HOUSING SCANDAL: Biden Regime Making Mortgage Payments for a MILLION Homeowners in Default Fueling Higher Housing Prices thumbnail

HOUSING SCANDAL: Biden Regime Making Mortgage Payments for a MILLION Homeowners in Default Fueling Higher Housing Prices

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By The Geller Report

Huge scandal. The Democrat-run federal government is/was using income tax/payroll tax revenues to pay for other people’s homes in default.

The problems began with the Obama administration…..

Biden’s Mortgage ‘Relief’ Fuels Higher Housing Prices

It has created another subprime housing bubble and put taxpayers at risk. Trump should end it.

By: Allysia Finley,Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2025:

Why do housing prices keep climbing despite higher interest rates? The federal government has allowed borrowers to take out bigger mortgages than they can afford. To prevent foreclosures, it’s bailing them out when they miss payments. Behold another subprime housing bubble.

Why do housing prices keep climbing despite higher interest rates? The federal government has allowed borrowers to take out bigger mortgages than they can afford. To prevent foreclosures, it’s bailing them out when they miss payments.
Behold another subprime housing bubble.

The problems began when the Obama administration eased underwriting standards by enabling more home buyers whose debt payments exceed 43% of income to qualify for government-backed loans. Such borrowers are risky because they might not be able to make payments if their income drops or expenses rise.

As home prices climbed, the Federal Housing Administration insured more loans to financially stretched borrowers with as little 3.5% down. No skin off lenders’ backs if borrowers later defaulted, since the mortgages were backed by the government.

In 2007, 35% of new FHA borrowers had debt-to-income ratios above 43%. By 2020, 54% did. As housing prices and inflation surged, borrowers became more stretched. The FHA kept insuring mortgages to borrowers who were increasingly leveraged. About 64% of FHA borrowers last year exceeded the 43% threshold.

The FHA loan portfolio is far riskier than it was before the 2008 housing crisis. The American Enterprise Institute’s Ed Pinto and Tobias Peter estimate that 79% of FHA first-time borrowers have a month or less in financial reserves—not enough to make mortgage payments if their household expenses rise, as most have owing to inflation.

No surprise, many are missing payments, especially recent borrowers. About 7.05% of FHA mortgages issued last year went seriously delinquent—90 or more days past when a payment is due—within 12 months. That’s more than at the 2008 peak of the subprime bubble (7.02%).

Under the guise of Covid relief, the Biden administration masked the growing troubles in the housing market by paying off borrowers and mortgage servicers to prevent foreclosures. Of the 52,531 FHA loans last year that went seriously
delinquent within their first year, only nine resulted in foreclosure.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

POST ON X:

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Agrees To Put Taxpayer-Funded Union Work Back Under Microscope After Joni Ernst Request thumbnail

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Agrees To Put Taxpayer-Funded Union Work Back Under Microscope After Joni Ernst Request

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By The Daily Caller

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will again report on how much time and money federal employees spend on union activity after a hiatus during the Biden administration following a request from Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa.

Ernst and Republican Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas urged OPM to resume reporting taxpayer-funded union time (TFUT), also known as “official time,” when Ernst introduced the “Protecting Taxpayers’ Wallets Act of 2025” on Feb. 11. Ernst praised the Trump administration for the decision, as revealed in a Feb. 27 memo provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation, in which OPM Acting Director Charles Eskell directed agencies to resume tracking TFUT.

“I am thrilled to see the Trump administration restart the reporting of taxpayer-funded union time, so the American people know just how much money bureaucrats are paid not to work,” Ernst told the DCNF. “Federal employees should be serving taxpayers, not themselves, during the workday. If they want to engage in union activity, they need to refund taxpayers for every last penny.”

Shouldn’t government employees be working in the office? Or is this more taxpayer-funded union picketing?

Either way, tax dollars shouldn’t be funding this.

Playtime is over!

pic.twitter.com/UG60PZytEO

— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) February 11, 2025

The Feb. 27 memo orders federal agencies to provide information on the job positions held by employees carrying out union activities on taxpayer time, whether or not they engaged in telework, the total number of hours employees spent on union time and information on the use of government materials and office space.

Ernst requested that government agencies provide information on TFUT in December. Ernst’s office received information from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) about TFUT for fiscal years 2023 and 2024.

The data from NRC showed one employee, a project manager, who earned $171,469 a year, spent over 99.5% of their time on union work in fiscal year 2023, while a project manager earning $166,393 per year also spent over 99.5% of their time on union activities in fiscal year 2024. Three other employees, listed as reliability and risk engineers, earned at least $163,000 a year in the NRC data and spent at least 48% of their time on union activities during fiscal years 2023 and 2024.

Ernst previously uncovered abuses relating to “official time,” with one employee moving to Florida and working in real estate while on the arrangement, while another employee claimed to be on “official time” while being jailed following an arrest for drinking and driving.

Federal employees spent 2.6 million hours, the equivalent of almost three centuries, on union activities, costing taxpayers at least $135 million in fiscal year 2019, according to Ernst, who cited data from OPM. Unions also used at least $24 million in office space and supplies paid for by taxpayers.

AUTHOR

Harold Hutchison

Reporter.

RELATED ARTICLES:

EXCLUSIVE: Republicans Take Aim At Taxpayer-Funded Union Activity

EXCLUSIVE: GOP Senator Reintroduces Bill To Boot One Agency’s Bureaucrats Outside The Beltway

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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.

Let That DOGE Keep Running thumbnail

Let That DOGE Keep Running

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By Karen Schoen

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” Henry Ford

Always follow the money. DOGE follows the money. The more DOGE exposes, the crazier the democrats sound. They are defending the indefensible and frankly they just sound stupid.

Conservative, RINO, lawyer, and liar, George Conway said President Trump’s bold changes to the federal government reveal an effort to “destroy” its institutions and exact “revenge” on the country.

Wrong, George! Trump wants to destroy the institutions that ARE exacting REVENGE and DESTRUCTION on the country. Trump intends to clean the dirt and grime of the government’s sausage-making process, and strip away the Deep State and its power.

Joy Behar said that Elon Musk was from S. Africa and was “pro-apartheid” and a foreign agent during ‘The View’. Elon was 10 years old when he came to America. She had to apologize.

Governor JB Pritzker, D-Illinois, said that grocery prices are so high because we are losing our democracy. Is there a democracy aisle in the grocery store that I missed?

DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLAYBOOK

Massive debt for American Taxpayers

Each time DOGE uncovers some fraud, these democrats defend the program and want more money to be spent to guarantee its continued existence.

Excessive inflation.

I don’t. The only time they mention inflation is to try to get us to believe that the cost of eggs on the rise is Trump’s fault. They forget that Biden forced farmers to slaughter millions of chickens for a disease they made up. Side note: the wall is working. Eggs in Mexico are $2 a dozen. while eggs here in the states are around $7 a dozen, and rising. American chickens didn’t infect the Mexican chickens. Maybe we should import eggs? American chickens didn’t infect the Mexican chickens. Maybe we should import eggs.

Funding Perversion.

Regardless of what the people want, the Democrat leaders want boys in girls’ sports, Drag queen story hours, trans surgery at the whim of a child who can’t read, write or do math. Allowing a child that isn’t even 18 years old to make life-altering decisions about their bodies, that has long-term, catastrophic consequences and implications.

Taxpayer Giveaways to criminals who want to destroy America.

Recently, Rep Tim Burchett wrote a letter to President Trump, requesting that we stop funding the Taliban. DOGE found that they are not the only terrorist group that we fund!

Equal Suffering and Misery for all. 

Exactly where was FEMA after our I.S. natural disasters? What happened to all the FEMA budget? According to DOGE, the budget allocated for U.S. natural disasters was diverted to cover illegal immigration expenses. Think about that!

Watching America Implode.

Democrats fail because they Fail to Plan, so they Plan to Fail. Democrats are unable to offer concrete solutions Doing solutions to problems. They think if they throw enough money at something, it will fix itself. So, Democrats are big proponents of Tax and Spend, and Tax Again! Doing the same failed programs over and over, and expecting different results shows just how insane the Democratic Party has really become.

Deflecting Blame, Avoiding Accountability and Responsibility. 

Democrats are highly skilled at deflecting blame and framing someone else for problems. Instead of offering solutions, they would rather continue to hate and fund perversion and destruction. How pathetic is that?

EXPOSED!!

The light bulb went off. The adults are now in the room. The real problem of the Dems and RINOS is THAT THEY CAN’T STAND THE FACT THAT THEY ARE BEING EXPOSED. The mask has fallen off. Dirty laundry is out on the line for everyone to see! We are on to them, and we are enjoying watching them squirm.

I just got an email telling me that the Republicans are suffering from Buyers Remorse, because jobs are being cut. They still don’t get it.

We elected Trump to do exactly what he is doing,

THIS IS HIS JOB AND THE MANDATE FROM THE AMERICAN VOTERS!

We love the fact that he tells us along the way, what he’s up to. We know he throws ideas out for comment. We don’t expect all of them to work, but it gets us talking. MAGA Republicans knew that federal jobs are on the chopping block. We voted for Trump, because he said he will SHRINK the government. That means cut jobs.

How many people did Clinton fire? About 400K. How many people did Clinton deport? Over 10M.

Between Bush and Obama, over 5 million jobs were lost. Obama told the people in the energy sector to learn to code, when he cut their jobs. Biden didn’t care about the people when he lied and closed small businesses from Covid. The difference is that Obama and Biden closed small businesses – mostly Republican. Trump is eliminating government jobs — mostly Democrat.

They just don’t like it when the shoe is on the other foot.

I also hear that Trump didn’t keep his promises from his first term. Let us remember:

Trump couldn’t fulfill many promises because he was constantly attacked by Dem and RINO liars: Impeachment 1, Russia, Russia, Russia; Impeachment 2, for a phone call daring to request that the Biden crime family be investigated. RINO Ryan slow-walked everything, refusing money, and had no ACA replacement plan. Pelosi, who refused to give money for a Wall, and fought every program with lies, made up the J6 committee of corrupt liars, who are busy destroying evidence as we speak.

We are still living under the Biden-Harris Budget with their insane spending. inflation will continue to rise until the budget is reached. Trump is trying to curb inflation with Executive Orders, but these EOs must be followed-up with laws that STICK. What can we do? We need to make sure our legislators vote for a BUDGET, not a CR in March. We had a win with the House budget, now it’s time to work on the Senate.

Prepare for HARD TIMES. Stock up now, so you won’t have to buy later. Buy necessities, not luxuries. It will likely take 2+ years to work through this Biden-Harris Budget mess.

Anyone stupid enough to think that Trump could have fixed anything with the opposition he is getting from the elected liars and cheats, is living in a dream. Common sense tells us this economy takes time to fix. We all know the Left has no plan, except to complain, deflect, and obstruct. In a perfect world, we would all try to figure ways to cut spending and shrink the government. But that’s not going to happen as long as the left’s platform is HATE,

It’s critical to understand DOGE, how it works, its role in the government shrink plan, and what it is they find. Don’t be fooled by the numbers. A little bit added together from a lot of agencies equals a lot. Don’t be fooled by Lefty Liars. Trump tells us more than any other President, keeping us in the loop. We have to listen, and do OUR PART in helping to make this plan happen. THAT MEANS YOU!!

Join me and my guest Sally from American Statesman, on The Prism Of America’s Education, as we discuss how DOGE really works! I found a great article I want to share with you. Please share it with others!

©2025 . All rights reserved.

USPS Will Replace All Census and Thousands Of Social Security Workers, Another $50 Billion DOGE Savings For U.S. Taxpayers thumbnail

USPS Will Replace All Census and Thousands Of Social Security Workers, Another $50 Billion DOGE Savings For U.S. Taxpayers

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By The Geller Report

Howard Lutnick unveils plans to use USPS to conduct Census instead of spending billions.

Brilliant news.

The Post Office lost $9.5 billion last year. Drastic action is mandatory.

USPS workers will also replace 20,000 Social Security workers.

“We spend $40 billion every 10 years doing the census. And that means we hire 625,000 people. And they go, and they rent cars and gas, and you pay them food… They go to every household and count the people.”

“What department do we already have that already employs 625,000 people? It’s got cars, already has gas, and goes to every household. [Answer: USPS].”

“They can go to your house when you have a baby and give you the form for Social Security. And the 20,000 Social Security officers that we have, we just don’t need them. We actually can do real customer service.”

“Let’s use the assets of the government to make us better and save us money.”

THIS IS GENIUS! Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick just announced plans to use the Postal Service to conduct the Census instead of wasting billions.

WATCH: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick: U.S. Postal Service to conduct the Census saving billions.

USPS workers will also replace 20,000 Social Security workers.

“We spend $40 billion every 10 years doing the census. And that means we hire 625,000 people. And they go, and they rent cars and gas, and you pay them food… They go to every household and count the people.”

“What department do we already have that already employs 625,000 people? It’s got cars, already has gas, and goes to every household. [Answer: USPS].”

“They can go to your house when you have a baby and give you the form for Social Security. And the 20,000 Social Security officers that we have, we just don’t need them. We actually can do real customer service.”

“Let’s use the assets of the government to make us better and save us money.”

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy signals exit after nearly 5 years

USPS Announces Changes To First-Class Mail, Other Services

“Extremely Dire”: FAA Assesses Communication System Close To Catastrophic Failure, SpaceX Sends Starlink Terminals at NO COST to Taxpayer

USAID Paid Time Magazine $4 Million Dollars to Name Zelensky “Person of the Year”

CNN’s Biden Mental Health Co-Conspirator Jake Tapper Co-Authors Book About Media’s Cover Up of Joe Bidens Cognitive Decline

Soros Groups Behind Astroturfing Demonstrations at Anti-DOGE Republican Townhalls

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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PODCAST: Department of Defense Wasteful Spending

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By Conservative Commandos Radio Show and AUN-TV

GUESTS AND TOPICS:

JEREMY PORTNOY

Jeremy Portnoy is an Investigative journalist with OpenTheBooks.com.  His work has also been seen on SB Nation, The Daily Caller, WND, Longview News-Journal, The Political Insider, KNBN-TV (Rapid City, SD), The Statesman, Herald/Review Media, And many others.

TOPIC: Department of Defense Wasteful Spending

DR. RICH SWIER

Dr. Rich Swier is a conservative with a conscience.  Rich is a 23 year Army veteran who retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for his years of service. Additionally, he was awarded two Bronze Stars with “V” for Valor and Heroism in ground combat, the Presidential Unit Citation, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry while serving with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam.   Dr Rich now publishes the the “drrichswier.com report”.  A daily review of news, issues and commentary!  Dr Rich has a new book out, “DISSENT: The Highest Form of Patriotism ”

TOPIC:  I have a dream that beginning on January 20, 2025

©2025 . All rights reserved.

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Kink and Fetish Chats in Our Intelligence Community?

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By Majority Report

A Scandalous Betrayal: How Our Intelligence Community Turned National Security into a Depraved Free-for-All 

Well, well, well. If you thought the only danger of our intelligence agencies was leaking classified information, think again. The real scandal isn’t what’s leaving these agencies; it’s what’s happening inside them.

Thanks to the bold reporting of Christopher Rufo and Hannah Grossman, we now know that the NSA and CIA have been hosting what can only be described as a government-funded kinkfest.

Your tax dollars are hard at work, just not in the way you might have hoped.

Instead of thwarting foreign threats or safeguarding national security, some of our nation’s top spies have been busy discussing their sexual fantasies, transgender surgeries, and even the idea of breeding hermaphrodite babies to, and I quote, “advance trans ideology.”

Because nothing says “protecting the homeland” like a deep dive into fetish chat rooms on the taxpayer’s dime.

It might be uncomfortable, but take a moment to let that sink in.

These are the same people entrusted with the keys to our nation’s most sensitive secrets. The same people who are supposed to be outsmarting foreign adversaries and preventing the next 9/11.

Instead, they’re apparently too busy debating the merits of gender ideology and organizing what Rufo so eloquently called “gangbangs on government time.”

One CIA official even mocked the 2023 death of beloved Christian leader Pat Robertson, writing, “I was always taught never to say anything about the dead unless its [sic] good. He’s dead. Good.”

This is a lengthy statement from Rufo, but important to include:

According to our sources, the sex chats were legitimized as part of the NSA’s commitment to “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Activists within the agency used LGBTQ+ “employee resourced groups” to turn their kinks and pathologies into official work duties. According to the current NSA employee, these groups “spent all day” recruiting activists and holding meetings with titles such as “Privilege,” “Ally Awareness,” and “Transgender Community Inclusion.” And they did so with the full support of the NSA leadership, which declared that DEI was “not only mission critical, but mission imperative.”

I mean, you can’t make this up. If this were a Netflix series, critics would call it “unrealistic” and “over-the-top.” But no, this is your government at work.

Enter Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, who seems to be the only adult in the room. She’s taken a sledgehammer to this circus, announcing that anyone caught participating in these explicit chats will be shown the door—and their security clearances along with it.

WATCH: DNI Director Gabbard: Firing 100+ intelligence officials for disgusting sex chats

Bravo, Tulsi. She’s already fired more than 100 intelligence officers from 15 agencies, a bold and necessary step towards restoring the integrity of our intelligence community.

Finally, someone who remembers that the job of our intelligence agencies is to protect the country, not to serve as a platform for woke sexual fetishes and flawed social experiments.

But let’s be honest: the fact that this even happened in the first place is a damning indictment of how far these agencies have strayed from their mission.

What we’re seeing here is the inevitable result of allowing radical ideologies to infiltrate every corner of our public institutions.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion? Sure, those might sound like laudable ideas—until they become Trojan horses for pushing fringe agendas that have nothing to do with national security.

Instead of focusing on real threats, our intelligence agencies have been hijacked by activists who seem more interested in advancing their freakish sexual fantasies than in defending the country.

And who pays the price? You do. The American taxpayer. The average citizen who just wants to live in a safe, stable nation, not fund some bureaucrat’s sexual fan fiction.

The Christian Action Network is right to call for immediate scrutiny and reform. We need to clean house, and not just in these chat rooms. We need to ensure that our intelligence agencies are laser-focused on their core mission, not distracted by the latest kink under the sheets.

But here’s the real question: How did we get here? How did we go from the Greatest Generation to the Most Degenerate Generation?

The answer, of course, is that we’ve allowed ideology to replace common sense. We’ve let the inmates run the asylum. And unless we course-correct soon, the consequences will be dire.

So, to the American people, I say this: Wake up. Pay attention. Demand accountability. Because if we don’t, the next leak from our intelligence agencies might not just be embarrassing—it might be catastrophic.

And to the NSA and CIA, I offer this piece of advice: Maybe spend less time in depraved chat rooms and more time actually protecting the country — just a thought.

AUTHOR

Martin Mawyer

©2025 . All rights reserved.

Please visit the Majority Report substack.

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Turns Out Top Execs Of Org Picked For Billions By Biden EPA Are Big Time Democrat Donors

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By The Daily Caller

Top executives of a green organization that the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) selected to receive billions in public funds have collectively made hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal political donations to Democratic candidates and organizations in recent years, a Daily Caller News Foundation review of Federal Election Commission (FEC) data found.

The Biden EPA chose the Coalition for Green Capital (CGC) as an awardee of $5 billion in taxpayer funds through the administration’s massive Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) program in April 2024. Reed Hundt, the CGC’s former CEO and chairman, has personally donated nearly $60,000 to Democratic candidates and aligned political organizations going back to 2013, while Richard Kauffman — the group’s CEO who replaced Hundt in January — has personally donated more than $600,000 to help Democrats since 2020, according to FEC data.

n 2024 the EPA awarded the Coalition for Green Capital a $5 BILLION grant to create an NGO “Green Bank” outside congressional control.

Reed Hundt, the group’s CEO, has some *interesting* tweets for a guy leading a “non-partisan” group with $5 billion of taxpayer money…🧵 pic.twitter.com/tB1UxqVm8q

— Parker Thayer (@ParkerThayer) December 31, 2024

Hundt made donations of $10,000 to the Harris Victory Fund and Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2024, and he also cut a $10,000 check to the Democratic State Central Committee of Maryland in 2016, FEC records show. Kauffman, meanwhile, gave $150,000 to the DNC in 2020 before giving another $20,900 to the DNC in 2024, the same year in which he made a $50,000 contribution to the Harris Victory Fund, government records show.

Kaufmann also donated to numerous state-level Democrat Party organizations and to boost Democrat Senate candidates like former Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey in the 2024 race, FEC records show. Notably, the CGC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, meaning that it may not directly or indirectly engage in politics, at least as far as the Internal Revenue Service is currently concerned.

“Between 2009 and 2023, CGC and its network mobilized more than $25 billion in public and private capital across America to deliver more affordable electricity, clean air and water, as well as the power to help ensure America’s AI leadership,” a CGC spokesperson said in a statement to the DCNF. The CGC spokesperson declined to address specific questions about how it squares the political spending of Hundt and Kauffman, as well as the political connections of other board members, with the organization’s official status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Hundt formerly worked in the Clinton administration as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and was a close ally of Vice President Al Gore, while Kauffman was a senior advisor to former Energy Secretary Steven Chu during the Obama administration, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Notably, Hundt’s personal account on X featured numerous anti-Trump posts — including ones endorsing efforts to remove Trump from the ballot — before it was deleted. Hundt did not respond to a request for comment.

The CGC has received funding in the past from left-of-center and environmentalist nonprofits including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the ClimateWorks Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The CGC features a number of other Democrat insiders in its ranks, the DCNF reported in 2023 when the group was rumored to be on the shortlist for a major EPA payday. For example, its board of directors includes David Hayes, who served as a climate advisor to former President Joe Biden; Cecilia Martinez, a former official in the Biden White House Council on Environmental Quality; Julie Greene Collier, chief of staff for the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), a major organized labor federation that endorsed Biden and, subsequently, former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race. The union donated cash to help Democrats in the 2024 cycle, according to FEC records.

“Coalition for Green Capital, like so many organizations funded by the Biden Administration, has no business receiving a dollar of funding from the federal government, much less billions of dollars,” Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher for the Capital Research Center, told the DCNF. “It is plain to see that the organization is intended to be a slush fund for bailing out the floundering green energy investments of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors.”

Notably, two other groups that the Biden EPA picked to receive billions of taxpayer dollars — Power Forward Communities and Climate United — are also loaded with Democrat insiders, the DCNF reported previously. The political connections that each of these recipients possess caught the attention of congressional Republicans in May 2024, and current EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is working to claw back as much cash from the GGRF as possible.

AUTHOR

Nick Pope

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden-Harris Admin Handed Billions To Coalition Partnering With Stacey Abrams’ Org Dedicated To Turning Out Voters

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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.

USAID Workers Fired as Elon Musk Looks for Progress Reports thumbnail

USAID Workers Fired as Elon Musk Looks for Progress Reports

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By Family Research Council

A federal judge’s ruling has allowed President Donald Trump to continue his purge of a major government agency, firing thousands and placing thousands more on leave. As of Monday morning, nearly all U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees have been placed on “administrative leave” and at least 1,600 have been informed that they are going to be fired.

A notice on the USAID website reads, “As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally.” The notice continues, “Concurrently, USAID is beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force that will affect approximately 1,600 USAID personnel with duty stations in the United States.”

The Trump administration has been attempting to gut USAID for weeks, initially placing employees on leave for trying to skirt presidential directives, and quickly moving to firing almost the entire agency workforce. In response to a lawsuit filed by federal workers’ unions, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) halting the mass firings. Nichols, who was appointed to the federal judiciary by Trump himself in 2019, explained at the time that issuing a TRO did not mean he would ultimately agree with the unions filing the lawsuit.

On Friday, Nichols removed the TRO, rather than extending it. He explained that the unions “have not demonstrated that further preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.” Nichols wrote, “Upon scrutiny, the employment-related injuries that plaintiffs assert here are not irreparable ones warranting the ‘extraordinary remedy’ of a preliminary injunction.” Although USAID employees — particularly those stationed abroad — claimed that they would be barred from accessing agency systems necessary to their safety, Nichols found upon reviewing the evidence that this claim was unsubstantiated. He said that evidence provided by the Trump administration had “convinced the Court that plaintiffs’ initial assertions of harm were overstated.” The judge concluded, upon detailed review of testimony and documents submitted to him, that USAID employees’ concerns would be best addressed by review boards established by Congress to resolve labor and personnel disputes within the federal government.

The mass firing of USAID employees comes as Trump advisor Elon Musk, who developed the idea for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has demanded that federal employees submit reports on their productivity or face termination. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk announced that “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.” He added, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” According to CBS News, federal employees have been given until Monday night to respond to the email, sent by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), with five bullet points listing accomplished tasks, excluding classified information.

Democrats have responded to the required productivity reports with vitriol. Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) called on federal employees to ignore the email. “This is a good opportunity for mass civil disobedience. Musk has no authority to do this,” Casten wrote on X. He continued, “Encourage all federal employees to report to work, prepare GFY letters and continue to demonstrate the public service and patriotism he lacks.” The acronym “GFY” stands for “go f*** yourself.” Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.) also launched a vulgarity-laced tirade against Musk, replying to the productivity report directive by saying, “This is the ultimate d**k boss move from Musk — except he isn’t even the boss, he’s just a d**k.” Musk noted that the “bar is very low here,” observing that an email with five bullet points “take less than 5 mins to write.”

However, even some Trump administration officials have directed federal employees to ignore the email from Musk and OPM. According to The New York Times, federal employees at the FBI and the U.S. Departments of State, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security have been instructed not to respond to the email. In most cases, the order to ignore or disregard the email was issued by a senior official in the corresponding agency, but both National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel ordered employees under their supervision not to respond. Spokespersons for numerous federal agencies publicly stated that the heads of those agencies are responsible for reviewing and evaluating the work of employees.

Gabbard told intelligence community officers not to reply to the email due to “the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work…” Patel likewise told FBI employees to “pause any responses” to the email, further explaining, “The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures.” Darin S. Selnick, who is performing the duties of the Defense Department’s Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness, said in a public statement, “The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reported over the weekend, though, that he will see to it that even senior military commanders are fired if they refuse to follow orders or implement the president’s agenda. He said that former president Joe Biden “gave lawful orders. A lot of them are really bad. And it’s unfortunate how they eroded our military.” Hegseth continued, “President Trump has given another set of lawful orders. And they will be followed. If they’re not followed — and all these orders are in keeping with the Constitution and norms inside the military — if they’re not followed, then those officers will find the door.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: How Trump’s Actions Melted Biden’s ‘Winter of Our Discontent’

RELATED VIDEO: Rep. Byron Donalds: ‘Democrats are flailing over Musk & DOGE gaining access to IRS data.’

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

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.

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Trump EO Lassoes Federal Regulatory Leviathan

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By Family Research Council

Last week, President Trump issued an executive order “Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s ‘Department Of Government Efficiency’ Deregulatory Initiative.” “This is one of those executive orders that we may not have ever thought of, but it’s the one we’ve all been waiting on,” gushed Family Research Council Action President Jody Hice while guest hosting on “Washington Watch.”

The order aims “to focus the executive branch’s limited enforcement resources on regulations squarely authorized by constitutional Federal statutes, and to commence the deconstruction of the overbearing and burdensome administrative state.”

It assigns all executive agencies the task of cataloguing, within 60 days, all their regulations that:

  • “raise serious constitutional difficulties, such as exceeding the scope of the power vested in the Federal Government by the Constitution;”
  • “are based on unlawful delegations of legislative power;”
  • “are based on anything other than the best reading of the underlying statutory authority or prohibition;”
  • “implicate matters of social, political, or economic significance that are not authorized by clear statutory authority;”
  • “impose significant costs upon private parties that are not outweighed by public benefits;”
  • “harm the national interest by significantly and unjustifiably impeding technological innovation, infrastructure development, disaster response, inflation reduction, research and development, economic development, energy production, land use, and foreign policy objectives;” and
  • “impose undue burdens on small business and impede private enterprise and entrepreneurship.”

“Subject to their paramount obligation to discharge their legal obligations, protect public safety, and advance the national interest,” the order continues, “agencies shall preserve their limited enforcement resources by generally de-prioritizing actions to enforce regulations that are based on anything other than the best reading of a statute and … go beyond the powers vested in the Federal Government by the Constitution.”

The order also directs Trump-appointed agency heads, “on a case-by-case basis and as appropriate and consistent with applicable law,” to “direct the termination of all such enforcement proceedings that do not comply with the Constitution, laws, or Administration policy.”

“What it really means is that every agency is required to do a review of the constitutionality and the consistency with statutory authority of all of their regulations and basically check under the hood and figure out whether or not [they’ve] been driving a lawful agency or not, or whether or not there’s a lot of junk in there that needs to be removed,” said Donald Kochan, law professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law.

“I think we’re going to find a lot of regulations that simply do not comply with both their statutory and constitutional limits,” Kochan predicted. “Because we’ve been operating under a regime in the administrative state for a long time … which allowed for high deference to agency interpretations of their own authority.” This was called “Chevron deference” after the 1984 Supreme Court decision which established this permissive standard, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

However, the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron precedent in a June 2024 decision, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, Kochan explained. “That decision … says that now judges have … a judicial duty to interpret what the statutes mean … rather than asking, ‘Hey, agency, are you authorized to act?’” he explained. “Because the incentives for the agency are to, of course, justify their own authority. So, for decades, we’ve been operating under this self-perpetuating set of precedents that allow agencies to justify their own interpretation of their underlying statutes.”

This long-needed court corrective was brought to you by President Trump’s previous term in office, during which he appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who participated in the 6-2 majority in Loper Bright.

The same goes for the 6-3 decision in Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, which also curtailed executive agency power in the 2024 term, Kochan continued. According to Corner Post, “if you’re aggrieved by an agency action, you get to sue the agency and make a facial challenge to the agency’s rules, even years after that rulemaking occurred,” he explained. “Why? Because you didn’t know that it was going to affect you until you’re actually aggrieved. So, the U.S. Supreme Court reinterpreted what it means to have a statute of limitations … which opens up a lot of agency regulations to … challenge.”

Another relevant ruling is the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in West Virginia v. EPA (2022), which “clarified what’s called the Major Questions Doctrine,” added Kochan. “This one says that, if agencies want to do things that touch on significant issues that impact the economy or society, then the courts are going to presume that Congress would have needed to legislate in a very clear manner to give the agency that authority. If there’s not clear authority, [they’re] not going to let the agency go and grab it.”

According to George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center, the number of economically significant or otherwise significant rules published by executive agencies each year has approximately tripled since the Reagan administration, with the Biden administration issuing nearly 75 such rules each year.

These major Supreme Court decisions, issued largely in response to the Biden administration’s executive overreach, had obvious implications for the discretion and power of federal agencies. But, rather than wait for states or private actors to explore those implications by challenging individual regulations here or there, President Trump’s executive order instructs federal agencies to pull their hulls into drydock and perform a thorough overhaul.

“Every agency has to determine whether or not their every existing regulation is within their statutory authority, according to how the statutory authority would be interpreted by courts,” Kochan summarized. “The executive order says ‘the best interpretation’ of your statutory authority, which requires that the agencies look at, ‘Well, what would the courts say?’” No longer may executive agencies play the role of their own judge and jury.

Naturally, tussling with D.C.’s largest swamp monster will only succeed after a loud, laborious struggle. Various species in Washington that — unlike the American taxpayer — enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the administrative state have already begun to cry bloody murder.

On Thursday, a Politico article complained that Trump’s “sweeping” and “broadly written” order “stands to dramatically curb” agency power. This, the article alleges, is part of the president’s “quest to expand his authority over the federal government, which he believes has grown too expansive.” How scary!

Demanding that unelected bureaucrats follow the law might raise Washington’s blood pressure, but executive orders like this one are a major reason why a record number of Americans believe the country is on the right track.

“Like with everything else that’s happening right now, we’re in in rapid action mode,” concluded Kochan. “This is an executive order which really is at the heart of what executive orders are intended to be, and that is … instructing agencies to get their house in order.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: How Trump’s Actions Melted Biden’s ‘Winter of Our Discontent’

RELATED VIDEOS:

Rep. Byron Donalds: ‘Democrats are flailing over Musk & DOGE gaining access to IRS data.’

Speaker Johnson: Elon Musk is “inside” federal agencies crawling through spending transactions

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

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.

UNMITIGATED GALL: Governor Gavin Newsom Asks Congress for $40 Billion After Spending $50 Million To Fight Trump thumbnail

UNMITIGATED GALL: Governor Gavin Newsom Asks Congress for $40 Billion After Spending $50 Million To Fight Trump

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By The Geller Report

Not one cent.

Why should the American taxpayer fund a Governor who blew through $128 billion on a failed, incomplete high speed rail, spent 50 million to ‘Trump Proof’ California, $9.5 BILLION on healthcare for illegal immigrants, and $24 billion on homelessness.

It’s a rich state that taxes it’s citizens blind. Let them pay for it. Do what the Democrats did to North Carolina in the wake of the hurricane, contaminated East Palestine, Maui etc In other words, nothing.

WATCH: Gov. Newsom asks Congress for nearly $40 billion for L.A.

Governor Gavin Newsom Asks Congress for $40 Billion to Rebuild Los Angeles

NBC: California Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked Congress to approve nearly $40 billion in aid to help the Los Angeles area recover from January’s devastating wildfires, which he said could become the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history… “Los Angeles is one of the most economically productive places on the globe, but it can only rebound and flourish with support from the federal government as it recovers from this unprecedented disaster,” Newsom wrote. Estimates of the total economic loss from the firestorm have been estimated to surpass $250 billion — with real estate losses from the Palisades and Eaton fires predicted to potentially top $30 billion, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis. More than 16,200 structures were destroyed (NBC).

Kevin Dalton: Gavin Newsom isn’t going to let a thing like blowing $128 BILLION on high speed rail, $9.5 BILLION on healthcare for illegal immigrants, and $24 BILLION on homelessness stop him from asking President Trump for $40 BILLION to rebuild from the wildfires he didn’t prepare for (X).

Commentator TaraBull: Gavin Newsom is asking for 40 BILLION from the federal government but has 50 MILLION to ‘Trump Proof’ California against President Trump’s immigration policy. Gavin should have to resign before any funds are sent (X).

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

Trump Announces Dan Bongino Will Be Deputy Director of the FBI

USAID Stole $2 Billion from US Taxpayers for Gaza “Famine” Hoax

Woman who hasn’t paid taxes in 8 years calls for assassination of Elon Musk

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved

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Trump Pulls Welfare Rug Out From Under Illegals

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By Leo Hohmann

Those who enabled taxpayer dollars to flow to illegal aliens at a time when everyday Americans are struggling to put food on their tables should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 

President Trump last night signed what may be his most explosive executive order yet, and once enacted it will cut off all government benefits to illegal aliens.

The order, titled PRESERVING FEDERAL BENEFITS FOR AMERICAN CITIZENS, will “ensure taxpayer resources are not used to incentivize or support illegal immigration.”

A White House official told Fox News reporter Bill Melugin that Trump’s executive order will direct the heads of federal-government agencies to identify all federally funded programs that provide financial benefits to illegal aliens, and for them to “take corrective action.”

I have always argued that the easiest and most cost-effective way to stop the border invasion is simply to cut off the gravy train that greets these migrants as they arrive in America and Europe. If this were to happen, I’m not sure we would even need a border wall.

I’m still a little skeptical that all these amazing executive orders will actually get executed, if you know what I mean. Are they just window dressing for Trump’s base, or will they actually get carried out by the rank and file members of the administrative state?

If this particular executive order does get enforced and carried out, it will strip federal funds to states and localities which are aiding and abetting illegal-alien invaders through sanctuary policies.

For the past four years, illegal aliens have been receiving welfare benefits from myriad public assistance programs. Some of them include the following:

  • The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps.
  • Child nutrition programs
  • Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
  • Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
  • Child Care and Development Block Grant
  • Earned Income Tax Credit
  • Child Tax Credit
  • Obamacare Premium Tax Credit
  • Obamacare cost-sharing subsidies
  • Medicare
  • Medicaid
  • Children’s Health Insurance Program
  • Pell Grants
  • Student loans
  • Head Start
  • Public housing
  • Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund.

The cost of welfare programs for illegal aliens and legal noncitizens is estimated to be in the billions of dollars.

Illegal aliens do not legally qualify for welfare programs. However, according to a December 2024 report by the Economic Policy Innovation Center, the Biden regime created loopholes by giving fake legal statuses to millions of illegals and non-citizens as part of their catch-and-release scheme.

If he really means it and is able to enforce it, kudos to Trump for issuing this executive order.

And let’s not stop there. If we are going to make sure this never happens again, those responsible for the border invasion and handing over America’s treasure to the illegal invaders must be held accountable.

That means arresting and prosecuting those politicians and bureaucrats who knowingly and illegally schemed to divert American taxpayer dollars to illegal aliens at a time when everyday Americans are struggling to put food on their tables.

I don’t blame the illegals. If a foreign government invites you to come and then offers you a bunch of freebies when you arrive, why not take them up on their suicidal offer? I blame the politicians and bureaucrats here in America, and they must now pay the price for their treasonous hatred of their own people.

©2025 . All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Out Of Control Spending, Marxism And ‘DEI Privilege Walks’: How USAID Became Progressive Slush Fund Under Biden

Please visit Leo’s Newsletter substack.

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America Is Seriously Unimpressed By Congressional Democrats, Poll Finds

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By The Daily Caller

Americans’ approval of Democrats in Congress just plummeted to an all-time low while approval of congressional Republicans soared to an all-time high, according to a new poll.

Only 21% of voters approve of the way that congressional Democrats are handling their job, which is a record low, according to a Quinnipiac University poll published on Wednesday. Of those surveyed, 68% said they disapproved of how Democrats in Congress are handling their positions, and 11% did not offer an opinion.

Meanwhile, the survey found that a record number of Americans approve of how Republicans in Congress are handling their job. Of those surveyed, 40% approved of congressional Republicans’ handling of their jobs, while 52% disapproved and 8% did not give an opinion.

Still, 40% of Democrats said they approve of the way the congressional Democrats are handling their job, while 49% disapprove and 11% did not offer an opinion, according to the survey.

“It’s a sobering slap down of historic proportions for the Democrats in Congress,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy wrote in a Wednesday press release. “Their Republican counterparts take a victory lap as the Democrats try to get their footing.” 

President Donald Trump has recently notched higher approval ratings in the first several weeks of his second term than he did during his first term, with a CBS News poll released on Feb. 9 finding that 53% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing during his current presidency. Notably, a poll published toward the end of January found that overall approval ratings for the Democratic Party neared an all-time low.

The Democratic Party has faced various hurdles since Trump’s resounding victory in the 2024 presidential election, primarily struggling to formulate a plan to combat the new administration’s agenda, while Republicans have continued to expand their base. Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin acknowledged in a Tuesday memo that his party lost a share of working class voters and are now often viewed as the “party of elites.”

Quinnipiac University’s poll was conducted from Feb. 13 to 17 and surveyed 1,039 registered voters. The survey’s margin of error is three percentage points.

AUTHOR

Ireland Owens

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

While Dems Tell Themselves MAGA Voters Regret Their Choice, Trump Has Best Approval Rating Run He’s Ever Had

Trump Backs ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ In Battle Between Senate Republicans And House GOP Over How To Pass Agenda

Out Of Control Spending, Marxism And ‘DEI Privilege Walks’: How USAID Became Progressive Slush Fund Under Biden

Kamala’s Failed Campaign Team Struggling To Worm Its Way Back Into The Swamp

Harris Faulkner Straight Up Asks Dem If He’s ‘Rooting Against The Country’

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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.

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Agencies Bear Much of the Blame for Government Waste

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By Family Research Council

The Trump administration is only four weeks old, and the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has already revealed numerous examples of government waste, with each item seemingly more shocking than the last. For many ordinary Americans, the natural reaction to such revelations is horror, followed by a series of unanswered questions: How did this happen? Who is to blame? And why have these problems gone unaddressed for so long?

Although there’s plenty of blame to go around, blaming Congress — the usual punching bag when executive agencies rewrite policy without pushback — is inappropriate here because the waste and errors uncovered by DOGE are not at the policy level but at the detail level. No, much of the blame must fall upon the executive agencies themselves.

Take the recent revelation that the Treasury Department’s computer system made it optional to fill in a code linking a payment with a budget line item for approximately $4.7 trillion in payments (over an unspecified period… are we talking about one year or 20?). Certainly such granular details of a payment system are best left to agencies, not Congress.

But such an oversight can cause real financial headaches. Because this field was optional, it “was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible,” DOGE announced. Thus, not even the Treasury Department can explain to auditors why this money was spent.

Contrast this apparent sloppiness in the Treasury Department with the apparent pride its veteran employees took in their work. “The fiscal service performs some of the most vital functions in government,” declared senior Treasury bureaucrat David Lebryk, who announced his retirement after he briefly denied DOGE access to the payment system, during a short-lived stint as acting secretary. “Our work may be unknown to most of the public, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t exceptionally important.”

Lebryk was the type of civil servant who receives glowing reviews from his bosses. “For many years, Dave Lebryk’s leadership has helped to make our payment systems reliable and trusted at home and abroad,” said Jacob Lew, a former Treasury Secretary during the Obama administration.

I agree with Lebryk that the government paying its bills correctly is “exceptionally important.” But I disagree with Lew, when he described as “reliable” a payment system that can’t account for up to $4.7 trillion.

Not that this was a particularly difficult fix for the Treasury Department. “As of Saturday,” DOGE continued, “this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going.” Just change a bit of code, and — presto! — the problem disappeared. Was that so hard?

Why didn’t the Treasury Department correct this oversight before? Were they waiting on Congress to tell them to fix it (or, more realistically, waiting on Congress to ask about it)? Did they never review their own protocols and policies? How could they not know this was a problem?

The truth is, what DOGE found — oodles of improper payments — is not a new revelation. “Improper payments — those that should not have been made or were made in the incorrect amount — have consistently been a government-wide issue. Since fiscal year 2003, cumulative improper payment estimates by executive branch agencies have totaled about $2.7 trillion,” wrote the Government Accountability Office in March 2024. “GAO has found that these payments represent a material deficiency or weakness in internal controls. Specifically, GAO has noted that the federal government is unable to determine the full extent of its improper payments or to reasonably assure that appropriate actions are taken to reduce them.”

That sounds like a big problem; someone should get on that. Did bureaucrats think this meant “someone else,” or did the thought never occur to them at all?

I don’t mean to be overly harsh towards career employees of the executive branch, but I simply cannot conceive of any more innocent explanations. If I were part of a team that was critical to the operations of the freest, most powerful government on earth, then I would urgently correct any errors that came to my attention — or at least alert my superiors to them. If I failed to address these errors, I don’t know how I could take as much pride in my performance as these civil servants evidently do.

Consider another recent example, the announcement that the Social Security database contained more than 10 million Americans over the age of 120, who were marked as living. This is impossible, of course. Early in human history, the Lord proclaimed, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years” (Genesis 6:3). As of October 2024, the oldest living American is Naomi Whitehead, age 114, and the oldest living person on earth was 116.

But while members of Congress do not readily cross-reference the Social Security database against death reports, surely someone in the Social Security Administration (SSA) should have that job. Even if no one has that job, surely it should raise some red flags when the intrepid civil servants at the SSA go to disburse a payment to a person born during the McKinley administration.

DOGE’s investigation has provided a few answers but provoked far more questions, such as the ones I’ve asked here. American taxpayers will ask these questions, and they deserve to know the answers.

At this point, it’s still possible that there are reasonable explanations for some of these questions (poor agency structuring resulting in broken communications, things that slipped through the cracks, lack of modernization, etc.) — though even such answers reveal a broken bureaucratic underbelly betraying their brazen braggadocio.

However, the longer these questions remain unanswered, the more Americans will suspect — rightly or wrongly — that the answer involves fraud, grift, or political favors. They are also likely to suspect — rightly or wrongly — that the public officials, civil servants, labor unions, activists, and media opposing DOGE’s effort to root out corruption are doing so because they have something to hide.

Something stinks in Washington, and DOGE has only begun to uncover the symptoms. When there’s a dead mouse in the wall, those blaming the pest control guy working to remove it are only pointing a finger at themselves.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

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.

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The Troika That’s Dismantling The Big Government Democrat’s Frauds, Waste and Abuses

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By Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)

On this President’s Day we the people are seeing three men who are dedicated to Makeing America Heathy Again, Making America Great Again and Making Government Efficient Again.

This troika of men and our new Excutive Branch are working day and night to stop the big government swamp. The big government swamp lives on fraud, waste and abuse of we the people’s money.

Today we are seeing Demcrats fighting in Congress, in the courts and on the streets to stop the big government swamp from being drained of their swamp creatures.

American’s must go to the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) presence on X daily to understand what they are doing and how Democrats are working to spread lies to try to stop them.

Here are just a few examples on what is on DOGE:

First, here is misinformation told by Democrat Senator Tim Kaine on Fox News on February 16, 2024:

Democrat Senator Tim Kaine lying on Fox News

The Lie:

Kaine: “Yesterday the DOGE guys post classified information on their website, and they had to realize, ‘Oh, we didn’t realize that agency was a classified agency.’ You shouldn’t let people rampage through offices that have classified information.”

The Truth:

This is inaccurate. The referenced “classified information” is actually public FedScope data, posted publicly by OPM (Office of Personnel Management) in March 2024.

Click here to view an infographic on the Social Security database on people receiving Social Securty benifits.

It shows:

3,936,311 people aged 130-139 years old receiving Social Security benefits
3,542,044 people aged 140-149 years old receiving Social Security benefits
1,345,083 people aged 150-159 years old receiving Social Security benefits
121,807 people aged 160-169 years old receiving Social Security benefits
6,087 people aged 170-179 years old receiving Social Security benefits
695 people aged 180-189 years old receiving Social Security benefits
448 people aged 190-199 years old receiving Social Security benefits
879 people aged 200-209 years old receiving Social Security benefits
866 people aged 210-219 years old receiving Social Security benefits
1,039 people aged 220-229 years old receiving Social Security benefits
1 person aged 240-249 years old receiving Social Security benefits
1 person aged 360-369 years old receiving Social Security benefits

TOTAL: 8,955,261

These are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE! 

DOGE found that the:

  • Treasury processed 116 million paper checks in FY2024.
  • In FY2023, $25 billion in tax refunds were delayed or lost due to returned or expired checks.
  • Treasury maintains a physical lockbox network to collect checks for tax (IRS), passport (State Department), etc. It costs approximately $2.40 per check to maintain this lockbox network.
  • Deleting paper checks would save at least $750 million per year.

DOGE found that U.S. taxpayer dollars were going to be spent on the following items, all which have been cancelled:

  •  $10M for “Mozambique voluntary medical male circumcision”
  • $9.7M for UC Berkeley to develop “a cohort of Cambodian youth with enterprise driven skills”
  • $2.3M for “strengthening independent voices in Cambodia”
  • $32M to the Prague Civil Society Centre
  • $40M for “gender equality and women empowerment hub”
  • $14M for “improving public procurement” in Serbia
  • $486M to the “Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening,” including $22M for “inclusive and participatory political process” in Moldova and $21M for voter turnout in India
  • $29M to “strenghening political landscape in Bangladesh”
  • $20M for “fiscal federalism” in Nepal
  • $19M for “biodiversity conversation” in Nepal
  • $1.5M for “voter confidence” in Liberia
  • $14M for “social cohesion” in Mali
  • $2.5M for “inclusive democracies in Southern Africa”
  • $47M for “improving learning outcomes in Asia”
  • $2M to develop “sustainable recycling models” to “increase socio-economic cohesion among marginalized communities of Kosovo Roma, Ashkali, and Egypt”

Get the picture? And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

This week will witness the Kash Patel vote on the Senate floor to become the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

We know that of the 14,000 FBI agents that 5,000 of them were assigned to target those Americans who were holding a peaceful protest at the U.S. Capital on January 6, 2020.

This is what we the people voted for. Stop the big government waste, fraud and abuses and restore our Constitutional Republic.

The new Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has promised to Make America Healthy Again.

President Trump has promised to Make America Great Again.

And Elon Musk’s DOGE is Making Government Efficient Again.

A brilliant troika indeed.

Gird your loins, there’s much, much more to come.

©2025 All rights reserved.

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Massive Real Estate Sell-Off in Washington, D.C. — the Most Expensive in The Nation

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By The Geller Report

The most expensive housing markets in the U.S., the burbs of D.C., is suddenly taking a beating. The moochers, the looters, the criminals are fleeing in a major housing sell off.

“Of the top seven wealthiest counties in America, 4 of them are suburbs of Washington, D.C. These counties have no major industries of note other than the federal government, lobbying the federal government and selling things to the federal government.”

“This is a major reason why the vast majority of Americans have zero sympathy for defunded NGOs, terminated federal employees, cut-off journalists and suddenly irrelevant lobbyists.”

They are running scared:

Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

Real estate market crash fears in Washington DC as netizens claim 1,000s selling homes, leaving city

By Ashley Paul

Multiple netizens are reporting a massive rise in people listing their homes for sale in the Washington, DC area. Read on to know what Grok thinks of it.

Several social media users have claimed that there are fears of an impending real estate market crash in Washington DC. Sharing images of houses listed in the area, they pointed out that residents are packing up their belongings and leaving the city en masse.

One X user claimed that more than 4,271 houses were put up for sale in just the last 14 days in Washington, DC. “The rats are running away,” the user said.

Another user blamed Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for the exodus and shared a picture showing 14,825 houses that have been reportedly listed for sale in and around the city. “It’s less of a market shift and more of a mass evacuation, like rats fleeing a sinking ship,” the user said.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

POST ON X:

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Troika That’s Dismantling The Big Government Democrat’s Frauds, Wastes and Abuses thumbnail

The Troika That’s Dismantling The Big Government Democrat’s Frauds, Wastes and Abuses

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By Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)

On this President’s Day we the people are seeing three men who are dedicated to Makeing America Heathy Again, Making America Great Again and Making Government Efficient Again.

This troika of men and our new Excutive Branch are working day and night to stop the big government swamp. The big government swamp lives on fraud, waste and abuse of we the people’s money.

Today we are seeing Demcrats fighting in Congress, in the courts and on the streets to stop the big government swamp from being drained of their swamp creatures.

American’s must go to the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) presence on X daily to understand what they are doing and how Democrats are working to spread lies to try to stop them.

Here are just a few examples on what is on DOGE:

First, here is misinformation told by Democrat Senator Tim Kaine on Fox News on February 16, 2024:

Democrat Senator Tim Kaine lying on Fox News

The Lie:

Kaine: “Yesterday the DOGE guys post classified information on their website, and they had to realize, ‘Oh, we didn’t realize that agency was a classified agency.’ You shouldn’t let people rampage through offices that have classified information.”

The Truth:

This is inaccurate. The referenced “classified information” is actually public FedScope data, posted publicly by OPM (Office of Personnel Management) in March 2024.

Click here to view an infographic on the Social Security database on people receiving Social Securty benifits.

It shows:

3,936,311 people aged 130-139 years old receiving Social Security benefits
3,542,044 people aged 140-149 years old receiving Social Security benefits
1,345,083 people aged 150-159 years old receiving Social Security benefits
121,807 people aged 160-169 years old receiving Social Security benefits
6,087 people aged 170-179 years old receiving Social Security benefits
695 people aged 180-189 years old receiving Social Security benefits
448 people aged 190-199 years old receiving Social Security benefits
879 people aged 200-209 years old receiving Social Security benefits
866 people aged 210-219 years old receiving Social Security benefits
1,039 people aged 220-229 years old receiving Social Security benefits
1 person aged 240-249 years old receiving Social Security benefits
1 person aged 360-369 years old receiving Social Security benefits

These are the numbers of people in each age bucket with the death field set to FALSE! 

DOGE found that the:

  • Treasury processed 116 million paper checks in FY2024.
  • In FY2023, $25 billion in tax refunds were delayed or lost due to returned or expired checks.
  • Treasury maintains a physical lockbox network to collect checks for tax (IRS), passport (State Department), etc. It costs approximately $2.40 per check to maintain this lockbox network.
  • Deleting paper checks would save at least $750 million per year.

DOGE found that the U.S. taxpayer dollars were going to be spent on the following items, all which have been cancelled:

  •  $10M for “Mozambique voluntary medical male circumcision”
  • $9.7M for UC Berkeley to develop “a cohort of Cambodian youth with enterprise driven skills”
  • $2.3M for “strengthening independent voices in Cambodia”
  • $32M to the Prague Civil Society Centre
  • $40M for “gender equality and women empowerment hub”
  • $14M for “improving public procurement” in Serbia
  • $486M to the “Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening,” including $22M for “inclusive and participatory political process” in Moldova and $21M for voter turnout in India
  • $29M to “strenghening political landscape in Bangladesh”
  • $20M for “fiscal federalism” in Nepal
  • $19M for “biodiversity conversation” in Nepal
  • $1.5M for “voter confidence” in Liberia
  • $14M for “social cohesion” in Mali
  • $2.5M for “inclusive democracies in Southern Africa”
  • $47M for “improving learning outcomes in Asia”
  • $2M to develop “sustainable recycling models” to “increase socio-economic cohesion among marginalized communities of Kosovo Roma, Ashkali, and Egypt”

Get the picture? And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

This week will witness the Kash Patel vote on the Senate floor to become the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

We know that of the 14,000 FBI agents that 5,000 of them were assigned to target those Americans who were holding a peaceful protest at the U.S. Capital on January 6, 2020.

This is what we the people voted for. Stop the big government waste, fraud and abuses and restore our Constitutional Republic.

The new Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services has promised to Make America Healthy Again.

President Trump has promised to Make America Great Again.

And Elon Musk’s DOGE is Making Government Efficient Again.

A brilliant troika indeed.

Gird your loins, there’s much, much more to come.

©2025 All rights reserved.

Massive Real Estate Sell-Off in Washington, D.C. – the Most Expensive in The Nation thumbnail

Massive Real Estate Sell-Off in Washington, D.C. – the Most Expensive in The Nation

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By The Geller Report

The most expensive housing markets in the U.S., the burbs of D.C., is suddenly taking a beating. The moochers, the looters, the criminals are fleeing in a major housing sell off.

“Of the top seven wealthiest counties in America, 4 of them are suburbs of Washington, D.C. These counties have no major industries of note other than the federal government, lobbying the federal government and selling things to the federal government.”

“This is a major reason why the vast majority of Americans have zero sympathy for defunded NGOs, terminated federal employees, cut-off journalists and suddenly irrelevant lobbyists.”

They are running scared:

Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

Real estate market crash fears in Washington DC as netizens claim 1,000s selling homes, leaving city

By Ashley Paul

Multiple netizens are reporting a massive rise in people listing their homes for sale in the Washington, DC area. Read on to know what Grok thinks of it.

Several social media users have claimed that there are fears of an impending real estate market crash in Washington DC. Sharing images of houses listed in the area, they pointed out that residents are packing up their belongings and leaving the city en masse.

One X user claimed that more than 4,271 houses were put up for sale in just the last 14 days in Washington, DC. “The rats are running away,” the user said.

Another user blamed Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for the exodus and shared a picture showing 14,825 houses that have been reportedly listed for sale in and around the city. “It’s less of a market shift and more of a mass evacuation, like rats fleeing a sinking ship,” the user said.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

POST ON X:

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump Is Right: Rogue Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Must Go thumbnail

Trump Is Right: Rogue Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Must Go

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By The Daily Signal

Almost immediately after the Senate named Russ Vought Office of Management and Budget director, President Donald Trump also named him the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a rogue agency with a long history of overreach and corruption. The agency has seen rampant internal racism and anti-woman bias, according to the General Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau hurts consumers by slapping unnecessary fines and regulations on lenders, making it harder for them to lend and driving vulnerable Americans into financial black markets where they are exploited. The bureau has a track record of lawlessness, and the Biden CFPB teamed up with the Justice Department to punish lenders for denying applications based on immigration status.

Under the first Trump administration, there was serious talk of dissolving the CFPB. What’s exciting is that now this seems like a very real possibility. On Friday, Trump advisor Elon Musk, Department of Government Efficiency manager, posted on X: “CFPB RIP” next to a tombstone emoji.

Shortly after his elevation, in a bold and needed move, Vought wrote on the X platform: “The CFPB has been a woke & weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals for a long time. This must end.”

Notifying the Federal Reserve of his plans, Vought swiftly zeroed out the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding request for the next quarter. He also stopped most operations and ordered the roughly 1,700 employees not to come to the office.

This is the right move for both taxpayers and consumers. And despite shrieking from bureaucracy supporters like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who helped set up the agency as one of her pet projects, Vought’s move was legal.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded by Federal Reserve Board profits, not appropriations from Congress. However, the Fed loses hundreds of billions of dollars on the interest it pays to banks. The Fed has not turned a profit and has instead incurred losses since September 2022. That means there are no profits to use to fund the CFPB.

The Fed can operate with negative capital because it can create money, Hal Scott, an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School and director of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, wrote in The Wall Street Journal back in May. “But the Fed has estimated that it won’t make back these losses until mid-2027.”

So, the bureau is existing off the Fed just printing new money, and that process of printing money out of nowhere has been one of the reasons we have had rampant inflation over the last several years. This is unacceptable. The bureau should close unless Congress appropriates money for it. Thankfully, under current congressional negotiations, such an appropriation looks unlikely.

The CFPB was created as a part of the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress in 2010. When he first ran for president in 2016, Trump promised to dismantle the Dodd-Frank Act and, thankfully, this could very well mean the CFPB also. That didn’t happen during the first Trump administration, but he continues to make this pledge, and it appears on the cusp of happening.

“Dodd-Frank has made it impossible for bankers to function,” Trump has said. “It makes it very hard for bankers to loan money for people to create jobs, for people with businesses to create jobs. And that has to stop.”

Under Dodd-Frank regulations, community banks are disproportionately hit by additional compliance and legal costs, adding to expenses. Unfortunately, since these smaller banks do not have economies of scale, this makes it harder for them to compete with larger institutions that can better absorb and disperse costs.

Harvard researchers found that Dodd-Frank accelerated the demise of community banks, especially those owned by black Americans and serving a black clientele. Ironically, the Left tries to claim it better serves black Americans, even while it creates regulations that harm them.

Score one for the big guys. And score one against consumers, who suffer with less choice and fewer financial services options thanks to strangling regulations from places like CFPB.

What consumers really need is a financial sector that offers plentiful choice for services operating under a transparent and fairly administered regulatory framework. This does not require the CFPB, which has instead undermined such efforts.

RIP, CFPB. We knew you too well. You will not be missed.

AUTHOR

Carrie Sheffield

Carrie Sheffield is the author of “Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness.”

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Musk Uncovers The Most Inefficient Government Operation Yet thumbnail

Musk Uncovers The Most Inefficient Government Operation Yet

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By NEWSRAEL Telling the Israeli Story

We’ve heard a great deal over the last few weeks about government waste and inefficiency, but this is the weirdest example yet of how dysfunctional the federal government really is. 

This is the government we’re talking about, however, and so this manifestation of government inefficiency will likely be eclipsed next week, but for the moment, this is the one that takes the cake.

Fox News reported Wednesday that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are investigating Iron Mountain, a converted limestone mine in Pennsylvania where “federal employee retirements are processed manually using a system that could take months.”

If you’re trying to make drastic cuts in the number of federal employees, this could pose a serious problem, and that’s why it has come to the attention of Musk and Trump.

During his appearance in the Oval Office with his four-year-old son, Musk said: “And then we’re told this is actually, I think, a great anecdote, because we’re told the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000.”

This is because of an antiquated and inefficient system that no one has ever gotten around to fixing.

Musk continued: “We’re like, well, what? Why is that? Well, because all the retirement paperwork is manual on paper. It’s manually calculated and written down on a piece of paper. Then it goes down to mine and like, what do you mean, a mine?”

That’s right: in this computer age, if you want to retire from your cushy federal job, maybe to take that cushy establishment media job you’ve been eyeing, you have to fill out paperwork.

Not digital forms, but old-fashioned paperwork that then gets sent to an old limestone mine for processing. On X, DOGE explained: “Federal employee retirements are processed using paper, by hand, in an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania.

700+ mine workers operate 230 feet underground to process ~10,000 applications per month, which are stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes. The retirement process takes multiple months.”

Back in 2014, when even the leftist establishment professed to care about government waste and inefficiency, the Washington Post exposed this curious operation, as a Post writer reminded the world that he had that great novel in him, beginning his article this way: “The trucks full of paperwork come every day, turning off a country road north of Pittsburgh and descending through a gateway into the earth. Underground, they stop at a metal door decorated with an American flag.”

Once you got inside, “a room opens up as big as a supermarket, full of five-drawer file cabinets and people in business casual. About 230 feet below the surface, there is easy-listening music playing at somebody’s desk. This is one of the weirdest workplaces in the U.S. government — both for where it is and for what it does.”

The Post said that “600 employees of the Office of Personnel Management” worked there, doing nothing but processing retirement papers.

AUTHOR

Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of twenty-nine books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (Regnery Publishing) and The Truth About Muhammad (Regnery Publishing) and the bestsellers The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS (Bombardier Books) and The Critical Qur’an: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research (Bombardier Books). His latest book is Antisemitism: History and Myth (Bombardier Books).

Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Justice Department’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council and the U.S. intelligence community. He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He is a senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy.

RELATED VIDEO: The Russian Collusion Story Was a Compete Hoax

EDITORS NOTE: This Newsrael column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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The Panama Canal: An Artery for Global Trade thumbnail

The Panama Canal: An Artery for Global Trade

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By MercatorNet – A Compass for Common Sense

In his inaugural address, Donald Trump declared that one of his administration’s priorities would be to regain control of the Panama Canal. This claim reopens a century-old debate over who built it, who lost it, and who truly owns this 80-kilometer engineering marvel that stitches together the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. With over 140 maritime routes, 1,700 ports, and 160 countries linked through it, the Canal is a key artery of global trade.

I visited the Canal a few years ago, and, beyond its logistical genius, what struck me the most was its turbulent history.

French vision, American execution, Caribbean workers

In 1869, fresh off his success with the Suez Canal, French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps set his sights on Central America. He was determined to carve a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, which was then part of Colombia.

This would be one of the 19th century’s most ambitious infrastructure projects.

A report in The Economist from 1879 called it “a bolder enterprise even than the Suez Canal,” predicting the logistical, technical, and health nightmares ahead. As if they had a crystal ball, the project collapsed just a decade later, sunk by financial ruin, yellow fever, and an engineering failure. Lesseps’s Panama Canal Company would be bankrupt by 1888.

Yet where the French had failed, the United States saw an opportunity. Invoking the Monroe Doctrine—a US foreign policy that justified American influence in Latin America while keeping the continent off-limits to European colonial ambitions—Washington backed Panama’s independence from Colombia in 1903. It then secured the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty granting it full control over the Canal’s construction and operation. Nearly 40,000 workers from the Caribbean—mostly from Barbados—were recruited to build the Canal. And in August 1914, just as World War I erupted, the Panama Canal opened, redrawing the map of global trade.

Without the Canal, global shipping routes would be significantly different. Before 1914, ships traveling the east and west coasts of the American Continent faced a long and dangerous journey. The Canal slashed fuel consumption, cut transit times, and made global trade more efficient than ever.

Today, a San-Francisco–New-York voyage has five possible routes by sea. The fastest? Through the Panama Canal—10 days, 23 hours. The next-best option? A 27-day detour around the Strait of Magellan.

The canal moves the world… but at what cost?

For much of the 20th century, the Panama Canal was a geopolitical chess piece. The Canal Zone was US territory and a flashpoint for anticolonial sentiment in Central America. By the 1960s and ’70s, Panamanian resentment escalated, culminating in the 1964 Flag Riots. Clashes between Panamanians and US forces resulted in multiple casualties.

In 1977, the Torrijos-Carter Treaties established a phased transition plan that transferred control of the Canal to Panama by 1999, marking a major shift in US-Panama relations. Trump has called this handover “foolish,” blaming President Jimmy Carter for giving away a trade goldmine. At the time, the decision was intended to reduce anti-American sentiment in Latin America.

Today, the Panama Canal is a vital economic force. Managed by a private entity, it generates roughly 4% of Panama’s GDP, through the tolls paid by vessels using the Canal. About 5% of global trade flows through it annually, and the US is its biggest user—around 40% of US container traffic passes through each year.

Meanwhile, China is catching up fast. From October 2023 to September 2024, China accounted for 21.4% of the cargo volume transiting the Canal—making it the second largest user after the United States. Beijing has also been investing in Panamanian ports, raising concerns over who has more influence.

And the stakes are rising…

Water shortages in Lake Gatun (one of the lakes that feed the Canal) restrict ship crossings and raise questions about the Canal’s long-term viability, as does the fact that the century-old locks are not big enough to accommodate today’s largest container ships. All the while, Nicaragua is reviving dreams of an alternative Canal, backed by Chinese investors.

Trade is fragile

It’s easy to take global trade for granted—until it breaks. In 2021, one of the world’s largest container ships, the Ever Given, got stuck in the Suez Canal for six days, freezing $10 billion in global trade per day.

The lesson? Apart from countless memes, the Ever Given crisis reminded the world that maritime chokepoints matter.

Accidents are not the only threat to trade. Recent Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea—where 15% of global trade crosses—have forced shipping companies away from Suez, rerouting around Africa, adding weeks to delivery and millions in extra cost—proving just how vulnerable global trade is.

The Panama Canal’s strategic infrastructure has fuelled prosperity in a country that stands out among its peers, proving that commerce drives progress. But as history shows, when politicians meddle in trade, they distort it. Washington once controlled the Canal for geopolitical leverage, and now Beijing seeks influence over its ports. But the real power behind the Canal has never been politics—it has always been free trade.

What do you think of Trump’s plans for the Panama Canal?   

This article has been republished from FEE under a Creative Commons licence.

AUTHOR

Daphne Posadas

Daphne Posadas is the Associate Editorial Director at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This Mercator column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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