(Apologies about the X links. They’re not always resolving, especially in read mode, but they still work when you click on them)

I’m reminded of a UMR focus group I attended in 2002 in Parnell (they were was prepping Labour for that year’s election. We were being asked about how we felt our tax dollars were being spent and were presented with four pages of a two column list (double-sided) of government departments and god knows what else. I always enjoyed that the obvious Lefties there were shocked.

In a town with only one industry, reducing government is a sacrilegious act. It is one thing to run on reducing government and quite another thing to actually mean it…

Dear Lord but there is a meltdown going on in Washington D.C. as the DOGE team uncover rort after rort by the ugly and connected.

USAID, the NEA, and other taxpayer-funded programs issue billions of dollars in grants. John and Jane, or Pete and Pete, each work at non-profits who receive these grants. The non-profit pays them $300,000 or more. In some cases, such as the Kennedy Center, the CEO is paying $1.5 million. A married couple takes in $750,000 together, and often much more.

Off of your back.

Year after year, and the perks don’t stop with salaries. Believe it or not, that’s small potatoes. If they want a free ski vacation in Aspen? Well there’s a conference being held annually. The non-profit will of course fly them there and provide accommodations. Every meal is of course non-profit related. Eat well. Itching for a trip to Switzerland or Paris? Same deal. The non-profit would be delighted to host a conference on some subject.

How they cut their family and friends in on the scam. Their nepo babies start a “conference organizing business,” and pay them from the non-profit to put on events. Maybe they take on an ownership interest in these businesses via an offshore account.

Read the rest of how these scams have been arranged, and understand that while there will be GOPr’s involved (Uniparty, yay) this is inevitably and overwhelmingly the product of the Democrat Party and their progressive goal of having a giant state that can help the poor, oppressed and dispossessed.

What’s happening in DC right now is what an actual transfer of power looks like. The political right hasn’t engaged in exercising real authority over the exec branch in so long (eg: we elect GOP presidents who sit atop a thoroughly Democratic infrastructure that undermines them 

But who needs DOGE. Here’s a tracking outfit that’s been around for awhile – Open The Books – and their revelations are equally shocking as you search through the site, which aggregates publicly available information and includes about half of the Federal employment data. It’s not exhaustive, – there’s no CIA, NSA, DIA, GA, NGIA, TVE, etc, etc – but there are notable things you see when filtering through the 1.5 million salaries that are captured (Hit the drop down on the Employer box and understand we have nothing like this in New Zealand):

  • The OPM itself had 2,902 salaries. 62% of them making more than $100k.
  • There are 15 people who work at the Denali Commission (something to do with Alaska) What do they do? Mostly infrastructure projects. Why is the average salary $149,795?
  • Peace Corps, JFK’s brainchild. There are 981 salaries. Railroad Retirement Board? 813 salaries. Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council? 24 salaries – 23 of which are in excess of $100,000.

I’m reminded of a UMR focus group I attended in 2002 in Parnell (they were was prepping Labour for that year’s election). We were being asked about how we felt our tax dollars were being spent and were presented with four pages of a two column list (double-sided) of government departments and god knows what else. I enjoyed seeing that the obvious Lefties there were shocked.

It’s true Trump is violating a lot of norms regarding the relationship between the executive and the civil service. It’s also true that these “norms” were all established in the 20th century and have almost zero basis in Constitutional lines of authority.

And the truth is that these people in Washington D.C. who run the government never really cared…

Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Special Services, testifying in front of the DOGE Subcommittee, says by implementing robust ID verification could save $1 trillion every single year in entitlements. “Between federal, state, and local government, you can save one trillion dollars”

This should not be a surprise. Last year the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) published a report that identified $516 billion in spending that had gone on programs that were expired. Treasury should have stopped the payments and contacted Congress to either cancel or re-start the programs, but nobody gave a shit.

Frankly I don’t think DOGE has a show against this leviathan. As of Feb 19, 2025 they’ve identified $55 billion of “waste, fraud and abuse”. The US Federal budget last year was $6,800 billion of spending.

DOGE, admittedly with 500 days remaining before Musk and company return to sending rockets to Mars, have nailed 0.81% of that.