If you follow the news, you’ve likely encountered the phrase “waste, fraud, and abuse” numerous times. This saying is often used by those on the political right to support cutting the federal budget, particularly when it comes to reducing benefits for low-income groups or implementing large-scale layoffs of federal employees.

(One never hears those words relative to the tax loopholes that benefit the rich.)

The Epoch Times, Tom Ozimek, Reporter,  12/23/2025

DOGE Says 55 Contracts Worth $863 Million Canceled in Past 5 Days
DOGE has estimated total savings of more than $214 billion since its creation, which it says amounts to roughly $1,329 per taxpayer.

Keep in mind that 214 billion mathematically equals 1,329 per taxpayer, if there are 161,023,326 taxpayers. I don’t know whether there are that many, but the question is irrelevant. None of them saved any money because of DOGE’s actions. Not even a penny.

The reason: Federal taxes do not fund federal spending; it is instead wholly funded by federal dollar creation.

Even if the federal government collected $0 taxes, it could continue spending forever. And not just continue, but spend at double or triple its current level, and still not feel a pinch.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) stated that federal agencies have terminated or scaled back 55 contracts over the past five days, eliminating an estimated $261 million in spending tied to what the task force described as wasteful or duplicative services.

We presume that paying a masked Gestapo to arrest, jail and deport people without trial or any other proof of guilt does not fall under the “waste, fraud, and abuse” criteria. Nor does defending Donald Trump against accusations of illegal and unconstitutional actions.

Nor does it cover needlessly and without public approval the destruction of sections of the people’s house, aka the White House.

The canceled and descoped contracts had a combined ceiling value of $863 million, DOGE stated in a Dec. 22 social media post announcing its latest update.

 Among the terminated agreements was a $1.6 million Housing and Urban Development contract for support management services intended to “provide coherent, accurate, comprehensive, timely and current digital news,” according to DOGE.

We certainly should not expect news from this administration that is “coherent, accurate, comprehensive, timely, or current.”

Another cancellation involved a $4.5 million Health and Human Services (HHS) consulting contract for the “coordination of quality and public reporting programs and websites.”

The latest action builds on a series of contract terminations announced by DOGE in recent weeks, as the Trump administration continues its push to reduce federal spending and shrink the federal workforce.

Earlier this month, DOGE stated that agencies had terminated or reduced 43 contracts with a ceiling value of $3.5 billion, yielding savings of $222 million.

Those included a $4.3 million Treasury Department IT contract to “develop a comprehensive strategic narrative and management approach aimed at the Human Centered Transformation and Enhanced Partnerships” and a $29 million Commerce Department consulting contract for program management services.

DOGE estimates total savings of more than $214 billion since its creation, which it says amounts to roughly $1,329 per taxpayer.

There are lies. There are damned lies. And then there is DOGE. Not a single taxpayer in America has been saved even one penny by DOGE and its cuts to federal spending.

Tell me exactly how DOGE has saved you any money.

The task force attributes the savings to a mix of asset sales, workforce reductions, interest savings, regulatory changes, grant cancellations, and the elimination of fraud and improper payments.

The HHS has accounted for the largest share of savings under DOGE, followed by the General Services Administration, the Social Security Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Small Business Administration, according to the task force.

The contract terminations come amid broader federal workforce reductions, part of President Donald Trump’s pledge to cut bureaucratic bloat, make government operations more efficient, and save taxpayer resources.

The so-called “savings” had four bad outcomes:

1. Service to the public has declined. Try making a call to, or getting an answer from, Social Security, and you’ll see what I mean.
2. The federal government pumped fewer growth dollars into the economy.
3. Good people have lost their jobs.
4. Good people are less likely to seek government positions because of their distrust of the government’s fairness in employment.

DOGE recently reposted a Dec. 16 statement from the Trump communications team saying federal employment had fallen to its lowest level since 2014, down by 271,000 jobs since Trump returned to office.

“Promises made, promises kept,” the post reads.

Forcing 271,000 people to be unemployed should only be a promise if you’re a billionaire, like Trump and Musk, who never need to worry about feeding their children.

DOGE has repeatedly pushed back against reports suggesting that the initiative has been dismantled or sidelined.

In November, the task force labeled a Reuters report claiming that DOGE “doesn’t exist” as “fake news,” stating that voters in the 2024 election gave the Trump administration a mandate to modernize government operations and reduce waste, fraud, and abuse.

There’s that phrase, again, “waste, fraud, and abuse,” repeated endlessly by Trumpers as their mindless, robotic mantra. Except, mass firings have nothing to do with “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Musk’s brainless chainsaw, that idiotic tool he proudly brandished at every opportunity, simply says, “Let’s just impoverish a lot of people and claim success.”

In a recent post, DOGE praised the efforts of U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz, who announced plans for a similar efficiency- and cost-cutting initiative at the international agency.

“We are ‘DOGE-ing’ the United Nations,” Waltz said in a Dec. 17 social media post, announcing plans to cut U.N. staffing by about 2,600 and slash its budget by 15 percent in the first year of the initiative.

Trump always has hated the UN because it won’t bow to his demands. In his 2025 United Nations General Assembly address, Trump sharply criticized the U.N. for having: “Empty words” that don’t solve wars,” saying the institution often fails to act on crises.

He claimed the U.N. is funding an “assault on Western countries, ” and that the UN’s immigration and green energy policies will ruin countries if leaders don’t put borders and sovereignty first.

He repeatedly has claimed that the UN hasn’t lived up to its potential despite “tremendous potential.”

Apparently, Trump believes cutting U.N. staffing by about 2,600 and slashing its budget by 15 percent will improve “green energy policies, solve wars, and help the UN live up to its potential.”

The Epoch Times article ends ironically, with the Big Lie:

“It’s time for the UN to get back to basics: stopping wars and preventing conflict, NOT funding bloated bureaucracy on the American taxpayer’s dime,” he wrote.

It’s not the American taxpayer’s dime. It’s not even the American taxpayer’s penny. It’s dollars the federal government creates at no cost to taxpayers.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;

MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

https://www.academia.edu/

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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

Ignorant Voting Begets Adverse Outcomes. In the vernacular, if you don’t understand what you’re voting for, you’ll get screwed.

Here are excerpts from an article in the December 25th issue of THE WEEK Magazine:

GOP moderates revolt as ACA subsidies set to expire

The Republican majority is right to stand firm on the credits, said National Review in an editorial. To agree to an extension now would be to accept them in perpetuity, imposing a $350 billion cost over a decade to expand a program “that’s proven a costly failure.”

Most Americans get their health insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, or employer-based plans that will be unaffected.

To gain an “incremental” edge in next November’s midterms is not worth “demoralizing Republican voters who still oppose throwing more taxpayer money at broken government programs.”

The fact is that ZERO TAXPAYER MONEY is used for Obamacare or for any other federal program. State and local taxes pay for state and local spending. Federal taxes do not pay for federal spending.

If you don’t understand the difference between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, please don’t cast a vote in the next election until you do. Ignorant Voting Begets Adverse Outcomes.

Republicans who endlessly blast Obamacare as a disaster aren’t “reading the room,” said Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times. The program they deem a “juicy partisan target” has steadily increased in popularity since 2016 and is now viewed favorably by 64% of voters.

And “Americans have voted for the ACA with their feet.” Enrollment has more than doubled since 2018, from 11.4 million to 24.3 million today.

Meanwhile, Republicans, who routinely fail to offer cogent arguments against Obamacare, have for 15 years failed to “conjure up a better program,” instead trotting out one unworkable proposal after another.

State and local governments are taxpayer-funded. States, counties, cities, and school districts cannot create dollars. They must obtain dollars before spending

They obtain dollars from taxes, fees, borrowing, and federal transfers. They only are currency users, just like households and firms.

If tax revenue falls, they must cut services, raise taxes, or borrow. So, for monetarily non-sovereign entities, the question, “How will you pay for it?” is a constraint.

The Monetarily Sovereign federal government is a currency issuer.

The U.S. federal government issues the U.S. dollar and spends by crediting bank accounts, which it can do endlessly, without collecting taxes. It does not need to “get” dollars from anywhere first.

The operational sequence is: Congress and the President authorize spending. The Treasury instructs the Fed to mark up bank reserves. New dollars come into existence.

Taxes and bond sales happen after spending, not before. No federal spending is funded by taxpayers.

The sole purposes of federal taxes are to create demand for dollars (you must get them to pay taxes) and to control the economy (sin taxes, carbon taxes, etc.)

Federal taxes do not provide the dollars that the federal government spends.

When politicians say, “This program must be paid for,” “This is unsustainable,” or “This increases the deficit,” they speak as if the federal government were a household.

“Pay-fors” exist because voters have been trained to think that, because money is scarce to them, it also is scarce to the Monetarily Sovereign federal government, the original inventor of the dollar.

This training comes from the very rich, who do not want the rest of America to understand these facts: The federal government could easily, without taxing, fund no-deductible Medicare for everyone, a far more generous Social Security for everyone, plus food aid, housing aid, and education aid for everyone.

The rich promulgate the “Big Lie in economics” (that the government should avoid deficit spending) because of Gap Psychology, the desire to distance oneself from those below and to be nearer to those above.

The very basis of economics can be found in Monetary Sovereignty and Gap Psychology, two fundamentals that seldom are discussed by the media, politicians, or universities.

OFFICIAL PORTRAIT

Suitable for Hanging

To honor the United States justice system, you may wish to hang this portrait in a prominent location where it will be seen and remembered by patriotic, compassionate, loyal Americans.

 

 

There was a time when America was admired as the world’s moral leader, a place where a poor person could work hard and achieve wealth and respect. We were known as “the city upon a hill.”

Those days are lost.

Today, a president posts a disgusting comment and doesn’t lose followers, the government hires masked thugs to abduct people from the streets and send them to the hell-hole “Alligator Alcatraz” without any trial, and the Supreme Court justices vote to absolve the president from any punishment for any crime, no matter how heinous.

It has become evident that our once-admired nation has transformed into a symbol of evil rather than freedom.

We should return the Statue of Liberty to France and allow a more worthy nation to flaunt it. The America of Trump, Thune, Johnson, Roberts, the GOP and FOX News is nothing more than a “Gulf of America” banana dictatorship.

 

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell

Search #monetarysovereignty

Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;

MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;

https://www.academia.edu/

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A Government’s Sole Purpose is to Improve and Protect The People’s Lives.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY