Mind-blowing. No expression seems more appropriate for the totality of actions taken by President Donald J. Trump in just three weeks, as he upends programs and policies that have been part and parcel of the federal government for decades. In fact, even after campaigning on the boldest and most expansive platform of reform in our lifetime, if not all of American history, the president has actually exceeded the expectations of both allies and enemies. The old saying that sunlight is the best disinfectant has never been more true.
Goodness knows what Elon Musk and his wet-behind-the-ears crew of young DOGE tech geniuses will uncover when, together with Trump Cabinet officials, they turn their scalpels to the departments of defense, education, and the rest of the bloated, corrupt, and biased bureaucracy. But what they have already uncovered and exposed in less than a month is astonishing. Federal agencies with hidden agendas protected by tangled webs and layers of deceit are witnessing years of work fall like dominoes. And a court ruling laughably prohibiting the head of the Treasury Department from accessing his own agency’s payment system, which controls all federal expenditures, will undoubtedly not stand.
Trump and Musk Unmasking USAID Is Just the Start
Who really paid any attention to USAID before Trump returned to the Oval Office? It was thought to be a well-meaning agency delivering aid, per its acronym, to the needy across the world. But consider what has now been unmasked. The list of outrageous taxpayer-funded progressive boondoggles by this and other agencies is far too long to include here. But these are a few: $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru; $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia; $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland; $1.5 million to “advance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)” in Serbia; $2 million for sex changes and "LGBT activism" in Guatemala. At the same time, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, now overseeing USAID, promises to preserve “core life-saving programs” for which the agency was originally established.
As Democrats quake in their boots over the exposure of initiatives shielded from taxpayers for years on end, two points are particularly important to make. First, considering that the annual federal budget is roughly $7 trillion, defunding every disgraceful expenditure that can be uncovered by Trump operatives is less about making a serious dent in the national debt than the matter of even more profound significance. Namely, their efforts are aimed at restoring the confidence of a citizenry that has long suspected its hard-earned money was going down many a federal rathole but felt powerless to do anything about it -- until now.
The second point comes from listening to the futile protests of the Trump-deranged Washington establishment bemoaning its loss of control over the federal bureaucracy. Notice how not a single one of the objections involves defending the progressive pork uncovered by the Trump administration. The protests involve only the fact that these investigations and revelations are occurring. A prime example of those crying crocodile tears over the unmasking of USAID is one-time conservative-turned-Trump-deranged establishment columnist Mona Charen, who wrote: “By abruptly pulling the plug [on USAID], the world's greatest humanitarian country has become one of its least, raising a huge middle finger to those facing hunger, disease, war, and oppression.” She explains away the progressives’ toxic agenda in calling for USAID to be kept intact: “Even if they were preaching gender ideology with every shot of penicillin (and they're not), it would still be worth doing.”
All the usual suspects -- prominently Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) -- are up on the soap box day after day, howling into the darkness while refusing to defend any of the hundreds – soon to be thousands -- of specific illegitimate expenditures unmasked by the new sheriff in town. They surely believed the American people would always remain none the wiser. But then Trump returned to Washington armed with a meat cleaver.
The Bloated, Redundant Bureaucracy
Now we come to the matter of bloat and redundancy in the federal budget. In a truly remarkable expose on the EKO online platform, the author wrote about a late-night session of DOGE computer geeks at the Department of Treasury:
“As their algorithms crawled through decades of payment data, one number kept growing: $17 billion in redundant programs. And counting … [their] analysis revealed patterns that career officials didn't even know existed. By dawn, they would understand more about Treasury's operations than people who had worked there for decades. This wasn't a hack. This wasn't a breach. This was authorized disruption … While career bureaucrats prepared orientation packets and welcome memos, DOGE's team was already deep inside the payment systems. No committees. No approvals. No red tape. Just four coders with unprecedented access and algorithms ready to run.”
“That trail led to staggering discoveries. Programs marked as independent revealed coordinated funding streams. Grants labeled as humanitarian aid showed curious detours through complex networks. Black budgets once shrouded in secrecy began to unravel under algorithmic scrutiny.”
The piece concluded, “The storm isn't just gathering. It's here to stay.”
Indeed, one can hardly understate the magnitude of the Trump administration blowing through the once-comfortable corridors of power in Washington with hurricane-force winds. The toothpaste cannot be put back in the tube. The establishment knows it has one foot in the grave, and the other foot headed there. DC will never be the same.
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