Tag: taxes

Forget America, Foreign Leaders Want To Know Exactly How Far US Meddling Went In Their Own Backyards

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico wrote to U.S. President Donald Trump’s close advisor, Elon Musk, who tasked his DOGE with rooting out corruption and waste in the U.S. government. Fico has asked for clarity on exactly what funds the USAID sent to Slovakia, requesting a face-to-face with the X CEO as the past operation of USAID is “extremely serious for the internal affairs of the Slovak Republic.”

The Slovak prime minister also wants to discuss ways in which the two countries, Slovakia and the United States, can cooperate. As of now, Musk has given no public reply. 

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Lee Zeldin Just Discovered $20 Billion Laundered by the Biden Admin

In a video announcement shared to social media Wednesday evening, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin revealed that approximately $20 billion in taxpayer funds have been discovered laundered into external financial institutions during the Biden administration.

Zeldin underscored the urgency of accountability, declaring, “One of my very top priorities at EPA is to be an excellent steward of your hard-earned tax dollars. There will be zero tolerance of any waste and abuse.”

The controversy goes back two months when a video of a Biden EPA appointee referring to taxpayer funds as “gold bars” being “tossed off the Titanic” went viral.

“The gold bars were tax dollars, and tossing them off the Titanic meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting it,” he explained.

“Fortunately, my awesome team at EPA has found the gold bars,” he stated. “This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history and it was purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight even further. This pot of $20 billion was awarded to just eight entities that were then responsible for doling out your money to NGOs and others at their discretion, with far less transparency.”

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PR Firm Shuts Down Site That Profiled Pesticide Critics After Investigation Reveals USAID Funding

A pesticide industry public relations consultant that secretly profiled hundreds of food and environmental health journalists, scientists and advocates has shut down its profiling operation in response to public outcry, The Guardian reported Monday.

v-Fluence created profiles on more than 3,000 organizations and 500 people. The company coordinated with government officials to counter global resistance to pesticides and genetically modified (GM) crops, according to Lighthouse Reports, which conducted a year-long investigation into the firm.

Many profiles include personal details including the names of family members, phone numbers, home addresses and even house values.

v-Fluence published the profiles on a private social network called “Bonus Eventus,” named after a Roman god of agriculture. Bonus Eventus is a private stakeholder “wiki” accessible by about 1,000 members described as the “who’s-who of the agrochemical industry” and its allies, including the world’s largest pesticide companies, academics and government officials from several countries.

More than 30 current U.S. government officials are on the membership list, primarily from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which regulates pesticides and organics.

The profiling was part of a broader effort to minimize pesticide dangers, discredit critics and undermine global policymaking on pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), according to documents obtained by Lighthouse Reports.

v-fluence is run by Monsanto’s former communications director, Jay Byrne, according to GMWatch, which also investigated the firm’s activities.

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Governor Lamont Proposes Universal Preschool, “Seeded By $300M From The Fiscal Year 2025 Surplus”

Governor Ned Lamont today announced that he is urging the Connecticut General Assembly to approve legislation he is proposing this session that would implement universal preschool.

“I want Connecticut to lead on early childhood education, and that means making preschool affordable and accessible for all of our kids,” Governor Lamont said. “Access to early childhood services is massively important to the state’s success, not only because these programs provide valuable tools for children that will lead them to professional achievements in the future, but also because being able to enroll your child in care right now means that parents can join the workforce and earn an income that supports their family. Connecticut has an opportunity to make an investment in our future by expanding access to affordable preschool.”

The governor’s proposal includes depositing a portion of the state’s anticipated surpluses over the next several years into a brand-new fund known as the Universal Preschool Endowment. The endowment would be seeded by $300 million from the fiscal year 2025 surplus, and in the following years any unappropriated surpluses from the General Fund will continue to be transferred into it. The endowment will be managed by the Office of the Treasurer, and the commissioner of the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood may expend up to 10% of the balance of the endowment in any fiscal year.

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USAID Staff Cry for Their Fiefdom

The largest foreign aid agency on earth has, courts willing, abruptly closed its doors in the past week and sent most of its staff home. Finding their virtue has no place to strut its worth, the response of many has been indignation and assurances of retaliation. Many of them had been working from home for years, but now must rouse themselves to show such indignation for being sent (i.e. remaining) home on full pay. Like being told to continue as normal, perhaps, but in a way that exposes uncomfortable realities to those in the community who are actually paying them.

Such cynicism is not the greatest of human traits, and when applied to an entire organization it is unfairly generalizing, but it also has its place. The new government elected by the people of the United States was, specifically, elected to dig into the accounts of large government bureaucracies and address a perception of profligate use of taxpayers’ money. Taxpayers who, mostly, get paid far less than the bureaucrats they are funding. Perhaps unusually, the elected government rapidly set about keeping some of its promises, co-opting a prominent private person (as they had also promised) as an agent to help drive the inquiries. Much of the current surprise, perhaps, arises from an elected President keeping some promises. Annoying as this can be, it is also how democracy is supposed to work.

Much is being made of evidence that USAID had been pushing ideology over need, such as stoking coups in democratic nations or supporting children’s programs that encourage ‘non-traditional beliefs on gender in conservative cultures. Concern is also correctly levelled over apparently reckless funding of bio labs in poorly controlled environments. People will argue on whether such cultural colonialism and risk enhancement are in US taxpayers’ interests (it depends on how you perceive humanity). 

However, it is also important to reflect on how USAID addressed its supposed core function of supporting development and healthcare for the benefit of those in less fortunate countries. This can be considered in America’s interests because a more stable and prosperous world is good for trade, and/or because Americans are humans and there is a moral imperative to care for those less fortunate. Though some have contrary or isolationist views on this, Americans as a nation are generous givers, and this is roughly why most thought USAID was supposed to exist.

For the past 5 years, the staff of USAID has, as a team, supported policies that they knew would impoverish over a hundred million people, push up to 10 million more girls into child marriage, and drive up child deaths from malaria and malnutrition. 

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Kamala 2.0? Buttigieg Made Same Pledge To Support Taxpayer-Funded Transgender Surgeries for Criminals That Dogged Harris Campaign.

It wasn’t just Kamala Harris. No, during the 2020 Democratic primary, presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg also supported taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for federal inmates and illegal immigrants.

The former mayor of South Bend, Ind.—now eyeing the 2026 Michigan Senate race—told the American Civil Liberties Union in 2019 that, if elected, he would use executive authority to ensure that federal inmates and illegal immigrants have access to “comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care.”

“I would direct my HHS Office of Civil Rights and Department of Justice to vigorously enforce all federal laws against discrimination based on gender identity, including ensuring the provision of all medically necessary care for transgender Americans,” Buttigieg wrote in response to the question. “This includes medical care for transgender individuals incarcerated in federal prisons and under immigration detention.”

A spokesman for Buttigieg told the Free Beacon that he “made clear his position that the law must be applied equally and fairly to all people seeking necessary care, and that he would faithfully enforce all federal laws against discrimination.”

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Speaking Of Lawfare… CT AG Tong And Blue State AG Coalition Sue To Stop Cost-Cutting Efforts At HHS And NIH, Including $35M From UCONN

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and 21 other attorneys general today sued the Trump Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over new guidance on indirect costs (e.g., depreciation, interest on debt, general administrative expenses) at universities and research institutions across the country that would bring such costs in line with market rates.

Pursuant to the new guidance, there will be a standard cost rate of 15% across all NIH grants for indirect costs in lieu of a separately negotiated rate for indirect costs in every grant.

Per NIH, it is “obligated to carefully steward grant awards to ensure taxpayer dollars are used in ways that benefit the American people and improve their quality of life.  Indirect costs are, by their very nature, ‘not readily assignable to the cost objectives specifically benefitted’ and are therefore difficult for NIH to oversee.”

The indirect cost rate reported by NIH has averaged between 27% and 28% over time. And many organizations are much higher—charging indirect rates of over 50% and in some cases over 60%.

Most private foundations that fund research provide substantially lower indirect costs than the federal government, and universities readily accept grants from these foundations.  

For example, a recent study found that the most common rate of indirect rate reimbursement by foundations was 0%, meaning many foundations do not fund indirect costs whatsoever.  In addition, many of the nation’s largest funders of research—such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—have a maximum indirect rate of 15%.  And in the case of the Gates Foundation, the maximum indirect costs rate is 10% for institutions of higher education.

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The US Treasury Spent HOW MUCH Illegally? Now You Know Why the Left Wants to Stop DOGE.

Congress illegally spent at least $516 billion in 2024 on programs for which there was no authorization. Yes, billion, with a “b.”  A stunning report by the Congressional Budget Office underscores the reason for the legal assault upon President Trump’s right to audit payments by the Treasury Department.

In a report titled “Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2024,” the CBO observes: “Historically, House and Senate rules restrict lawmakers from considering an appropriation if it lacks a current authorization.” Nevertheless, “CBO estimates that $516 billion was appropriated for 2024 for activities with expired authorizations, which the agency identified for each House and Senate authorizing committee and appropriations subcommittee.” That $516 billion in illegal payments cover “1,264 authorizations of appropriations that expired before the beginning of fiscal year 2024 and 251 authorizations of appropriations that were set to expire by the end of fiscal year 2024.” The legal authority for some of these payments expired 40 — that’s not a typo — years ago.

This data reveals a couple of things. First, Congress has established a shadow funding stream for pet projects of either the institution or of senior members that allows money to be shoveled into a porkulus spending bill under the guise of preventing a government shutdown. The money is paid even though there is no legal authority for the disbursement. This is what, among lesser beings, would be called embezzlement, but no word exists to describe the activity on this scale. Where embezzlement gets the plebians a stiff jail term, it gets members of Congress reelected and seats on corporate boards. 

Making this all the more intriguing is that it would seem that the President could stop those payments without worrying about violating the Impoundment Control Act as they are not legal appropriations by Congress’s rules.

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Heads Are Going to Explode When DOGE Cancels This Boondoggle

Boeing Vice President David Dutcher warned workers on the company’s Space Launch System (SLS) to prepare for layoffs on Friday if NASA finally cancels the rocket providing lift for the Artemis lunar program. The political fallout could make heads explode. 

Eric Burger has the details on Dutcher’s emergency all-hands meeting, but they aren’t all that interesting. What is interesting is what happens when and if a team led by SpaceX founder Elon Musk tries to cancel a multibillion-dollar project led by Boeing.

Artemis is the U.S.-led international effort to establish a sustainable human presence on the moon, but to borrow a New England expression, we “can’t get there from here” on the rocket built for the job —which is where DOGE’s budget-cutting chops come in.

SLS isn’t just a boring and stupid name for an impressively sized rocket; it’s underpowered and too expensive for its intended mission. SLS can’t put enough mass into lunar orbit to account for the Orion space capsule it carries and its four-person crew and their supplies. It doesn’t even carry the landing vehicle.

To make up for SLS’s shortcomings, we’re going to build Lunar Gateway — an international space station in orbit around the moon. The plan is that Orion and its crew will dock at the Gateway and transfer to a SpaceX Human Landing System (HLS, and another boring name) for transit to the lunar surface, where they’ll conduct their mission, and then back to the Gateway for transfer back to Orion for the voyage back to Earth. HLS gets to Lunar Gateway courtesy of a SpaceX Starship.

Did you get all that? There will be a quiz later.

The complexity is only necessary because SLS can’t produce enough lift. Starship, once completed, can produce enough lift, making the Lunar Gateway and all that going back and forth unnecessary.

The Lunar Gateway is expected to cost $5.3 billion just for initial construction (and we both know what happens to those initial estimates; they go nowhere but up) and another billion dollars each year to operate and maintain.

Maybe there’s a case to be made for Artemis to include an orbital substation, but it isn’t Lunar Gateway. 

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Circuit Court Judge Strikes Down Illinois FOID Card Requirement for Guns in the Home

On Monday, White County Resident Circuit Judge T. Scott Webb ruled against a requirement that Illinois residents must obtain a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card in order to possess a gun in the home for self-defense.

The case, State of Illinois v. Vivian Claudine Brown, which was supported by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association, centered on Brown’s possession of a .22 rifle in the home for self-defense on March 18, 2017, without an accompanying (required) FOID card.

She was charged due to her lack of a FOID card, and a suit was subsequently filed. The suit challenged not only the FOID card requirement but also the fee to obtain such a card, which is $10. Brown argued that the fee “suppresses a fundamental right that is recognized to be enjoyed in the most private areas, such as the home.”

Webb weighed the case in light of Heller (2008) and Bruen (2022), ultimately found that “the defendant’s possession of a .22 caliber rifle within the confines of her own home, even without a valid FOID card falls squarely within the protections afforded her by the Second Amendment.”

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