vulnerable to future EPA vetoes.
Every year, the Army Corps of Engineers issues between 60,000 and 75,000 Section 404 permits, supporting roughly $200 billion in economic activity. The looming threat of a retroactive veto hangs like a sword over all of them.
A Clear Solution
The Fix the EPA Veto Coalition is urging the White House to issue an executive order modeled on the Reducing Permitting Uncertainty Act, legislation sponsored by Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN) that has twice passed the House but stalled in the Senate.
The proposed order would:
Establish clear timelines for when veto authority can be used
Prohibit retroactive and preemptive vetoes
Restore consistency and predictability to the review process
Protect projects that already hold permits or are actively moving through permitting
Melanie Collette, CFACT Senior Policy Analyst, emphasized why her organization is proud to join the fight:
“This is exactly the kind of regulatory fix CFACT exists to fight for. The 404(c) veto has been used as a political weapon to kill projects long after investors, workers, and communities have already committed. That uncertainty is a real drag on domestic energy and mineral development, and we want to see the administration close this loophole before the next administration has the chance to exploit it.”
Myron Ebell, Coalition Senior Advisor and leader of Trump’s first EPA transition team, put it more bluntly:
“Going through years of permitting only to have the permit pulled after the fact is a massive obstacle to investing in America. It’s not the kind of regulatory environment a country serious about energy dominance can afford.”
The coalition is calling on the Trump administration to act decisively and deliver the regulatory certainty American industry needs to build, produce, and lead.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-06-01 15:51:202026-06-01 15:51:20CFACT joins the Fix the EPA Veto Coalition
Stephen Miller says the scale of welfare fraud is so massive that eliminating it alone could balance the entire federal budget
“The amount that has been fleeced from us is in the hundreds of billions of dollars.”
“We could balance the federal budget if the only dollars that went out of the treasury went to individuals who were properly, lawfully, correctly eligible to receive them.”
This should infuriate EVERY taxpayer.
Vice President JD Vance tells reporters that in “just two months” the anti-fraud task force he has led for the Trump administration has “exposed billions of dollars in benefits that have been stolen from the American people.” During the roundtable, Vance claims the task force has deferred funds from fraudsters seeking small business loans and Medicaid reimbursements and recovered funds “stolen” from COVID relief programs. Vance says, “We’re protecting the American taxpayers who shouldn’t have their money stolen by fraudsters and of course we’re protecting the people who need these services.”
C-SPAN: The vice president was joined by Andrew Ferguson (the task force chair), Stephen Miller and some 15 state attorneys general. Vance: In just two months, we exposed billions of dollars in benefits that had been stolen from the American people. We referred over $22 billion in fraudulent small business loans back to the treasury for collection. We deferred more than $1.3 billion in fraudulent Medicaid reimbursements that were coming from various states, particularly California…. We recovered taxpayer funds from the $135 billion stolen after the floodgates were open in the immediate aftermath of COVID. We have found $6.3 billion in suspected fraudulent government contracts, which were mostly awarded during the last administration and that has stopped. Finally, we blocked $60 million in student aid fraud that should have gone to young people trying to get an education, but instead we’re going to fraudsters.
From The White House:This is a direct offensive against every fraudulent scheme preying on hardworking Americans — and the results are already staggering.
Red State: More from Ward Clark at Red State: So, the question is this: Why has this been allowed to go on this long? It staggers belief that there wasn’t some indication as to how bad things were before now.
Vice President JD Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force just dropped the HARD NUMBERS from the first 50 days.
$22 billion in fraudulent small business loans referred for collection.
$1.3 billion in bogus Medicaid payments deferred.
$6.3 billion in shady government contracts stopped.
$60 million in student aid scams blocked.
Those all don’t even include in the SIX MONTH hold on fraudulent hospice providers, recovery from the $135 billion post-COVID theft, and 450 charges, convictions, and sentences nationwide including major Medicaid busts in Minnesota, Arizona, and California.
This is REAL ACCOUNTABILITY. Watch the full roundtable to see the complete picture.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-05-28 08:51:242026-05-28 08:51:24Team Trump Says Welfare Fraud Is So Vast It Could Wipe Out The Federal Deficit
Some 215,000 federal civilian employees owed the government money in unpaid taxes in Fiscal Year 2024, according to a May 6 report by the Treasury Inspector General (IG) for Tax Administration. The number grew by more than 40% since Fiscal Year 2021, despite a growth of only 4% in the federal civilian workforce, marking yet another unsung failure of the Biden administration. While the IG proposes partial policy solutions, the extent of tax delinquency among federal workers suggests a deeper, moral crisis.
In Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 (which ran from October 2020 to September 2021), some 149,000 federal civilian taxpayers (4.9% of the workforce) were behind on their taxes. This could possibly be related to the COVID pandemic, but government employees were paid regularly throughout that period.
However, since then, the delinquency rate only skyrocketed. In FY2022, 180,000 federal civilian employees (6.0%) were delinquent. In FY2023, delinquency reached 191,000 employees (6.2%); and in FY2024, the number hit 215,000, or 6.9% of the workforce. Over this period, the federal civilian workforce only grew by 4%, from 3.0 million in FY2021 to 3.1 million in FY2022.
As the delinquency rate increased, so did the amount of money owed by federal employees in federal taxes. In FY2021, delinquent federal civilian taxpayers owed $1.5 billion. But, in FY2024, they owed $2.1 billion.
When the IG expanded the scope of its review from federal civilian employees to include both employees and retirees, it found that the problem only increased in scale, though at a slightly lower rate. In FY2021, some 401,000 federal civilian employees and retirees (4.0%) owed $4.8 billion in unpaid taxes. By FY2024, 572,000 employees and retirees (5.7%) owed $6.3 billion.
The IG anticipated a question many readers would ask themselves: which federal departments have the highest rates of employee noncompliance? The U.S. Postal Service topped the list, with 10.1% of its employees owing $570 million in unpaid taxes. Next was the Veterans Administration, where 7.3% owed $379 million in taxes. After that, the order becomes jumbled, with between 5.4% and 7.1% of civilian employees in various military and security departments (including each of the Army, Navy, Defense, and DHS) owing between $145 million and $115 million.
The IG report implied that one reason for the high delinquency rates in some departments is a legal information barrier that hampers accountability. “Delinquency rates among employees are partially dependent on whether agencies can hold employees accountable for their lack of tax compliance,” it stated. “The Treasury Department is permitted to hold employees accountable for tax delinquencies. As a result, the Treasury Department’s 2.4 percent delinquency rate is relatively low compared to other federal agencies.”
However, “Due to privacy restrictions under Internal Revenue Code Section 6103, the IRS cannot share specific employee related tax information with the delinquent employee’s federal agency,” it added.
Beyond this long-term, systemic issue, the IG report suggested that the recent rise in federal employees not paying taxes was due to the suspension of collection programs during COVID. “IRS Collection management attributed the year-to-year increase to the temporary pauses of levy programs, the Automated Substitute for Return program (an enforcement tool to address nonfilers), and collection notice issuance during the pandemic and recovery years,” the report concluded. “The IRS began a phased-in resumption of the levy program in August 2024 and anticipates that the delinquency rates will decrease in the coming years.”
Effectively, the IRS simply suspended its tax collection enforcement mechanisms for the pandemic and didn’t bother restarting them until around four years later — months from the next presidential election.
The IG report included some data suggesting these measures were successful. For instance, the IG got the IRS to mass-issue one-time notices to the delinquent federal employees. After issuing the notice, the IRS collected $58 million, the report said. Fifty-nine thousand employees made a payment, and 4,700 paid their full balance.
But that still only offers a partial solution. Less than half of the federal employees who owed taxes responded to the notice. The problem goes deeper than COVID-era enforcement suspension, and thus it requires a deeper solution.
This point is also evident from the IG’s finding that “approximately 50,000 federal civilian employees failed to file a tax return for multiple years.” There were 25,438 employees with two “unresolved” years, 13,687 with three, 6,209 with four, 2,761 with five, 1,020 with six, 381 with seven, 102 with eight, and 20 employees who had not filed a tax return in nine or more years.
For the 122 employees with eight or more unfiled tax returns, the IG “referred these taxpayers to Criminal Investigation for review because the IRS’s Collection function had not.”
Such a revelation is shocking. Amid the busyness of life, the possibility of exigent circumstances, and natural human limits, it is conceivable that someone may innocently forget to file his or her taxes once, perhaps even twice in a row (failing to file in non-consecutive years is unlikely due to needing to provide your past years’ AGI on your current year’s return.) Even still, it is nearly impossible for the ordinary American to avoid the omnipresent tax service ads that appear each spring, making it nearly impossible for anyone to forget to file taxes at all.
But for a person to not file taxes at all for the better part of a decade, no explanation presents itself except that the person refused to file taxes as a deliberate choice. That is, well-paid employees who persistently fail to file tax returns seem to be operating under the belief that the rules apply to everyone else, just not to them.
Furthermore, these are not just ordinary citizens, going about their lives with so little interaction with the federal government that they forget it even exists (as blissful and utopian as that may be). These are federal employees. They think about the federal government every working day of their lives because it is literally their boss. They also have a greater understanding than the ordinary citizen about the importance of federal funding and what it achieves.
Federal employees love to bear the title, “civil servant.” And there are many conscientious, hardworking federal employees for which this label is true. But the term “civil servant” implies a person who serves the public. Those who take a salary from Uncle Sam but refuse to return his cut to the common pot are better describing as “leeching off of” the public than “serving” it.
“Federal employees are held to a higher standard to file and pay their taxes since their compensation is primarily from federal taxes,” the IG report concluded. “As the agency responsible for administering federal tax law, the IRS must ensure that federal employees comply with the tax law to maintain the public’s confidence.”
As one negative side-effect, the report suggested, “If taxpayers are aware that federal employees are not tax compliant, it may impact their willingness to comply with their own tax matters.”
In other words, if private citizens notice and imitate the bad example of federal employees, it could result in fewer taxes paid all around. “Bad company ruins good morals” (1 Corinthians 15:33).
Perhaps that explains how federal employees started down the road to not paying their taxes in the first place. Federal employees are primarily overseen by politicians. Perhaps, over decades of selfish rule, America’s federal workforce has gradually learned from their political bosses the art of believing the rules do not apply to them.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-05-16 06:51:222026-05-16 06:51:22215,000 Federal Civilian Employees Were Tax-Delinquent in 2024: IG Report
New York City may be broker than a barista with a college degree but that isn’t stopping socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani from funding his activist army.
On Wednesday, the mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement rolled out a program called “Organize NYC” that’s billed asopens in a new tab a “long-term initiative to bring mass public participation into the work of governing.”
The first thing these paid activists will do is to get people to participate in the Rent Guidelines Board hearing in June.
Volunteers will canvass across the city to encourage tenants and landlords to testify ahead of the board’s June vote, which will determine whether rents increase or remain the same for more than 2 million New Yorkers.
This vote mainly has to do with a potential further rent freeze in the city.
The mayor’s office said in a statement that these publicly paid community organizers “will not advocate for any specific outcome,” but you can bet that critics of the program aren’t buying itopens in a new tab.
If you have any doubts about what that totally, absolutely neutral program is about, just watch a few minutes of the ad pumping this grift.
Yes, “Mohammed” in the commercial here is wearing a keffiyeh, which has become a symbol of Palestinian “resistance” to Israel and is often worn by members of Hamas.
Even some Democrats weren’t too pleased with this sartorial choice.
“It’s all intentionally divisive and hateful,” former Democrat state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said to the New York Post on Saturdayopens in a new tab. “This man is representing the administration. If someone came to my door with a keffiyeh, I’d immediately be nervous.”
But that’s only a small part of the issue with Organize NYC.
In a separate New York Post editorialopens in a new tab on Sunday, John Ketcham and Christian Browne—two Manhattan Institute scholars—called out Organize NYC as an attempt to create a thinly veiled, “taxpayer-funded effort to embed campaign-style political organizing inside city government, dress it up as civic virtue, and deliver Mamdani’s campaign promise under a veneer of official neutrality.”
That certainly seems to be the case.
As the authors noted, Mamdani’s office has been vague about how much money the utterly broke city government facing a “historic” budget crisisopens in a new tab will be sending Organize NYC’s way.
It’s clear what Mamdani is doing. He’s funding his activist class and making sure that public money is going to his people while using them to bolster numbers for their pet causes. As I wrote when he wonopens in a new tab the election in November, Mamdani will “provide an ample training ground for his socialist comrades to gain experience wielding power.”
This is a small but critical part of that larger goal. And you can be sure this model will be copied elsewhere.
The leftist Dissent Magazine celebratedopens in a new tab Mamdani’s initiative to keep activists activated. Though even it had to acknowledge that “pushing against the limits of what is perceived as acceptably ‘political’ within the confines of city government will be one continuing challenge for the Office of Mass Engagement.”
You can be sure that not only will Mamdani lean heavily on this organization in New York City, but the Left will launch similar efforts elsewhere.
That’s why what happens in New York, unfortunately, matters beyond the limits of the five boroughs. Mamdani’s revolution is a pilot program for a socialist government that the Left hopes to scale up and spread elsewhere. Never mind that the previous pilot programs didn’t turn out too good. Surely, True Socialism will work this time, right?
Right now, Mamdani and company are focused on consolidating, ensuring they keep control long after their popularity plummets.
Once Democrats and the Left gain power, they focus immediately on cementing itopens in a new tab, ensuring that their people get the fruits of patronage, and that public money flows toward their pet projects, their people, and away from their enemies.
Whether their policies or other activities serve the broader public matters a lot less than ensuring their own people are taken care of.
You can see why the Left’s activist class, their NGO network, and their hordes of government bureaucrats remain so committed to the cause despite obvious governing failures.
Those failures are your problem, not theirs.
From their perspective, the government doesn’t really have to provide clean streets, efficient services, law and order, or anything like that. It’s about spoils and special benefits, with a little redistribution and social engineering on the side.
This is one of the many reasons so many of our big, blue cities seem utterly dysfunctional despite so many economic advantages.
Unfortunately for New York, Mamdani is doing everything his predecessors did wrong and making things worse. But he’s doing this while cleverly ensuring that even if his socialist experiments fail, there will be nothing anyone can do about it.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-05-07 11:51:352026-05-07 11:51:35Mamdani Uses Taxpayer Money to Build a City-Funded Activist Army
Anyone who thought that Governor Hochul. Hochul, the organ grinder’s monkey, would perhaps moderate Zohran Mamdani was sorely mistaken. Hochul is all in on Mamdani’s taxation policies. What wealthy individual would want to invest or live in New York City at this point? The message is unmistakable: they won’t keep bankrolling a city that treats them like suspects and shakes them down at every turn.Expect the once Big Apple to go bankrupt before Mamdani is done.
New York isn’t just losing residents—it’s bleeding the very people who pay the bills. The exodus of wage earners is at record highs, and the old hedge—keeping a pied-à-terre while earning elsewhere—is collapsing. The message is unmistakable: they won’t support a city that treats them like suspects and robs them blind. Close the second home, cut the ties, and move on. What was once a world capital risks becoming a monument to a once great city.
Celebrating: “When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich. Well, today, we’re taxing the rich.” The plan will allow New York to tax second homes that are not the owners primary residents. It will certainly be one more reason to encourage the wealthy to wash their hands and find another market for their real estate investments. Fox News: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrated a proposal to tax luxury second homes owned by the ultra-wealthy, a plan expected to generate at least $500 million annually. Earlier in the day, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul unveiled a pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes in New York City valued at $5 million or more, allowing the city to impose an annual surcharge on ultra-wealthy nonresidents. The proposal is projected to generate at least $500 million annually, according to Hochul.
Mamdani is celebrating because he effectively pushed Hochul two or three steps further left, yielding to socialist mayor’s agenda. New York Times: Another factor in the proposal’s favor is that it is not being considered as a stand-alone bill; Ms. Hochul intends to include it in the state budget. Under that scenario, the tax proposal will not be voted on separately. It will instead be largely hashed out in closed-door negotiations between the governor and the leaders of the Senate and Assembly. That will make it harder for the tax’s opponents, including the Real Estate Board of New York, a powerful industry group, to lobby effectively against the proposal.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani have reached a deal that will add a new tax on luxury second homes in New York City in an effort to reduce part of the city’s budget gap.
The tax would apply to one – to three-family homes, condominiums and co-ops worth $5 million or more and owned by homeowners with a primary residence outside the five boroughs, City Hall said in a press release.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-04-18 15:51:282026-04-18 15:51:28Mamdani, Hochul Agree to Tax on Luxury Second Homes in New York City
President Donald Trump and Republicans are hoping to cash in politically on the extra amount of cash in Americans’ wallets this Tax Day.
Across the country, Americans are cashing in on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s tax provisions and receiving a boost from real wage growth in the Trump economy.
“This tax season, nearly half of all filers have claimed tax cuts that every single congressional Democrat voted against,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told The Daily Signal.
The financial relief from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now commonly referred to as the Working Families Tax Cuts by Republicans in Congress, has become a major talking point for the GOP in recent months, as the party argues that strong economic fundamentals have helped soften the economic impact of the war in Iran.
Key Provisions Target Workers, Families, and Seniors
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently announced that “nearly half of all filers” have benefited from at least one of the benefits included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s tax cuts. More than 4.6 million have claimed no tax on tips; nearly 20 million have claimed no tax on overtime.
The largest provisions included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act include the child tax credit, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, senior deductions, and deductions on car loan interest.
Daniel Kowalski, director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, noted to The Daily Signal other provisions that are making an economic impact. “OBBB provisions, such as permanent full expensing of business equipment, stimulate business investment and drive increased productivity, which leads to higher real wages for workers,” Kowalski said.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, even though inflation is rising, wages are also increasing. From February 2025 to February 2026, average wages increased faster than inflation, resulting in higher real wages.
The IRS reported that cumulative refunds reached $221.7 billion at the start of March, a 13.6% increase from 2025, and almost a 20% increase since Joe Biden was in office in 2024. The average refund is set to be over $3,500, an 11% increase from last year.
“The Working Families Tax Cuts show, once again, that Republicans are putting hardworking Americans first, while Democrats obstruct and make life harder for the American people,” Emmer continued.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told The Daily Signal he thinks the rebrand of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to the Working Families Tax Cuts is worthwhile. “People are very pleasantly surprised at the amount of refunds they are getting, and it’s made a big difference,” Johnson said.
“What’s been made pretty obvious is Republicans now are the party of working Americans and Democrats the party of illegal immigrants,” Johnson claimed.
Iran War and Energy Costs Cloud Economic Outlook
The war in Iran, the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, and increasing oil costs will “probably have a pretty big impact” on the economy, Johnson also claimed.
But Johnson believes the tax cuts “will certainly counteract any of the negatives of the war in Iran.”
Johnson reiterated that without the tax cuts, there would have been “a massive automatic tax increase” because the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was set to expire. The staved-off tax hike was expected to cost Americans trillions of dollars in taxes.
“Whether it’s no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, the increased child tax credit, or the Social Security tax deduction, everyday Americans are the real winners of Republicans’ historic tax cuts,” Emmer concluded.
According to federal government data, the government loses more taxpayer dollars every year to fraud than it spends on the entire budgets of several Cabinet agencies. Thank goodness President Donald Trump has launched the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud and directed Vice President JD Vance to lead the effort.
The Government Accountability Office recently conducted a government-wide study to get an idea of just how much fraud costs taxpayers. That study estimated annual fraud losses to be between $233 billion and $521 billion. On the low end, that would pay for the entire budgets of the departments of State, Commerce, and Labor, and there would still be enough left over to pay for NASA; on the high end, you could add to the budgets of those departments the budgets of the departments of Education, Energy, Justice, and Interior.
That’s an awful lot of money to lose to deliberate theft every year. Keep in mind, we’re talking solely about fraud, not its siblings, waste and abuse.
The Trump administration is determined to address the fraud problem. He chose his highest-profile public address of the year (and the biggest audience of the year, which goes with it) to make the announcement; during his State of the Union address in late February, Trump announced a War on Fraud.
The very next day, Vance announced a pause on $260 million in federal government payments to the government of the state of Minnesota, home to a massive social services fraud that’s been unfolding over the last several years, and which could end up costing taxpayers as much as $9 billion. Vance announced the payments would be frozen until the state government put systems in place to show that the money was going to its intended recipients.
The implementation of the Trump administration’s “war on fraud” began with the announcement of the creation of a White House task force. It was followed by the vice president’s announcement of the pause on the cash flow to Minnesota. Those two steps were only the start.
In addition, the administration created a new senior position at the Department of Justice to focus on the problem. That position, the assistant attorney general for national fraud enforcement, has been filled by Colin McDonald. McDonald is a veteran federal prosecutor who has most recently been serving as associate deputy attorney general, the right-hand man to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
McDonald has the right kind of experience. In one particular case, when he was working as an assistant U.S. attorney in Southern California, he prosecuted the Honolulu police chief and his wife, along with two Honolulu police officers, for conspiracy and obstruction of justice for their roles in a public corruption scandal.
Demonstrating the White House’s commitment to the effort, Vance explained that the new assistant attorney general for national fraud enforcement will take direction from the president and the vice president.
Creating new positions and task forces and appointing people to fill out the org chart are important moves, but they’re only first and second steps on the road. The real test of the Trump administration’s commitment to its war on fraud will be what it does with those people and with others it’s already had working on the problem.
Early signals are encouraging.
For instance, the focus on Minnesota right out of the gate is important because the fraud there is centered on the state’s generous social services programs. Medicaid in particular is vulnerable to scammers. Its federal-state match, in which federal dollars heavily outweigh the states’ contributions, provides all the incentive needed for state-level welfare state bureaucrats to look the other way and fail to police their systems properly.
The vice president’s task force might also want to keep an eye on New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani, an admitted democratic socialist, recently appointed Julie Su to serve as deputy mayor for economic justice. Su, who served as President Joe Biden’s acting secretary of labor, famously oversaw between $30 billion and $40 billion in fraudulent payments in her previous position as director of California’s Employment Development Department. Letting the new mayor know folks in Washington are keeping an eye on his administration might be a good preemptive strategy to help reduce or even prevent fraud before it ever occurs.
Theft of taxpayer funds is a cancer on the body politic. It’s long past time that the federal government took action to eliminate it. Thank goodness Trump and Vance are on the job.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
Jenny Beth Martin is honorary chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action. Jenny on X: @jennybethm,
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-04-14 10:52:262026-04-14 10:52:26President Trump’s War on Fraud
The field of economics fully developed scientifically in the 20th century. The names John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek come to mind. However, one additional man became the one most referenced in the last part of the 20th century and continues as such today. That man is Arthur Laffer. The Joint Committee on Taxation of the U.S. Congress recently released a report telling us Laffer is even more accurate than previously thought.
Laffer became famous upon his recognition as adviser to President Ronald Reagan before and after the 1980 election. Laffer has a top-notch pedigree, including degrees from Yale and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford. He then spent time at the University of Chicago. He was a colleague of Friedman, among others, while at Chicago.
Most people associate Laffer with Reagan, but he became notable in 1974 when presenting his thoughts to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld as part of the Ford administration. It was then that he drew his famous thought on a napkin to illustrate his beliefs about government’s raising tax rates.
The bell curve drawing was named the “Laffer curve” by Jude Wanniski, who was sitting in on the meeting. The legend was thus born, and the Laffer curve has become one of the most discussed economic ideas related to government levels of taxation. Ronald Reagan used it as his basis for the Reagan tax cuts in 1981 and 1986.
The simple idea of the proposal is that higher tax rates are ineffective in creating revenue. Lowering marginal tax rates increases government revenues. If tax rates are raised, revenues will decrease.
I have had vivid debates with people on the left about this economic concept. They instinctively think the idea is counterintuitive. As is often the case, these folks have ideas of how government works in theory, but when reality is different they choose to ignore reality. I encourage them to look at the four major periods where rates were cut during the Kennedy, Reagan, Bush, and Trump administrations.
Review the records of federal government revenues after the tax rates are adjusted down, and anyone can see that revenues escalate significantly during all four periods. The political left wants to spend oodles on government programs that largely waste money. If reduced tax rates produced more revenue, they should get behind the idea. Empirical evidence does count for something.
If a policy produces more tax revenue, can someone characterize it as a “tax cut”? It is a rate adjustment, not a tax cut.
A recent study from the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, authored by Rachel Moore, Brandon Pecoraro, and David Splinter, examined previous studies of the Laffer curve. It found that Laffer’s theory was even better than was previously suggested by those studies. Many previous studies used tax bases either too broad or too narrow, and the new study draws attention to those flaws.
“Prior studies, however, largely overlook the Laffer curve’s shape, rely on simplified tax functions, and often omit shifting across business types and tax interactions,” the authors write. “We show that modeling distinct tax bases more accurately and incorporating these interactions lowers the revenue-maximizing top tax rate and the associated revenue gains, yielding ‘flat’ Laffer curves.”
When I asked Laffer about the new paper, he stated, “This paper is a huge step in the right direction, and the research is very impressive. But, in the long-term context of settling the academic debate, there is much further to go.”
“It’s long been true that the U.S. government could collect all of the revenue it currently collects with two flat rate taxes of approximately 12% each: one on unadjusted gross personal income and the other on value added at the corporate level—no deductions, no credits,” he continued. “Any tax rates beyond this level are, based on research, in the prohibitive range of the so-called Laffer curve.”
“When looking at the world, incentive rates should always be used when deriving behavioral issues, not tax rates per se. The question always to ask is: Where is the tradeoff between giving money to people who don’t work and cutting tax rates on people who do work?”
Simply put, the prior studies of the Laffer curve used imprecise tax assumptions. Using more accurate current tax information produces even surer results that benefits decrease when income tax rates are raised. Increased tax rates are less beneficial for creation of tax revenues than previously thought.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-04-13 22:51:172026-04-13 22:51:17The Laffer Curve Is Even Better Than We Thought
A report from a government watchdog organization released Thursday highlights inaccurate projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The report released by Open the Books spotlights decades of CBO projections and finds that while routine estimates were normally reliable, projections tied to larger legislation missed the mark. According to the report, the CBO’s scoring is generally accurate, although projections for major legislation frequently are missed by wide margins, with revenue estimates showing larger deviations over time.
The report notes that CBO’s miscalculations have continued to grow over the years. From 1983 to 2024, the average error in CBO projections was 6%, according to the report.
In February 2009, the CBO projected that a $25 weekly unemployment insurance bonus would cost taxpayers $39.2 billion over a ten-year period. After six years, the CBO issued a revised estimate showing it would actually cost $64 billion, a 63% increase over initial projections.
Notably, the Affordable Care Act, passed under the Obama administration, became one of the largest federal expenditures and was more expensive than the initial CBO cost estimate in 2010, which projected $788 billion. When the CBO conducted another estimate two years later, it ballooned to $1.76 trillion, a 123% jump.
Michael Solon, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the issue may extend beyond legislative scoring alone, arguing that broader economic forces often outweigh policy changes.
“The economic factors are far more important than the legislative factors,” Solon said, noting that shifts in economic growth can have a significantly larger impact on federal revenues than individual pieces of legislation.
Solon noted that legislative estimates draw the most attention, but they represent only a small slice of what drives budget outcomes.
“Scoring is not forecasting.” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the CBO, told the DCNF. Holtz-Eakin argued that the process guarantees to make the CBO marginally inaccurate.
When asked about the large miscalculation with the ACA, Holtz-Eakin noted, “The baseline they were scoring off was more than a year and a half old. Of course it was going to be wrong.”
“The ACA looks different in 2012 than it did when it was first passed,” Holtz-Eakin said “There’s no way CBO can anticipate that,” he further stated.
The CBO didn’t immediately respond to questions from the DCNF about the report.
The report also noted that the CBO plays a significant role in shaping legislation, as the office works directly with legislators during the bill-writing process.
The costs for running the CBO ballooned to $75.8 billion in fiscal year 2026, an 8.2% jump from the previous year. The CBO is also exempt from complying with the Freedom of Information Act; information such as salaries remain hidden from the public according to the report.
The CBO’s primary focus on budgetary projections has shifted slightly since the early 2000s, as it has become involved in climate-related policy. Over the years the budget has become inflated with climate-related funds, and currently nears $1 trillion.
LIVERMORE, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 13: An aerial view of wind turbines at the Altamont Pass wind farm on January 13, 2026 in Livermore, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The report highlights the CBO’s flaws in analyzing climate data. In 2021, the CBO released “Budgetary Effects of Climate Change and of Potential Legislative Responses to It.” In the report, the CBO flagged climate change as a risk to budget deficits, adding that mitigation or adaptation could reduce climate change costs, but that the “benefits of successful investments would generally accrue gradually over many years and might be only partially reflected in future savings to the federal budget.”
As the rising national debt approaches $40 trillion, unfunded liabilities including Social Security and Medicare will increase as baby boomers continue to retire, further straining the federal budget. These mandatory spending programs account for approximately 60% of federal spending.
A decline in the U.S. Labor force participation rate is expected to further strain the already bloated federal budget, with the rate dropping to its lowest level since 1977, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The report calls for greater transparency, higher accuracy and reduced reliance on the CBO as the sole authority for budgetary and economic information in Congress.
Republican Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr introduced legislation in 2025 to strengthen budget accountability, requiring the CBO to publish supplemental analyses of major legislation before major legislation receives a vote. “Washington’s budget process is broken, and part of the problem is that there’s no accountability when reality doesn’t match the promises made to get legislation passed,” Barr said in a statement.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-04-10 05:51:222026-04-10 05:51:22EXCLUSIVE: Watchdog Says Congressional Budget Office’s Calculations Have More Holes Than Swiss Cheese
What happens when AI meets one of America’s biggest problems, housing? In this episode of The AI Guys, we sit down with Patrick Murphy, former Congressman and CEO of TogalAI and CodeComplyAI, to unpack how artificial intelligence could help reduce housing costs, speed up construction, and cut through government delays. It is a sharp conversation about where AI can create real-world impact far beyond chatbots and hype.
We dig into why construction productivity has barely moved in decades, how outdated estimating and permitting workflows slow everything down, and where AI can remove friction without replacing human judgment. Patrick breaks down how machine vision is changing blueprint analysis, why pre-construction may be the biggest opportunity in the industry, and how government itself could become one of the best use cases for AI. The result is a bigger conversation about efficiency, housing supply, and what an AI-first future could look like for builders, cities, and everyday Americans.
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to The AI Guys for more conversations on how AI is reshaping business, government, and society. Let us know in the comments whether AI could actually help solve the housing crisis, or if government and industry are still too slow to change. Subscribe for more real-world AI breakdowns, and check out the links below for more resources and follow-up content.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-04-06 20:51:342026-04-06 20:51:34How AI Could Fix Government Delays and Build More Housing
Multiple senior HHS officials estimate that, under Gavin Newsom, California’s state Medicaid program has lost 25 percent of its budget to fraud. This would mean it is currently losing $50 billion a year to scammers, fraudsters, and organized crime rings.
The scale is staggering: more lost to fraud than many states spend in total.
City Journal: Gavin Newsom wants California to be a model for the country. City Journal: Californians are beginning to ask: Where is all this money going? On paper, it funds hospitals, universities, schools, prisons, infrastructure, and other public services. But beneath the surface, something else is happening that California Governor Gavin Newsom does not want you to see: massive, systematic, brazen fraud. We conducted interviews with public officials, fraud experts, and political figures, and reviewed hundreds of pages of government reports, state audits, criminal indictments, and other public records on California fraud. From unemployment insurance and Medicaid to failed homeless initiatives and welfare programs, seemingly every state program has been compromised by criminals. The best estimates suggest that, on the governor’s watch, fraudsters, scammers, and organized crime rings have stolen at least $180 billion from taxpayers. Welcome to Gavin Newsom’s empire of fraud.
The scale of the fraud reported here is staggering. California is losing $50 billion a year to Medi-Cal fraud alone.
That’s more than 29 states spend on their entire budgets.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-04-03 16:51:262026-04-03 16:51:26NEWSOM’S EMPIRE OF FRAUD: 25% of California Medicaid Looted as Billions Vanish Under Newsom
Minnesota Rep Krista Knudsen says they just found out the state TURNED OFF tracking for money being sent overseas
They turned it on for two weeks. Saw all the money leaving, and Democrats quickly SHUT OFF TRACKING to allow it to keep happening
“Today in the fraud committee, the Department of Human Services testified that they haven’t been tracking the IP addresses of money that’s being literally flown out of our state and where it’s going.
They did turn on that reporting for two weeks, and they found that yes, a lot of those IP addresses were tied to overseas computers, and then they quickly shut it off after just two weeks of seeing where this money is actually going”
“Every time we turn around, it’s just more and more fraud scandals in our state”
(St. Paul, Minnesota) – A Minnesota state representative is raising serious concerns about how taxpayer money was handled, claiming officials tracked funds leaving the state and heading overseas before ultimately shutting the program down.
Rep. Krista Knudsen says state agencies were aware of suspicious financial activity tied to ongoing fraud investigations but failed to act immediately. According to her claims, money was traced out of the country before intervention occurred.
The allegations come as Minnesota continues to grapple with multiple fraud-related scandals that have drawn scrutiny from lawmakers and watchdog groups.
State officials have not publicly detailed the full scope of the claims, but the situation is likely to intensify calls for tighter oversight and accountability in how public funds are monitored.
My analysis of the Results was that the 2026 Forida Legislative Session was a miserable failure under Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Danny Perez. 1,896 bills were submitted and only 192 general bills (impacting all of FL) and 44 local bills for total of 236 passed or 12% – 10% if just consider general bills. See Handout.
No state budget was passed with a 1.4B difference between House & Senate – special session called for late April to pass a budget which must be done by July 1 or state will enter into a partial shutdown.
Every one of the bills or resolutions introduced to decrease state property taxes failed.
Lawmakers maintain they want to put a measure on November ballot but are now expecting to negotiate a proposal also in a special session. Another issue relates to reapportionment of state districts which is also being discussed to be added to the special session.
WH 912 tracked 41 bills we thought were good ones; unfortunately only 4 of them passed both houses. Some passed in House only to die in Senate mainly in the Rules Committee or Laid on Table. There were other bills filed that were good but were not on our radar and some passed.
We also tracked 12 bad bills mostly introduced by Democrats but a few by Republicans – fortunately, all 12 failed/dies. Some were anti-2A; one was a Republican submitted bill to form a new surveillance LE group which looked like FL version of terrible Fed Patriot Act and several were anti-ICE bills.
I don’t have time to go over all of the good bills that passed and several that failed but I’m going to quickly highlight a few.
First a brief summary of a few key ones which passed:
SB 484 – to ensure residents don’t pay more for utilities involving Data Centers which use loads of power.
HB 757 – Allows colleges and university faculty and staff to be appointed as armed guardians trained by Sheriff’s Depts.HB 991 – FL SAVE Act to require citizen verification to vote. Starting 2027, state must verify voter’s citizenship using driver’s licenses and in some cases other govt. records like birth certificates and passports.
SB 1134 – prohibiting counties and communities from funding or promoting DEI programs under the guise of equal opportunity.
HB 1217 – Banning govt entities from enacting, enforcing or instituting by resolution, ordinance, rule, code or policy any net zero policies to reduce greenhouse emissions.
SB 1296 – to require unions to have stronger support in order to stay certified eg a majority of employees still required but at least half represented by union would also need to participate in elections. Further public employees can not be paid while performing union activities including lobbying and advocacy.
Now let’s look at other key bills, 3 good and 2 bad which failed:
HB 133 – good bill that passed in House but failed in Senate – would have removed the unconstitutional anti-2A clause in FL Red Law which prohibits 18-20 year old folks to own/possess long guns.
HB 197 – good bill which would’ve expanded E-Verify, a federal platform used to check worker eligibility to all businesses not just companies with 25 or more employees.
CS/HB 354 – Blue Ribbon Projects – failed bad bill we opposed which would have reduced local control and facilitated more rampant development of rural areas
HB 657 – good bill reigning in HOAs by creating a process for homeowners to dissolve an HOA and allow circuit courts to set up “community association court programs.” Would have increased penalties to board members who break the rules.
HB 945/SB1741 – failed bad bill we adamantly opposed – would have created a new surveillance agency under FDLE which looked like a state version of the terrible national Patriot Act which ill defines “domestic terrorists” and in hands of Democrats could be used for political lawfare just as Patriot Act was used under Obama/Biden; however they did pass HB 1471 which created a state process to designate certain groups as domestic terrorist organizations.
Sources of Information presented as well as additional information on 2026 FL Legislative Session follow:
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-03-28 14:51:222026-03-28 14:51:22Reveiw of the Results of the 2026 Florida Legislative Session: A Miserable Failure
President Trump signs an Executive Order committing to seek out and crush fraud with a new Anti-Fraud Task Force.
“If we found half of the fraud that’s taking place in this country… we would have much more than a balanced budget. That’s the kind of numbers you’re talking about.” – President Donald J. Trump
ESTABLISHING THE TASK FORCE TO ELIMINATE FRAUD:
Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order creating the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which will advise the President and coordinate government-wide efforts to combat widespread fraud, waste, and abuse in Federal benefit programs.
The Vice President will serve as Chair of the Task Force, the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission will serve as Vice Chairman, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security will serve as Senior Advisor, and an Executive Director will manage daily operations. Relevant cabinet secretaries and heads of government agencies will serve as Task Force members.
The Order directs the Task Force, on behalf of the President, to coordinate a comprehensive national strategy to stop fraud, waste, and abuse across Federal benefit programs, including housing, food, medical care, and cash assistance administered with State and local partners, in order to protect these benefits for eligible Americans.
The Task Force will coordinate measures to improve eligibility verification, implement pre-payment controls, detect high-risk fraud trends, and disrupt and dismantle fraud networks and the mechanisms through which fraud is committed.
The Task Force will also coordinate development of minimum anti-fraud requirements to prevent exploitation of taxpayer-funded benefits, including proof of identity and documentation requirements, risk controls, and audit and remedial actions, while each member agency’ works to develop a measurable implementation plan.
The Task Force will provide frequent updates to the President regarding its work.
STOPPING FRAUD, WASTE, AND ABUSE IN FEDERAL BENEFITS: President Trump is restoring the integrity of taxpayer-funded safety-net programs that have been exploited by illegal aliens, criminals, foreign gangs, bureaucrats, and non-governmental organizations.
States administer many of these benefit programs funded by the Federal Government, yet some have embraced policies that avoid individual eligibility validation, permit self-certification, and expand eligibility far beyond Congressional intent, while refusing to even share enrollee data necessary for reasonable Federal oversight — creating systemic vulnerabilities that enable fraud at massive scale.
In July 2025, 21 states filed a lawsuit in California seeking to block the federal government from even conducting a basic review to determine whether their enrollees are in fact eligible for taxpayer-funded benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
In Minnesota alone, Medicaid fraud could total billions. Nearly 9% of food stamp spending is in error, and scams like Feeding Our Future stole nearly $250 million intended for needy children.
Hundreds of millions in Federal childcare funding were stolen by an organized ring involving Somali immigrants, spent to purchase cars, property, and luxury travel, and even allegedly funneled to one of Africa’s most heinous terror groups — all while State officials ignored or failed to detect the fraud.
There is strong reason to believe similar vulnerabilities exist in California, Illinois, New York, Maine, and Colorado, where insufficient safeguards and weak oversight increase the risk of large-scale fraud.
Fraud and mismanagement of these programs constitute theft from American taxpayers and eligible beneficiaries, contribute to inflation in essential goods and services, and add to the national debt.
The Biden Administration weakened Federal oversight by reducing commonsense verification safeguards, expanding access without adequate controls, tolerating unacceptable error rates, and creating conditions in which fraud was institutionally enabled and tolerated.
President Trump is committed to safeguarding Federal benefits for American citizens who are truly in need, rather than allowing them to become a free pass for fraud.
DELIVERING FOR TAXPAYERS: President Trump is using every tool to fight fraud, close loopholes, and ensure benefits only go to eligible Americans.
President Trump: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”
In February 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order to ensure taxpayer resources are not used to incentivize or support illegal immigration.
In March 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order eliminating information silos in the Federal Government to stop waste, fraud, and abuse.
In March 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order to improve the Department of the Treasury’s ability to screen for improper payments and fraud, track transactions, and manage the Government’s disbursements.
In April 2025, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum aimed at stopping illegal aliens and other ineligible people from obtaining Social Security Act benefits.
In January 2026, Vice President JD Vance announced a new division at the Department of Justice dedicated to national fraud enforcement.
The Administration has taken extensive action to dismantle Minnesota’s fraud epidemic, including temporarily pausing certain Medicaid funding to the State to prevent payment of questionable claims while further investigation occurs.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose and Policy. American taxpayers fund a vast benefits system for citizens in need that includes housing, food, medical care, cash assistance, and more. States administer these federally funded programs, and some States have embraced loopholes that avoid individual eligibility validation, allow self-certification of eligibility, and expand eligibility far beyond what the Congress intended. Worse, despite accepting Federal funds, some States have refused to institute basic fraud controls such as providing enrollee information to the Federal Government that would allow it to verify eligibility. As a result, illegal aliens, criminals, foreign gangs, bureaucrats, State and local officials, non-governmental organizations, and ineligible providers exploit these programs ‑- which are intended to provide a safety net to lawfully eligible Americans — with ease. This exploitation and lack of controls to prevent it have resulted in widespread fraud, waste, and abuse at the expense of the American taxpayers who pay for and utilize these programs, contributing substantially to the national debt.
Self-dealing political actors use such public benefits programs to solidify control over their communities and our political systems. Due to lax immigration policy and immigration fraud, certain public officials admit into our country, and provide sanctuary from Federal immigration laws to, migrant populations who are likely to rely on means-tested, public assistance programs (welfare) and increase the political support and power of the public officials providing the benefits. This increased support incentivizes public officials to maximize the flow of welfare to these communities and makes public officials who do so more powerful. Many of these public officials then fail to police these programs — and in some cases, willfully turn a blind eye to fraud, waste, and abuse within them — to ensure that welfare flows to these migrants. Due to insufficient election integrity measures, some migrants who are not eligible to vote do so anyway, with the same public officials permitting widespread ballot harvesting schemes that compromise our election integrity and help these public officials remain in power.
The staggering fraud and waste in Minnesota alone is a case in point. Federal prosecutors in the State estimate that Medicaid fraud in recent years could total in the billions. Nearly 9 percent of the roughly $866 million spent on food stamps in Minnesota each year is estimated to be spent in error. The non-profit Feeding our Future engineered a scam that stole nearly $250 million intended to feed needy children in Minnesota by opening fake meal sites and submitting fraudulent claims for millions of meals that were never served. One of the defendants in this scam was also charged with submitting false claims to an autism services program that was subject to widespread fraud. Hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal childcare funding to Minnesota were stolen by an organized ring of Somali immigrants and others who used the stolen money to purchase cars, property, and luxury travel, and sent the funds overseas. The Federal Government is investigating allegations that some of the United States taxpayer dollars subject to fraud in Minnesota were even funneled to one of Africa’s most heinous terror groups. All of this was ignored or undetected by State officials. There is also strong reason to believe that similar problems exist in other States, including California, Illinois, New York, Maine, and Colorado. In fact, Minnesota and 20 other States filed a lawsuit to block the Federal Government from even conducting a basic review to determine whether their enrollees are in fact eligible for taxpayer-funded benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Such extensive, undetected fraud could only exist in a system that ignores it.
Fraud and mismanagement in these programs constitutes theft of the hard-earned tax dollars from Americans paying into these programs, and of the benefits owed to Americans who need them. The failure to ensure sufficient Federal oversight to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse has allowed irresponsible State politicians to increase Federal spending in their own States, which has contributed to inflation for health care services, housing, utilities, and groceries.
Making matters worse, the previous administration adopted policies that weakened the Federal Government’s oversight of State administration and distribution of Federal funds under these programs, including by reducing commonsense verification measures, expanding access without adequate controls, tolerating unacceptable error rates, creating conditions in which fraud was institutionally tolerated and therefore flourished, and enabling individuals with substantial means to improperly access benefits.
My Administration will use all available resources and authorities to fight fraud, close loopholes, enforce eligibility rules, and protect benefits for eligible Americans, while ensuring States administering Federal benefits programs do the same.
Sec. 2. Establishment of the Task Force. (a) There is hereby established within the Executive Office of the President a Task Force to Eliminate Fraud (Task Force).
(b) The Vice President of the United States shall serve as the Chairman of the Task Force. The Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission shall serve as Vice Chairman of the Task Force, shall preside over the Task Force at the direction of the Chairman or in his absence, and shall exercise all powers of the Chairman herein defined at his direction or in his absence. The Chairman shall designate an Executive Director, who shall administer and execute the day-to-day operations of the Task Force, and who shall report to the Vice Chairman. The Assistant to the President for Homeland Security shall serve as the Senior Advisor to the Task Force.
(c) In addition to the Chairman, the Vice Chairman, and the Senior Advisor, the Task Force shall include appropriate representatives from the following executive departments and agencies (agencies), or components:
(i) the Department of the Treasury;
(ii) the Department of Justice;
(iii) the Department of Agriculture;
(iv) the Department of Labor;
(v) the Department of Health and Human Services;
(vi) the Department of Housing and Urban Development;
(vii) the Department of Education;
(viii) the Department of Veterans Affairs;
(ix) the Department of Homeland Security;
(x) the Small Business Administration;
(xi) the Office of Management and Budget; and
(xii) other agencies, inspectors general, or components within the Executive Office of the President, as determined by the Chairman.
(d) The Chairman or the Vice Chairman shall convene regular meetings of the Task Force, determine its agenda, and direct its work, consistent with this order. The Executive Director shall assist in the performance of these duties. The Chairman may designate any member of the Task Force to preside over meetings of the Task Force in the absence of the Vice Chairman.
(e) The Task Force shall coordinate with the Homeland Security Council on any matters related to law enforcement, public safety, national security, transnational crime, and organized criminal activity.
Sec. 3. Operation and Priorities of the Task Force. (a) The Task Force shall, on behalf of the President, coordinate and accelerate a comprehensive national strategy to stop fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs, including programs administered jointly with State, local, tribal, and territorial partners. The Task Force shall advise the President and, on behalf of the President, shall coordinate the work of appropriate member agencies to:
(i) develop measures to improve eligibility verification processes in Federal benefits programs and maximize enforcement of eligibility requirements, including program-specific requirements and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996;
(ii) develop appropriate controls that operate before funds are obligated or disbursed to prevent improper payments in Federal benefits programs, including by coordinating agency action to determine when ongoing fraud or potential fraud require proactively pausing certain types of funding until such controls can be established;
(iii) evaluate indicators of fraud and high-risk vulnerabilities to fraud, including major fraud trends and cross-program and large-scale schemes, which shall include considering the current and potential use by member agencies of third-party contractors to maximize efficacy in detecting fraud;
(iv) promote the facilitation of information and data sharing and coordination between State, local, tribal, and territorial governments and the Federal Government, and benefit-providing agencies and law enforcement agencies;
(v) disrupt and dismantle fraud networks and facilitators, including providers, contractors, or other entities and repeat cross-program offenders through interagency information sharing and coordination;
(vi) investigate and disrupt the mechanisms through which fraud is committed, including any mechanisms involving facilitation of fraud by Federal, State, local, tribal, or territorial officials;
(vii) prevent remittance transfers that involve the proceeds of Federal benefits fraud, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law;
(viii) audit and ensure prospective compliance monitoring, including for use in identifying fraud in Federal benefits programs; and
(ix) analyze identifying information for all providers or retailers associated with redemption of benefits to inspect for fraud and develop a process by which member agencies recommend policies for wide‑scale revalidations or reauthorization to deter fraudulent providers, as appropriate and to the extent consistent with applicable law.
(b) Each agency administering Federal benefit programs shall, consistent with applicable law, provide to the Task Force information concerning such programs that the Task Force deems relevant to advising the President and coordinating efforts to uncover benefits fraud and increase fraud-detection capability.
(c) The Task Force shall be subject to the President’s direct supervision and control. The Task Force, through the Chairman, shall provide frequent updates to the President regarding its work and shall ensure that its actions are consistent with the President’s directions.
Sec. 4. Improved Controls and Fraud-Prevention Measures. (a) Each agency administering Federal benefit programs represented on the Task Force shall identify the agency’s benefit transactions and processes that are most susceptible to fraud schemes, which may include new enrollments, redeterminations, provider enrollments, eligibility self-attestation procedures, changes to payment destinations or payees, or transactions involving third party intermediaries. Within 30 days of the date of this order, each such agency shall submit to the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Task Force descriptions of such transactions and processes and suggested measures to prevent such fraud.
(b) Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Task Force shall coordinate member agency efforts to adopt, as appropriate, minimum anti-fraud requirements for transactions and processes identified under subsection (a) of this section to prevent fraud and loopholes that allow for systemic abuse and exploitation. If such transactions and processes involving Federal funding are administered by a State, local, territorial, or tribal jurisdiction, then the Task Force and appropriate member agencies shall address how such jurisdictions can demonstrate implementation of the anti-fraud requirements. The Task Force and its member agencies also shall examine and recommend, as appropriate, any ways that Federal funds may be withheld from jurisdictions that do not have adequate anti-fraud requirements. Specifically, such anti-fraud requirements may include:
(i) screening, proof of identity, and eligibility verification;
(ii) pre-payment integrity and risk controls, including affirmative documentation requirements concerning services provided;
(iii) information- and data-sharing processes, updated criteria, minimum integrity checks, cross-program risk indicators, and coordinated recovery and enforcement pathways to prevent immigration sponsor and beneficiary and household-related related fraud, abuse, or improper usage;
(iv) appropriate use of providers, vendors, contractors, nonprofit organizations, intermediaries, and service organizations; and
(v) audit and remedial measures, including suspension, termination, repayment, exclusion, and debarment actions, as appropriate.
(c) Within 90 days of the date of this order, each member of the Task Force shall submit to the Chairman and the Vice Chairman of the Task Force a measurable implementation plan concerning the measures identified or developed under this order.
Sec. 5. Administration. The heads of other agencies shall, upon the request of the Chairman or the Vice Chairman, provide administrative and technical support, or information required by the Task Force to carry out its functions.
Sec. 6. Maximizing Taxpayer Pursuit of Fraud Involving Taxpayer Dollars. The Attorney General shall:
(a) take appropriate action to promote the meritorious pursuit by private persons of civil actions under 31 U.S.C. 3730 concerning fraud within Federal benefit programs; and
(b) ensure prompt review of such actions, including within the 60-day period contemplated by 31 U.S.C. 3730(a)(4) to the maximum extent practicable.
Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
(d) The costs for publication of this order shall be borne by the Department of the Treasury.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-03-18 11:52:332026-03-18 11:52:33Presidential Order Establishing an Anti-Fraud Task Force headed by Vice President JD Vance
One unavoidable side-effect of gasoline prices being prominently posted in front of every roadside service station is that Americans remain constantly aware of the volatile fluctuations in gas prices. Since the start of President Trump’s military action against Iran, the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded fuel has jumped from $2.98 on February 28 to $3.72 on March 16. World oil prices, which ended December under $60 per barrel, have now reached as high as $106 per barrel (as of this writing, they sat at $93 per barrel). With a jump like that, not only Americans but the entire world is taking notice.
The current spike in oil and gas prices is a direct result of the U.S. military’s combat against Iran. Instead of acting like a responsible state that follows the laws of war and spares non-combatants, the Islamist Iranian regime reacted by launching missiles indiscriminately at all its neighbors, including at civilian targets.
Iran’s indiscriminate attacks have not spared international commercial shipping, including oil tankers. Since the conflict began, U.K. Maritime Trade Operations has recorded at least 14 reported attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf or Strait of Hormuz. This has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, as the owners and crews of those vessels naturally do not wish to become foolhardy casualties of war. (Notably, Iranian and Chinese ships continue to sail through unmolested.)
This closure affects global oil markets because the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf produce 20% of the world’s oil supply, and their crude oil must pass through the strait to reach global markets. (The Strait of Hormuz, which separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula, is the Persian Gulf’s only outlet to the sea; at its narrowest point, it measures a mere 24 miles across, no wider than the Amazon River in the rainy season.)
Global oil markets, in turn, affect U.S. gas prices because of the basic principles of supply and demand. Under normal circumstances, the U.S. only imports a small amount of oil from the Persian Gulf, around 2%, while countries like China and India import a much larger quantity. However, when the oil supply from the Persian Gulf is cut off, all the countries that did buy its oil still have the same demand for oil, and they go looking for other suppliers to make up the difference. Thus, an impact on the oil supply in one area of the world will affect oil prices globally.
American strategists have long considered an oil price shock due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to be an expected — or at least likely — consequence of war with Iran. “Planning around preventing this exact scenario — impossible as it has long seemed — has been a bedrock principle of US national security policy for decades,” CNN quoted an anonymous former security official.
Yet, to hear CNN tell it, the Trump administration did not prepare for this likely scenario at all. “Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz in response to strikes,” the original version of the article claimed.
Such an outrageous claim was bound to be challenged. “Of course, for decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” responded Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth. “This is always what they do: hold the Strait hostage. CNN doesn’t think we thought of that. It’s a fundamentally unserious report.” The National Review editors note that Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Iran against closing the Strait just last year, and that one of the Trump administration’s stated goals in the current conflict is to degrade Iran’s capability to do so.
CNN’s story now includes the following “CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect additional developments and clarify that top Trump administration officials briefed lawmakers on long-standing military plans to address a major disruption to the Strait, according to one official, but that multiple sources familiar with the session said there was no indication there were any near-term solutions.”
There’s a big difference between, “The Trump administration totally forgot to account for this glaring vulnerability,” and, “The Trump administration considered the vulnerability but doesn’t have a near-term solution for it.”
As in all of life, politics is about trade-offs, and particularly so in war strategy. The Wall Street Journal reports that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine briefed President Donald Trump on Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz with mines, drones, and missiles. “Trump acknowledged the risk … but moved forward” anyway, they wrote. “He told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait — and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.”
In hindsight, this assessment was clearly too optimistic, but every war strategy suffers from setbacks, accidents, and unknowns. On the other hand, allowing Iran the time to build more missiles and potentially a nuclear weapon could have resulted in even worse consequences.
The reason why the U.S. Constitution invests executive power in one individual is so that one seasoned leader can be responsible for weighing the various tradeoffs and reaching a final decision. In other words, the U.S. presidency exists to make hard decisions just like this one. And those who don’t like the decisions Trump makes had their opportunity to elect a different president.
While the heightened price of gas and oil is causing Americans undeniable pain at the pump, the National Review editors allow that “None of this is catastrophic. The price of Brent crude settled above $100 a barrel on Friday. That’s the highest in four years, not in, say, 60 years. But the clock is ticking.” Indeed, oil prices hit $113 per barrel in June 2022 and $128 per barrel in July 2008. In between, oil prices peaked in April 2011 ($108 per barrel), March 2012 ($105 per barrel), August 2013 ($102 per barrel), and June 2014 ($98 per barrel). So, administration critics do have legitimate grounds to hit Trump over high gas prices, but only as hard as they hit President Joe Biden for the historic inflation in 2021-2022.
That said, the Trump administration is not doing themselves any favors in public perception by appearing desperate and unprepared for this eventuality. The Trump administration has promised military escorts for oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, but they have yet to work out the logistics. Meanwhile, the U.S. issued a 30-day waiver for countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil — after President Trump slammed U.S. allies for doing just that — offering Russia’s tottering regime an invaluable financial lifeline.
Errors of strategy and judgment are inevitable in war, even when a superpower like the United States is dominantly pummeling a stubborn rogue regime like that of the Iranian mullahs. But just because the Trump administration has fumbled one snap does not mean that they failed to call the right play. A turnover can be costly, but the only thing that matters is the scoreboard when time expires.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-03-17 23:51:332026-03-17 23:51:33Oil Prices, Strategic Trade-offs, and the Strait of Hormuz
The partial government shutdown has entered its 25th day as over 50,000 airport employees manage the spring break travel season without pay while the conflict in Iran escalates.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is calling on lawmakers to end what it calls the “Democrat shutdown” of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as airport security lines spill outside into parking lots and terrorism threats to the U.S. increase. President Donald Trump slammed Democrats Monday night for not funding DHS — of which the TSA is an agency — and accused them of “deliberately sabotaging our national security,” following reports that Iran activated terrorist sleeper cells in the United States.
“This chaos is a direct result of Democrats and their refusal to fund DHS. Stop holding our national security and everyday Americans hostage!” TSA’s X accountposted Monday.
“Enough is enough,” TSAposted to X on Sunday. “The Democrat shutdown of DHS must end!”
The partial shutdown marks the third time TSA agents are working without pay in nearly six months, according to the White House. Airports from Houston to Tampa to New Orleans are facing security checkpoint lines with waiting times as long as three hours.
DHS funding lapsed Feb. 13 after lawmakers in the upper chamber failed to reach a deal on sweeping immigration reforms. Despite Democrats’ efforts to implement reforms, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is still fully funded through Trump’s signature legislative accomplishment, the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).
Republican Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, who is overseeing negotiations with the White House and Senate Democrats on behalf of Senate Republicans, highlighted the financial stress the shutdowns place on vital workers.
“So you have people like a TSA officer who went without pay for 43 days in the previous Democrat-led shutdown, and here they go once again. The financial insecurity that comes from that is tremendous,” she said in early March. “We heard reports of officers sleeping in their cars at airports to save money on gas, selling their blood and plasma and taking on a second job to make ends meet. Some are just recovering from the financial impact of the 43-day shutdown and many are still reeling from it.”
Also in the third week of the partial shutdown, U.S. intelligence reportedly intercepted Iranian communications to activate sleeper cells, sparking outrage among Republicans on Capitol Hill. Democrats threaten to extend their funding halt of the department unless Trump ceases military operations in the Middle East.
In addition to impacts TSA, the partial shutdown cut off resources from the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA), federal law enforcement officers and the U.S. Coast Guard, bringing the tally of unpaid workers to over 100,000.
Just one-third of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) staff are on the job amid the shutdown, according to CISA Acting Director Madhu Gottumukkala. The employee shortage significantly impairs “cyber security response, security assessments, stakeholder engagements, training exercises and event planning.”
Gottumukkala told House appropriators in February the Iranian regime also uses cyberattacks and has previously targeted American water treatment facilities, energy infrastructure and hospital networks.
Daily reminder that Democrats blocked funding for HOMELAND SECURITY including the Coast Guard, Secret Service, and TSA.
ICE and CBP are still funded and will continue to deport criminal illegal aliens.
— Senator Katie Boyd Britt (@SenKatieBritt) March 9, 2026
The U.S. is also preparing to host both the FIFA World Cup in Los Angeles this June and the America 250 celebration in Washington D.C. as FEMA grants face further delays for host cities.
“The FIFA World Cup designated Special Event Assessment Rating (SEAR) 1 and 2 events will take place across multiple cities in just a few months. Finally, critical preparations are already underway for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” DHS Deputy Director Matthew Quinn said in February. “This critical work will continue during a shutdown, in many cases, on the backs of our greatest resource – the men and women of the Secret Service.”
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-03-11 15:51:252026-03-11 15:51:25TSA Calls To End Now 25 Day ‘Democrat Shutdown’ With Airport Lines Out The Door, Terror Threats Abounding
The January inflation reading offered encouraging signs for consumers and the U.S. economy, with the Consumer Price Index coming in below Wall Street expectations and falling to its lowest level in nine months.
“Inflation fell to the lowest level since May, and key items such as food, gas and rent are cooling off,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, said in an email. “This will provide much-needed relief for middle-class and moderate-income families.”
Here are five takeaways from today’s CPI report, which tracks changes in prices of goods and services across the U.S. Inflation came in cooler than expected. Friday’s report showed that inflation in January dipped to 2.4% on an annual basis, a shade below economists’ forecasts of 2.5%.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-03-06 09:51:142026-03-06 09:51:14Inflation Slowed to 2.4% in January
A turning point in the contest for influence across the Americas
On February 23, 2026, Panama took a decisive step to reclaim control over the Balboa and Cristóbal ports, ending the long-standing concession held by Panama Ports Company, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings.
The move followed a January 29 ruling by Panama’s Supreme Court declaring the original 1997 concession unconstitutional.
While this decision affirms Panama’s sovereignty, it also marks a significant strategic victory for the United States.
The Panama Canal is not merely a commercial passageway. It is one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints, facilitating roughly 5 percent of global maritime commerce.
Think of the canal as a highway owned by Panama. The ports are the toll plazas and freight hubs attached to that highway.
Although Panama controls the waterway itself, a Hong Kong–based firm managed the terminals at either end. That doesn’t mean China controlled the canal — but it did mean a Chinese-linked operator had access to shipping flows, manifests, and logistical data tied to a critical global chokepoint.
Nearly 40 percent of container traffic moving through the canal is tied to U.S. interests. For American industry, agriculture, and military logistics, its uninterrupted and secure operation is indispensable.
Under the prior arrangement, concerns emerged over the strategic implications of Chinese-linked management overseeing port operations adjacent to the canal.
In an era of intensifying U.S.–China competition, access to sensitive shipping data — including cargo manifests, transit schedules, and logistical patterns — presents vulnerabilities that extend beyond commerce into national security.
The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, led by Rep. John Moolenaar, raised alarms about these risks, particularly the canal’s role in supporting U.S. military readiness and supply chain resilience.
Safeguarding more than $270 billion in annual cargo from potential exposure to adversarial influence is not a theoretical concern — it is a strategic imperative.
The court’s ruling also addressed longstanding economic issues.
The previous concession reportedly cost Panama an estimated $1.3 billion in lost revenue due to exemptions and non-competitive terms. The forthcoming rebidding process opens the door to more transparent and competitive investment, including participation from U.S.-backed groups seeking to modernize infrastructure and improve efficiency.
This shift aligns with broader U.S. diplomatic efforts in the Western Hemisphere.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has criticized Chinese Communist Party encroachments near the canal as inconsistent with the spirit of longstanding neutrality agreements. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department has emphasized the importance of fair opportunities for American firms operating in strategically sensitive sectors.
At stake is more than port management.
The canal represents leverage in times of crisis. Ensuring that it remains free from undue external influence protects not only commercial shipping lanes but also the operational mobility of the U.S. Navy.
In a region where Beijing has steadily expanded its economic footprint, Panama’s decision signals a recalibration toward balanced sovereignty rather than dependency.
Hong Kong authorities have protested the ruling, and CK Hutchison has reportedly faced market repercussions — signs that the decision reverberates beyond Panama’s borders. For the United States, however, the outcome strengthens hemispheric stability and reinforces the principle that critical infrastructure in the Americas should not become an extension of great-power rivalry.
Economically, secure and efficiently managed ports bolster American trade routes and reduce vulnerability to global disruptions. Strategically, the development counters broader Chinese initiatives across Latin America that seek long-term geopolitical influence.
In an era defined by competition among major powers, control over infrastructure is inseparable from national strength. Panama’s ruling affirms its sovereignty while contributing to greater security and stability across the Western Hemisphere.
For the United States, it is a reminder that vigilance over strategic assets is not optional — it is essential.
Dr. Alexis “Alex” Littlefield, is former Chief of Staff for Christian Action Network, holds a PhD in International Politics and has coordinated high-profile events with congressional staff and administration officials, including assistant secretaries and agency heads. Subscribe to his personal Substack page.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2026-02-27 11:51:172026-02-27 11:51:17Reclaiming the Canal: America’s Strategic Win Over Chinese Influence
