Trump Has the Taxpayers’ Back

By admin On Feb 9, 2025

Is there a publicly traded company in the U.S. where shareholders (in this case, the taxpayer) or the company’s board would not want their CEO to have visibility, oversight, and authority over how their company’s money is spent and provide policy guidance for the expenditure of company funds?

Remember the three branches of government, one of them being the Executive Branch, from your Civics 101 class? Although the CEO analogy is not exact, President Trump has constitutionally enumerated duties as the nation’s chief executive. Powers tied to these responsibilities originate in Article II of the United States Constitution and include control of executive agencies including the cabinet departments like State, Defense, Treasury, etc., that are the operating — the working — arms of government. A crucial tool in any president’s toolbox is the executive order (or E.O.), which allows the president to direct executive agencies without congressional interference. The president as the nation’s chief executive is vital to the prudent and effective functions and operations of government.

So far, President Trump is tackling those duties and responsibilities seriously and energetically. These are the very duties President Trump is exercising when, as the nation’s chief executive, he initiated early reviews looking into the Treasury Department’s payment policies and activities, standing down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) with a 90-day pause to re-evaluate program spending, and firing inspectors general (I.G.s) across 17 different federal agencies.

It is good business practice for a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to take a hard look at government spending. President Trump promised on the campaign trail that he would do it soon after taking office as sensible due diligence following the transfer of power.

It now appears that those three early actions were warranted. At Treasury, there were reports “that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.” At USAID, the review was uncovering numerous cases of questionable expenditures unrelated to furthering U.S. national interests and instead pushing progressive values and causes, often inimical to receiving nations. The president’s firing of I.G.s was prompted by increasing emphasis on combating fraud, waste, and abuse and reforming those agencies in accordance with the I.G.s’ stated missions to just that.

Yet no sooner had word of these actions hit the street on Capitol Hill than congressional and Senate Democrats literally took to the streets. Opposition politicians gathered this past week to howl about Elon Musk’s efforts to reduce government waste. Egged on by their usual rent-a-crowd of activists and bureaucrats who always manage to show up at such rallies, they railed against Musk, Trump, and other assorted enemies. Some of the attacks were personal, insulting, and slanderous, like shouting that Musk is a “Nazi.” Other moments were just hamfisted (look no farther than video of Chuck Schumer’s ungainly chanting).

More revealing at last week’s public spectacle were those same Democrats from Congress and the Senate baying at the new administration about cutting USAID and expressing their unreserved backing of that agency. Yet not one of them — not a single Democrat — stood up for the American taxpayer to question whether taxpayer dollars are being spent prudently. None of them expressed even a professional curiosity or healthy skepticism about USAID’s expenditures, even after accounts of what USAID was funding have become public. Members of Congress have fiduciary responsibilities for their constituent taxpayers as well — not just unreserved backing of government organizations.

But what is likely really bothering Democrats is that DOGE, under Elon Musk’s leadership and acting at the behest of the president, is turning over rocks to reveal how billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on questionable, often partisan, progressive, and illicit items and causes having absolutely nothing to do with U.S. national interests and done to advance particular agendas, political or otherwise.

Accounting of such expenditures has become public and is multiplying. Does U.S. foreign policy really hinge on spending taxpayer dollars on trans comic books in Peru? DIE in Serbia? Atheism in Nepal? Pottery classes in Morocco? How about far more serious matters like viral research at a biolab in Wuhan, China, with known ties to the PLA and biological weapons research? (What could go wrong?)

Then there is a domestic political angle. If one reason why Kamala and Democrats lost in November Is what they planned to do if elected, DOGE revealing many “skeletons in the closet” from the spendthrift ways of the Biden-Harris Democrat administration could be #2 in a one-two-knockout punch to the party. That’s what Democrats and their fellow progressive travelers are likely all lathered up about.

Granted, checks and balances must be in play. DOGE has not been granted unprecedented powers; it is a presidential advisory group. If the DOGE team oversteps, the other co-equal branches should intervene. But the idea that government must remain fully intact — even grow further — on its present path, with no meaningful oversight or change, is both unreasonable and unsustainable. The American public, voting in November, has given President Trump a vote of confidence to proceed.

Framing government bureaucrats as hapless victims does not and will not resonate with most Americans. (Layoffs and downsizings occur regularly in the private sector.) And Americans abhor entitlement. They told politicians last November they really don’t care for what’s coming from two groups presently loudly demanding it: illegal aliens and government bureaucrats.

Lastly, USAID was established by executive order, and yes, later written into U.S. Code by Congress as an independent agency, but still falling under Executive Branch direction and control. The president has every responsibility and authority to direct its function.

Democrats must accept constitutional reality and the will of the American electorate. President Trump is the decision-maker, hired by the American people for the chief executive job, and he is doing exactly what the American public hired him to do. Let’s see what the country’s annual report to shareholders looks like at next year’s State of the Union address in January.

Until then, Americans just might see a significant reduction in the federal deficit and debt. Now, that’s a cause all Americans — Republican or Democrat — can get behind.

Colonel Chris J. Krisinger, USAF (ret.) served in policy advisory positions at the Pentagon and twice at the Department of State. He was also a national defense fellow at Harvard University. As a military aviator, he piloted C-130 “Hercules” transport aircraft. Contact him at cjkrisinger@gmail.com.