The Heritage Foundation's Defense Budget Tool provides a user-friendly method to aid in both the analysis and transparency of the U.S. defense budget and facilitate more informed debate about how the Department of Defense ought to be directing spending.

Until now, individual line items of the defense budgets have only been published on the website of Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) each year. This data is published in disparate PDFs and spreadsheets, with no mechanism for viewing all the data at once.
This tool:

• Provides an itemized accounting of the U.S. defense budget for analysis by national security experts.
• Allows a user to create customizable defense budgets that can be saved and shared for future reference.
• Makes defense budget data more accessible to Americans interested in the composition of the U.S. national security budget.

Reagan warned about unchecked government spending.

Obnoxious and entitled federal bureaucrats’ attempts to resist reform are making it hard to say good things about public service. //

Well, having been a political reporter in D.C. for 26 years, the fact there are extraordinary federal workers is unsurprising to me. I personally know good, talented people in the trenches. What is likely surprising to Lewis’ affluent center-left readers is that the bad federal workers are so, so much worse than unmotivated nine-to-fivers. //

So I would encourage you to read Who Is Government? and do it with an open mind. Let’s build a “culture of recognition” that rewards good federal employees, and better educates the public on the good things our federal agencies are doing for us. I would just humbly suggest that a culture of recognition is worthless without also building a strong culture of accountability. Based on the petulant reaction and baseless legal resistance to an elected president’s fairly modest attempts at reforming and downsizing an unelected bureaucracy, we have a long way to go before we get bureaucracy that puts the citizens’ needs before its own.

California's high-speed rail project officially began in 2008, although it was initiated on paper earlier. The whole system was initially planned to comprise 776 miles, with a completion date set for 2020. To date, none of the proposed rail network is operational. By way of comparison, the Transcontinental Railroad is 1,911 miles long, cutting through the Rockies and Sierra Nevada, and it was completed in 2,314 days, despite the Civil War and Indian raids. An [Irish track-laying crew laid 10 miles, 1,320 feet of track on a single day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracklaying_race_of_1869#Ten_Miles_of_Track,_Laid_in_One_Day:~:text=new%2520record%2520with-,10%25C2%25A0miles,-1%252C320%25C2%25A0feet%2520(16.496), while California has managed to lay 1,600 feet in nine years. //

The ballyhooed three-hour trip from LA to San Francisco only works if there are no stops. Once you add stops, the time starts to increase. There is no universe in which this rail line would not require large-scale government subsidies because the daily passenger demand just isn't there. At best, this is a sinecure for politically connected construction and consulting firms. At worst, it is outright theft. If California's voters are willing to foot the bill, they should be allowed to do so. The rest of us should be allowed to opt out, and thanks to Secretary Duffy, we have.

Fox News reported Wednesday that the Trump administration found every step of the streamlining and reorganization process to be difficult. Even something as simple as getting a list of the people who actually worked for the State Department turned out to require major effort. “It took us three months,” recounted one Trump State Department official, “to get a list of the people that actually work in the building.”

That’s your taxpayer dollars at work. “They couldn't tell you how many people worked here. It’s sort of scary as a taxpayer and as a public servant to think that we don’t even know how many employees we have. This is a national security agency, you know. Who are these people?” Yeah, good point. Not only were unknown amounts of money being wasted, but the State Department could have been the place of employ of any number of people whose loyalties lay elsewhere, or who were even at place in Foggy Bottom in order to gather information for hostile entities.

Inconceivable? If only it were.

Bureaucracy: The Real Engine Behind This Train
This isn’t just about a failed transit system. It’s about the broader addiction to government grandeur, the idea that massive spending equals progress, even when the results amount to a pile of gravel and invoices.

California’s rail saga should be taught in every high school civics class as a master class in government arrogance. The state formed committees to oversee subcommittees that evaluated contracts for lines that didn’t exist. Meanwhile, the actual train remains stuck in concept art and artist renderings. It’s easier to draw the train than to build it. //

The Private Sector Could've Built the Rails and Painted the Train Twice
Imagine if a private consortium had been handed $11 billion and told to build a rail line from L.A. to San Francisco. Given the right contractor, it would have been completed by now, including terminals, security, solar roofing, and possibly even a profit margin, potentially while under budget.

Just last week, USAID officials and three company executives pleaded guilty in a massive fraud and bribery scheme involving at least 14 contracts totaling over $550 million

The trial showed that USAID contracting officer Roderick Watson took bribes and was showered with lavish gifts—including cash, laptops, thousands of dollars in tickets to a suite at an NBA game, a country club wedding, downpayments on two residential mortgages, cell phones, and even jobs for his relatives.

In exchange for these bribe payments, Watson influenced the award of over $550 million in contracts by manipulating the procurement process at USAID. He now faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
https://dallasexpress.com/crime/usaid-official-three-executives-plead-guilty-in-550m-bribery-scheme/ //

The solution is twofold.

The first part is to root out and eliminate these programs, which are currently managed by unelected bureaucrats and shouldn’t exist in the first place. //

The only way to do this is to elect representatives who agree with these principles, and then hold them accountable to ensure they do what we’ve elected them to do.

The second part is to enforce radical transparency and accountability in all future government activity. This part is much more difficult.

It starts with only allowing programs to be created in public through the official legislative process. No more administrative decree. If an elected official isn’t willing to go to the public and say, “Here’s what I want to create, here’s why, and here’s how it will work,” then it shouldn’t be allowed to exist. But it’s not just elected officials who play a role here—as citizens, we have a duty to make our voices heard during that process and then look at the results of the programs that our tax dollars, whether federal or local, are spent on and determine if they’ve been effective. //

ibt
an hour ago
Every grant of funds to an NGO should have to be signed for by a Representative or Senator. Then, that person should be held accountable for any fraud with those funds. After all, it is the JOB of the Representatives and Senators to responsibly spend taxpayer money. Oh, if the Representative or Senator loses their election in November, the funds should be frozen until another one signs for it. "Please explain to this court why you allowed the NGO to steal this money."

In September 2007, Hillary proposed giving every American child a $5,000 “baby bond” at birth. The Republican National Committee immediately condemned it as a “budget busting baby fund.” Rudy Giuliani dismissed it as pure “pandering” to voters.

They were right then. What changed?

Trump’s version offers $1,000 per child — originally branded “MAGA Accounts,” now called “Trump Accounts.” With around 4 million births annually, taxpayers face a minimum $4 billion yearly obligation. The same policy framework Republicans spent months attacking has somehow become Republican orthodoxy. //

From a corporate finance perspective, this program creates perverse incentives that benefit wealthy families and financial institutions while providing minimal help to working Americans.

The structure allows families to contribute an additional $5,000 annually to these government-seeded accounts. Wealthy families who can afford maximum contributions receive ongoing tax shelters, while working families get a one-time $1,000 payment they likely can’t afford to supplement.

Meanwhile, Wall Street firms are already positioning to manage these accounts. Billions in new assets under management mean substantial fee income for financial institutions. Taxpayers fund the initial deposits, Wall Street collects the management fees, and wealthy families get tax advantages — a perfect trifecta for everyone except the middle class citizens who foot the bill.

Trump’s version contains another critical flaw that makes it worse than Hillary’s income-restricted proposal: no income limits and minimal citizenship verification. While children must be U.S. citizens, parents only need Social Security numbers.

This creates a massive incentive for illegal border crossings. //

Genuine America First policy should focus on proven strategies: cutting spending so working people aren’t killed by government-caused inflation, reducing regulatory burdens on small businesses, curtailing the skyrocketing costs of health insurance by repealing Obamacare, and eliminating corporate welfare programs that benefit connected elites.

Instead of creating new government programs, Republicans should expand existing vehicles like Education Savings Accounts and Health Savings Accounts that already provide tax advantages without requiring taxpayer funding.

Real pro-family policy means letting families keep more of their own money through tax cuts and other conservative reforms, not redistributing taxpayer dollars through government accounts managed by Wall Street firms.

President Trump and Sen. Cruz are sound conservatives who received bad advice from establishment insiders. But they can still correct course.

The test of conservative leadership isn’t avoiding all mistakes — it’s recognizing bad advice quickly and changing direction.

The Trump administration’s filing, which seeks for the Supreme Court to enjoin Illston’s order, said it ‘interferes with the Executive Branch’s internal operations and unquestioned legal authority to plan and carry out RIFs, and does so on a government-wide scale.’

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Mayor Karen Bass used Walter Lopes’ Pacific Palisades home as a prop to pat herself on the back for helping the neighborhood rebuild after the January wildfires.

But SWR can reveal that Lopes’ house is the only structure standing for blocks and blocks in the charred, desolate Show more
6:34 PM · Jun 1, 2025

Lopes said he was only able to get started so quickly because he was rebuilding his house exactly as it was constructed just a few years ago — and he’s shelled out millions of dollars and pulled out all the stops to get it done. //

The reality is, five months after the wildfires tore through the Pacific Palisades, fewer than 300 homeowners have even applied for rebuilding permits – out of more than 7,000 structures destroyed.

Just 52 addresses have had permits approved, and fewer still have actually seen any construction – despite a batch of executive orders from state and local government meant to free homeowners from bureaucratic hell.

But the real scandal here isn’t Trump’s temporary jet or Qatar’s diplomatic overture. The buried lede is that an elite American defense contractor can no longer deliver a presidential plane in a timely fashion. It reflects a deeper rot in the U.S. military-industrial complex — one that used to win world wars in less time than it now takes to build a new plane.

Boeing’s delivery of the new Air Force One fleet is a part of the VC-25B program (begun under the Obama administration), which “will replace the United States Air Force Presidential VC-25A fleet.” The government awarded Boeign the contract in 2018 with a target delivery date for 2024. But that date has since been pushed to 2027, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

As CNN previously reported, “Boeing’s $3.9 billion contract to replace the two Air Force One jets has become an expensive and embarrassing albatross. Boeing has reported losses totaling $2.5 billion already on the program … since it agreed to be responsible for what has become soaring cost overruns.”

On April 14, Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, announced that the United Arab Emirates would begin using artificial intelligence to help write its laws. A new Regulatory Intelligence Office would use the technology to “regularly suggest updates” to the law and “accelerate the issuance of legislation by up to 70%.” AI would create a “comprehensive legislative plan” spanning local and federal law and would be connected to public administration, the courts, and global policy trends. //

AI, and technology generally, is often invoked by politicians to give their project a patina of objectivity and rationality, but it doesn’t really do any such thing. As proposed, AI would simply give the UAE’s hereditary rulers new tools to express, enact, and enforce their preferred policies.

Mohammed’s emphasis that a primary benefit of AI will be to make law faster is also misguided. The machine may write the text, but humans will still propose, debate, and vote on the legislation. Drafting is rarely the bottleneck in passing new law. What takes much longer is for humans to amend, horse-trade, and ultimately come to agreement on the content of that legislation—even when that politicking is happening among a small group of monarchic elites.

Rather than expeditiousness, the more important capability offered by AI is sophistication. AI has the potential to make law more complex, tailoring it to a multitude of different scenarios. The combination of AI’s research and drafting speed makes it possible for it to outline legislation governing dozens, even thousands, of special cases for each proposed rule.

But here again, this capability of AI opens the door for the powerful to have their way. AI’s capacity to write complex law would allow the humans directing it to dictate their exacting policy preference for every special case. It could even embed those preferences surreptitiously.

Since time immemorial, legislators have carved out legal loopholes to narrowly cater to special interests. AI will be a powerful tool for authoritarians, lobbyists, and other empowered interests to do this at a greater scale. AI can help automatically produce what political scientist Amy McKay has termed “microlegislation“: loopholes that may be imperceptible to human readers on the page—until their impact is realized in the real world.

But AI can be constrained and directed to distribute power rather than concentrate it. For Emirati residents, the most intriguing possibility of the AI plan is the promise to introduce AI “interactive platforms” where the public can provide input to legislation. In experiments across locales as diverse as Kentucky, Massachusetts, France, Scotland, Taiwan, and many others, civil society within democracies are innovating and experimenting with ways to leverage AI to help listen to constituents and construct public policy in a way that best serves diverse stakeholders.

If the UAE is going to build an AI-native government, it should do so for the purpose of empowering people and not machines. AI has real potential to improve deliberation and pluralism in policymaking, and Emirati residents should hold their government accountable to delivering on this promise.

"There's about $14 billion we've identified with DOGE, of folks who are duly enrolled wrongly in multiple states for Medicaid," Oz said on this week's "Sunday Morning Futures."

"You live in New Jersey, but you move to Pennsylvania, and which state gets your Medicaid? Turns out both states collect money from the federal government." //

Quizzical
13 hours ago
Nearly everyone is against waste, fraud, and abuse in the abstract. The people actually receiving the money by fraudulent means are all in favor of it, however--and will complain loudly if you try to cut it. Which explains a lot of the complaints that we've seen recently. //

OrneryCoot
11 hours ago
I am continually appalled at how easily and casually the Democrats, nearly across the board, are so very willing to utter bald-faced lies about the actions of the Trump Administration and the Republican Party. It is one thing to differ on policy; that's fine, and arguments can and should be made. But to completely and knowingly misrepresent what your political opposite is saying? That's apparently their total modus operandi now. I know that politics is the business of lying to some degree, but the Democrats are just breathtaking in the sheer scope of their falsehoods. I am quite certain that none of them consider the consequences of their lies, and especially the judgment being heaped on their heads for their reckoning with the Father. I am quite aware that I will have a whole lot to answer for when my time comes; I am relieved beyond measure that Christ has covered me with His grace. I'm not so sure that most of these Democrats are in any way repentant concerning their lies, and I fear that the fruits of their words are going to reap a very bitter harvest for them, both here and in the hereafter.

You can retire. You can pay off your mortgage. But if you stop paying property taxes, the government comes for your land. That’s not just theft—it’s tyranny.

From a pro-liberty perspective, property taxes violate the very foundation of individual liberty and private property rights. If true ownership is the cornerstone of a free society, then no government has the moral authority to charge citizens for the right to live on land they’ve already purchased. //

Notime4U
3 hours ago
Property tax for those who pay, is effectively income tax. Unless the property is income-producing, which is unlikely, the money to pay comes from income. The big problem, to me, is the annual "assessment" which is arbitrary and ALWAYS goes up. In my 14 years on my current property, my tax has doubled, from less than 2K per year to more than 4K. My state has an income tax too. If the real estate market declines, the assessor might lower the valuation, but it takes two years for me to realize the difference, which is minimal. The next year, it goes right back up. This scam should end, but it won't. Government pigs need to keep the trough filled.

Kennedy asked Wright about the money that went out the door in those 76 days between the time President Trump was elected and the time Joe Biden left office. //

"During that short period of time, 76 days, how much taxpayer money went out the door of the Department of Energy?" Kennedy asked.

"From the loan program office, in loans and commitments, $93 billion. Well over twice as much as in the previous 15 years," Wright replied. //

Wright responded, "I think it's probably pretty clear it wasn't done in many cases...There's lots of funds that have gone out the door and commitments that were made from businesses that provided no business plan, no numbers about their own financial solvency..."

"So you're telling me that the Department of Energy, in the 76-day period, before their boss was gonna leave office, gave or loaned money to entities that had no business plan?" Kennedy inquired.

"Correct," Wright said.

Kennedy continued, asking Wright if he was going back and checking over these applications. Wright said, "Yes," and "My blood pressure is rising right now" over what they had found. He said some of the people who applied "should be ashamed."

Kennedy, who always has a quip for everything, observed, "It's rare that I'm speechless." He asked again if this money was "shoveled out the door" by the Biden team in this period. "It is correct and distasteful," Wright confirmed. "Confidence undermining."

"My God!" Kennedy exclaimed. Kennedy said Wright should take whatever time he needed to go through all these projects, "penny by penny." "They were spending money at the Department of Energy like it was ditchwater! Their budget went from $60 billion to $160 billion since fiscal year 2021. It just sounds to me like there were a lot of people coming to the Department of Energy who had all four feet and their snout in the trough. I hope you'll turn down the boondoggles and refer the thieves to the Department of Justice."

"We will indeed," Wright promised.

The Vigilant Fox 🦊
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Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) led the charge, slamming Kennedy for a $3 billion drop in federally funded biomedical research compared to last year.

Kennedy stood his ground.

“We’re cutting waste, we’re cutting duplicative programs,” he said.

Still, Baldwin wouldn’t let up. She framed the loss of “3,200 fewer grants” as an attack on “life-saving programs.”

Kennedy hit back with a devastating stat.

“We spend 70% of the world’s biomedical research out of NIH. 70%. And we’re the sickest country in the world,” he said.

“We’ve had a 38% increase in our agency growth over the past four years,” he added. “That money has not been well spent.”

The exchange summed up a broader dynamic: Democrats trying to paint RFK Jr. as a villain, slashing life-saving science, while Kennedy pointed out that America’s health is declining because of how this money is being spent, not despite it.

3:19 PM · May 20, 2025 //

Senator Kennedy: How many employees were there at HHS when you took over?

HHS Secretary Kennedy: 82,000.

Senator Kennedy: How many do you have today?

HHS: 62,000.

Senator Kennedy: OK.

HHS: That's about the level it was in 2019, right before COVID.

Senator Kennedy: Is, is this the first time that an institution in America has ever downsized?

HHS: I don't think so. I think private and public institutions have.

Senator Kennedy: Microsoft just announced that they were going to reduce their workforce by 6,000 people. You think that will be the end of Microsoft?

HHS: Senator, we wouldn't have reduced anybody...

Senator Kennedy: You think that will be the end of Microsoft?

HHS: I don't think so, Senator. //

Senator Kennedy: Do you hate medical research?

HHS: No, I think we need to lead the world in medical research in this country.

Senator Kennedy: In fact, isn't it true, Mr. Secretary, that you would like to see more money spent on medical research?

HHS: Obviously. I'm the secretary of this department and no secretary wants to see his budget cut.

Senator Kennedy: Well, one way of doing that, it seems to me, would be to stop some of the stealing. And let me tell you what I mean by that. Suppose NIH gives a university $100 million to research, for medical research, to research a cure. And that university takes $30 million of it, doesn't spend it on the research, they use it to subsidize the rest of their university. Is... does that show a commitment to medical research?

HHS: No, and I mentioned before the example of Stanford, which was taking 78 percent in indirect costs, and we don't know what they were spending it on.

Senator Kennedy: That's a theft, isn't it?

HHS: It's not a good way to spend federal money.

Senator Kennedy: In Louisiana, we call that stealing. We call that stealing.

Governing magazine found that in the 2021-2022 election cycle, “the biggest public-sector unions spent more than $700 million on election-related activity,” including $160 million from union political action committees. Most union members and all their public-sector leaders are Democrats, and not surprisingly, 96 percent of their funding went to Democratic politics, while the data show that Republican political entities received almost nothing.

Federal government public sector unions, by themselves, are a substantial force. Open Secrets magazine showed that dues mostly paid from U.S. national government salaries (some unions have state members also) constituted half or more of total public sector union political contributions. Again, Democrats received almost all of the funds, while Republican and conservative groups received little or even zero contributions. //

The National Treasury Employees Union and its ilk is one of the major ways the Deep State has remained entrenched, wrapping itself in red tape and restrictions that made it next to impossible for its employees to be removed. Trump's executive order has leveled that barrier and now an appeals court has affirmed his authority to be... well, a president. We elect presidents to protect the national interest, and part of that role is to deem who and what falls under the purview of national security, as well as who he tasks to enact and protect those interests.

Neera Tanden🌻
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Hey America - while you were sleeping the Republicans started to put out their plan to rip health care away from millions of Americans. Almost 14 million people lose their health care so the GOP can fund tax cuts for the rich.
Jamie Dupree
@jamiedupree
The Congressional Budget Office tells Democrats that the GOP changes to Medicaid and the Obama health law will knock 13.7 million people off the health insurance rolls. Letter at https://democrats-energycommerce.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-energycommerce.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/cbo-emails-re-e%26c-reconcilation-scores-may-11%2C-2025.pdf
Last edited
7:18 AM · May 12, 2025. //

VoteGeneric
21 minutes ago
Likely that there are 13.7 million fraudsters in the Medicaid program. //

Musicman
18 minutes ago
I hope Tanden is right: there are surely 14 million on Medicaid who are not actually poor. (One of my best friends, who died last year, was on it even though he had over a million dollars in the bank because he didn’t have any “income.”)

Obama extended Medicaid way beyond its mission. Here in NM our governor has a scheme to extend it to all working class (as opposed to poor) people.

HINSON: Can you define for the committee today what an improper payment is, and some examples of what you're seeing — and why these procedures were not already in place before, Mr. Secretary?

BESSENT: Well...it's a bit mystifying why they weren't in place. And what we are seeing is that there was a very complacent upper level of management in many departments...across the entire government. What I can say at Treasury is that of the 1.5 billion payments...we send out every year, they are required to have something called a TAS — the Treasury Account Symbol. We discovered that more than one-third — one-third — of those payments did not have a TAS number. So, as the Appropriations Committee, you should be shocked by that because: How can a payment be tracked back to an appropriation? Only through the TAS number. So there was no accountability. So that is why the 450 organizations that sit above Treasury, where Treasury acts as the paymaster, are unable to pass an audit. So, we have cracked down on that. Every payment now requires a TAS number — very simple.

The decision to incorporate as a city empowers Starbase to set its own tax policies and urban planning priorities, free from the bureaucratic red tape that often stifles innovation. This aligns with conservative principles of local control and minimal government overreach. The Texas Legislature is even considering a bill to grant Starbase authority to manage local highways during SpaceX launches and regulate access to nearby Boca Chica State Park, further reinforcing the community’s ability to balance economic growth with public safety. //

Starbase’s rise also underscores Texas’s growing appeal as a haven for businesses fleeing progressive strongholds. In July 2024, Musk relocated SpaceX’s headquarters from California to Starbase, citing frustration with the Golden State’s stifling regulations and social policies. He made a similar move with X, shifting its base from San Francisco to Austin.