Tag: taxes

Draining the Swamp: Pres. Trump Formally Instructs All Federal Agencies to Prepare for Large-Scale Bureaucracy Cuts by March 13

The bloated, inefficient, and corrupt federal bureaucracy is finally facing a long-overdue reckoning.

President Donald Trump has ordered all federal agencies to prepare for significant reductions in workforce and structural reorganization.

According to a newly released memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), agencies must submit their initial plans for large-scale reductions in force (RIFs) by March 13, 2025.

This directive is part of Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Workforce Optimization Initiative, an executive order signed on February 11, 2025, which aims to eliminate waste, bloat, and insularity in Washington’s deep state.

“The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt. At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public. Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs that benefit radical interest groups while hurting hardworking American citizens,” according to the memo signed by OMB Director Russell T. Vought and Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell.

“This is the mandate of the American people,” the memo added, pointing to Trump’s landslide victory on November 5, 2024, as proof that voters are fed up with Washington’s entrenched elite.

“President Trump required that “Agency Heads shall promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force (RIFs), consistent with applicable law.” President Trump also directed that, no later than March 13, 2025, agencies develop Agency Reorganization Plans,” the memo states.

The administration’s goal is clear: gut unnecessary bureaucratic functions, fire underperforming government employees, and end taxpayer-funded handouts to radical special interests.

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Republicans Introduce Bill to Defund ‘Liberal Propaganda’ National Public Radio

Conservatives have wanted to yank taxpayer funding for National Public Radio for years. Could it finally happen?

Two Republicans, one in the Senate and one in the House, have introduced a new bill that would accomplish this task, and in our current environment of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, the time is right to strike.

Even liberal law professor Jonathan Turley recently said it was time to end NPR’s taxpayer funded gravy train.

The GOP needs to get this done.

Breitbart News reported:

Exclusive – Sen. Jim Banks, Rep. Kat Cammack Introduce Bill To Defund ‘Liberal Propaganda’ NPR

Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) believe American taxpayers shouldn’t be keeping National Public Radio (NPR) afloat.

The pair are introducing legislation in their respective chambers to put an end to taxpayer subsidizing of the notoriously left-leaning media outlet, Breitbart News learned exclusively Wednesday.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund NPR’s liberal propaganda,” Banks told Breitbart News. “If NPR can’t stay afloat without government funding, that tells you all you need to know about the quality of their news.”

Banks’ Defund NPR Act would prohibit federal funding for National Public Radio by amending section 396 of the Communications Act so that no funds may, directly or indirectly, be made available to or used to support the National Public Radio, including through the payment of dues to or the purchase of programming from the organization.

Conservatives should not be forced to fund a news organization that does nothing but attack conservatives.

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New Jersey Governor Proposes Marijuana Tax Hike

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) wants to hike a special tax on cannabis from $2.50 to $15 an ounce to fund social service and violence intervention programs with tens of millions of dollars in new revenue.

“In just five years, cannabis has gone from destroying lives—in the form of excessive criminal sentences—to helping save lives,” Murphy said in his budget address Tuesday.

Murphy’s plan comes about two months after the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission hiked the tax from $1.24 to $2.50 an ounce in December.

The tax, known as the social equity excise fee, is paid by cannabis cultivators. The money goes to a dedicated fund for social equity programs and investing in communities hurt by marijuana prohibition, and another portion is allocated to programs to divert youth from cannabis.

As of August 2024, the tax has brought in more than $6 million, which is all sitting unspent, according to the cannabis agency. That money must be allocated by the Legislature and governor under the state’s cannabis legalization law.

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On Nuclear War and Expensive Pennies

Trump’s assault on USAID is more than an exposure of its alignment with far left narratives. It raises the question: How far will he go in dealing with its perceived waste and abuse?

It looks like he won’t be satisfied with merely slashing jobs and the agency’s budget.  Republican Representatives Chip Roy and Majorie Taylor Greene have already introduced legislation to permanently abolish USAID.  And what about this proposed legislation would make it permanent, should it become law?

Absolutely nothing.

Government has been at odds with its Constitution since the establishment of the First Bank of the United States in 1791.  In a letter to President Washington Thomas Jefferson said the Twelfth Amendment should be the final word on the issue of a national bank, that “to take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”  Twenty years later Congress failed to renew its charter but only by the tie-breaking vote of VP George Clinton.  President Madison reluctantly signed the bill authorizing the creation of The Second Bank of the United States in 1816, President Jackson fought to prevent renewing its charter in 1836, but the final blow came in 1913 when President Wilson signed the Federal Reserve into law, and monetary recklessness proceeded uninterrupted, often with favor.

If the central bank’s history is a bellwether, and it’s one of countless examples, nothing exists to prevent USAID II being passed by some future administration.

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Tulsi Gabbard to Fire Transgender Extremists and Sexual Deviants Who Participated in NSA’s Secret Sex Kink Chatrooms

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard will fire the transgender extremists and sexual deviants who participated in the NSA’s secret sex chatrooms.

According to Christopher Rufo: Tulsi Gabbard is preparing a memo directing all intelligence agencies to identify the employees who participated in the NSA’s “obscene, pornographic, and sexually explicit” chatrooms and to terminate their employment and revoke their security clearances. Deadline: Friday.

On Tuesday afternoon Tulsi Gabbard said “action is underway.”

On Monday Christopher Rufo and a fellow reporter obtained logs from the NSA’s secret transgender sex chatrooms.

Hundreds of transgender DEI hires in the NSA were using secret chat rooms to discuss sexual fetishes on government time.

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United States Senate Fails First Test on Balancing the Budget

Congress hates ideas to cut spending. Whether we are talking about Republicans or Democrats, they seem to be incapable of taking any concrete action to lead on the idea of balancing the budget and paying down America’s approximate $36 trillion in debt. Our national debt is emerging as the greatest threat to national security, yet Congress refuses to follow the lead of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run by Elon Musk, to make reforms to government spending programs. The fact that the Senate has rejected ideas to use the budget process to cut spending is a bad sign going forward.

The Trump Administration has been aggressive in finding places to cut spending through executive action. This continues the idea of “Promises Made, Promises Kept” that has been a mantra of the Trump Administration since his first term in office. One promise was to find ways to shrink government where it made sense. The executive branch of government has taken the lead on weeding out waste, fraud and abuse, yet Congress seems to want to increase spending on programs they want to empower, yet they steadfastly refuse to pay for new spending with the spending cuts proposed by President Trump and Members of Congress who have proposed reforms to government programs.

The evidence of a lack of will on the part of the Senate to cut any spending was clear recently when my former boss, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), offered an amendment to the Senate budget resolution on February 20, 2025 to cut federal spending by at least $1.5 trillion mirroring his “Six Penny Plan.” The Paull amendment sets up a process to balance the federal budget in five years by cutting spending 6% per year by creating a new budget function that freezes in programs spending, in addition to calling on Congress to find a 6% cut every year for five years. The Paul idea preserves Congressional discretion on how to achieve the reductions.

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Massie Teases Senate Run – Jewish GOP Group Threatens ‘Unlimited’ Spending To Stop Him

Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie is teasing a potential run for Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat in 2026, and a Jewish Republican group is already threatening to unleash “unlimited” spending to thwart any such bid, given his frequent opposition to legislation pushed by the pro-Israel lobby. 

On Thursday, Massie posted a poll on X, asking if he should stay in the House, run for Senate in 2026, or run for governor in 2027. A Senate campaign was the choice of 67% of the respondents.

The libertarian-minded Massie opposes all foreign aid. At his own political peril, he dares to make no exception for the State of Israel, which is among the world’s richest countries. He has also voted against legislation that would infringe on free speech by, for example, punishing colleges that allow students and professors to say the wrong things about Israel.

Add it all up — and stir in the fact that he’s a member of a party whose legislators almost universally toe the pro-Israel line — and Massie is likely the House representative the pro-Israel lobby would most like to eliminate. The idea of him ascending to the Senate has pro-Israel forces racing to DEFCON1. 

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Serbian Police Raids NGOs Funded by USAID, Investigates Abuse of Funds and Money Laundering After Trump Administration Froze Agency’s Shady Activities

We have been writing here on TGP about how, in today’s Europe, any leader who doesn’t engage in the West’s push against Russia has been considered potentially an enemy – just ask much-maligned Hungary’s Viktor Orbán or Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was shot several times by an angry pro-Ukraine activist back in May 2024, and barely survived the vicious attack.

The same kind of pressure has been felt by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and his populist government, who kept a good bilateral relation with Russia and shunned most of the Globalist package of ruinous policies.

Because of that, the Soros-USAID NGOs have weaponized an accident – the collapse of a concrete overhang on a train platform – and unleashed a national mass movement against the Serbian Government that has already cost the job to Prime Minister Milos Vucevic.

But President Vučić stood firm, and now, in the new world post-Donald J. Trump’s return to the US Presidency, he is taking the fight to the Globalist crooks.

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Sen Sheldon Whitehouse accused of conflict of interest after he funnels taxpayer funds to his wife’s environmental group

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) has urged the Senate Select Subcommittee on Ethics to investigate Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) over the granting of millions of dollars in government grants to an advocacy group that Sandra Whitehouse, the senator’s wife, works at. 

FACT Executive Director Kendra Arnold wrote in a letter to select committee Chair James Lankford and Vice Chair Christopher Coons that Sandra Whitehouse has worked for Ocean Conservancy since 2008, with the group paying her through her consulting firm Ocean Wonks LLC since 2017, and paying her directly before that. Since Whitehouse began with the group in 2008, Ocean Conservancy has been awarded 19 government grants worth around $14.2 million, with around half of this reportedly being given to the group in the fall of 2024 alone, “all of which Senator Whitehouse directly voted for.”

“In September 2024, Ocean Conservancy received a $5.2 million federal grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for marine debris cleanup. This grant was funded by the Biden Administration’s ‘Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,’ a bill Sheldon Whitehouse supported and voted for,” Arnold wrote. “In December 2024, Ocean Conservancy also received $1.7 million in federal funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assist with marine debris cleanup. The grant was funded as part of the EPA’s annual appropriations bill, which Sen. Whitehouse also voted for.”

The group said that “While these two grants alone appear to be a conflict of interest, it is even more egregious in the context of Senator Whitehouse’s long history of working on legislation being lobbied for by organizations tied to his wife.”

Ocean Conservancy, Arnold wrote, has spent “millions on federal lobbying expenses over the years on issues relating to oceans, climate change, and environmental cleanup—issues directly championed by Senator Whitehouse, a longtime member (and current Ranking Member) of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee and the co-founder of the Senate’s so-called ‘Oceans Caucus.'”

“For instance, Ocean Conservancy urged Congress to pass the International Maritime Pollution Accountability Act—legislation first introduced by Senator Whitehouse in 2023. Ocean Conservancy also advocated and secured billions in funding for coastal restoration projects in the Inflation Reduction Act. Senator Whitehouse not only voted for that legislation, but touted $3 billion in grant funding for ports and coastal restoration among the ‘Whitehouse-backed measures in the bill.’ In addition to Ocean Conservancy, Sandra Whitehouse has been paid by other organizations that have lobbied the Senate on legislation connected to her husband and received government contracts or federal funds,” the letter stated.

The group stated that “Senator Whitehouse directly voted for legislation that recently led to $6.9 million of taxpayer funds being paid to an organization for which his wife works and receives an income from. This circular relationship appears to be directly contrary to the Senate rules that broadly prohibit Senators from using the power of their office to benefit or appear to benefit themselves or their spouses.”

“As the Ethics Committee has stated: ‘Senators must closely guard against even the appearance that their families or friends are entitled to use [the Senator’s] resources and power for their own personal gain.’ Additionally, even if Senator Whitehouse believes the federal funds are going to a worthy cause, ‘the fact that a cause is worthy does not negate the duty to ensure compliance with ethical standards.’ This is exactly the type of case that citizens view as a conflict of interest and leads to the public’s mistrust in Congress. We request the Senate Ethics Committee conduct a full investigation into Senator Whitehouse’s actions that, at a minimum, have created an appearance of a conflict of interest.”

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The Inside Story of DOGE’s State Department Reforms

The DOGE tsunami is about to strike the U.S. Department of State, as well as other agencies. Let’s see what that means.

The day the music died was January 28, when nearly everyone at State, along with over two million other federal civilian employees, received an email referring to “A Fork in the Road.” The email offered qualifying diplomats and civil servants a choice ahead of planned Reductions in Force (RIFs, layoffs): resign now under a special program, don’t come to work for a few months while being paid, and then in September become eligible for whatever retirement benefits you would otherwise be eligible for, if any. State offers its diplomats a full retirement with pension after age 50 and 20 years of service, similar to the military, and after 30 years for civil servants, all with exceptions of course.

Despite the general sense that the buyout was some sort of trick (workers questioned what legal authority allowed State and other federal agencies to pay people who technically resigned, then bring them back into the system to retire), across the government some 77,000 people signed up for the deal before it was brought to a pause by court action. For those with a long way toward formal retirement, it seemed like good enough; ahead of being RIFed, they’d pocket some seven months’ salary on top of whatever severance package might await them when actually let go. The Fork program, as it was commonly now called (alongside the new expression “to get forked”), acquired a formal name, “deferred resignation,” and the paid time off without working became “administrative leave.” An involuntary retirement is called the Orwellian “Discontinued Service Retirement.”

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and others sued to block the “deferred resignation” program, arguing that its chaotic rollout and shifting legal justifications constituted violations of the Administrative Procedure Act’s protections against “arbitrary and capricious” decision-making, and the promise to pay employees past the March 14 possible government shutdown deadline could constitute an Anti-Deficiency Act violation.

On February 12 the federal judge who had temporarily blocked the plan reversed course, ending the temporary restraining order upon concluding he lacked jurisdiction in the case. The deferred resignations would be allowed to go forward (though the sign-up deadline has now passed) reducing headcount at State and other federal agencies if everything went as planned. In his decision, U.S. District Judge George O’Toole wrote that the unions’ challenges are of the type Congress “intended for review within the statutory scheme,” referring to the need to file administrative appeals before going to court. There were doubts the Trump administration would or legally could follow through as stated. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, called the plan “an unfunded IOU from Elon Musk.”

Then things started to get really interesting at State.

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