“President Donald Trump returned to the White House with a promise to slash spending by trillions of dollars and balance the federal budget.
But, as the first fiscal year of his second term came to a close, progress had not been made on either of those goals.
Despite the high-profile efforts of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the 2025 federal fiscal year ended with the federal government having spent more money than it did in the previous fiscal year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported
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The CBO’s end-of-year report helpfully spells out which parts of the federal budget saw the biggest year-over-year spending increases. Overwhelmingly, and unsurprisingly, the biggest increases were for the so-called entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. For those three programs, spending increased by a combined $245 billion.
Other big spending increases were recorded by the Pentagon ($38 billion) and the Department of Veterans Affairs ($41 billion), where the increase was driven by the rising cost of health care facilities. Interest payments on the national debt rose by $80 billion compared to the previous fiscal year’s totals.
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the CBO’s report serves to underline the same fiscal reality that plagued the DOGE project: Cutting silly government contracts and foreign aid might be a worthwhile effort, but that won’t make a dent in the budget deficit. Any serious effort at fiscal reform has to focus on the areas of the budget that are growing year over year—which, realistically, means looking at entitlement programs.
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There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical that anything will change in the next three years. For one, Trump’s track record after nearly five years as president does not suggest he cares very much about actually cutting spending. The coming years will also bring greater headwinds to any attempts at reducing the deficit. That’s due in part to the expected increases in entitlement spending, as well as the fiscal effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which extended and expanded the 2017 tax cuts in ways that will likely add to the deficit.”
The Navy said they didn’t want any more littoral combat ships because they sucked, but Congress spent a bunch more money building more of them due to district politics.
“Natcast signed on 200 members — notably, Nvidia, Intel, Apple, Samsung, Google and AMD — to pursue breakthroughs in the foundational technology that powers virtually every modern asset from AI to defense systems. The group spent its year-and-a-half existence trying to set up and eventually run a national hub where that R&D would happen, along with programs to ease the semiconductor industry’s severe talent crunch.
Lutnick’s clawback produced deep uncertainty while companies, researchers and lawmakers scrambled to understand where it leaves over a dozen awardees, plus the remaining billions. Nearly $2 billion was promised to infrastructure, research and workforce projects in states like Arizona, New York, California and Texas.
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The Commerce head has focused its dealmaking heavily on chipmakers. His new “investment accelerator” was handed supervision of tens of billions of dollars in CHIPS subsidies and ordered to negotiate “much better deals than those of the previous administration.” The undermining of Natcast followed an agreement to grant the U.S. a 10 percent stake in Intel, when Lutnick redid the terms of its CHIPS award.
Seven people, including from three Capitol Hill offices, raised concerns with the possibility that renegotiations for this $7.4 billion may involve similar government equity stakes. People also questioned whether requirements to share revenue from research patents could be under consideration. Lutnick spoke about subjecting universities to the idea the day after he voided the Natcast contract.
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When the agency started soliciting proposals for R&D funding last week, it told applicants, as a condition of an award, they “may be required to issue to the Department equity, warrants, licenses to intellectual property, royalties or revenue sharing, or other such instruments to ensure a return on investment.” The guidelines do not mention the national hub, yet cite the law that established it.
LC: If we need these companies to produce important technology, then we don’t need special deals to help them. We should help them because it is good for the country. The technology will produce a better economy and therefore more normal tax revenue. If we want these companies to pay us back directly, just make sure they are paying their normal taxes.
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“They decided to burn two years of delay to try to create their own thing,” said a former Trump official, who, like several others for this report, was granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. “While Natcast was not a Republican initiative and wasn’t how we wanted it go, I think it was better than burning down the whole system and starting over again.”
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“The companies are scared,” said a person familiar with the industry dynamics. “Companies want CHIPS funding, and they’re very afraid that if they speak out, they’ll lose it. No one wants to come into the crosshairs of the administration.”
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“There’s just a feeling of, for many of us, a year’s work going down the tubes, taxpayer dollars being flushed down the toilet,” said one person closely associated with Natcast.”
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An industry lobbyist said, “those who stand to lose the most in this process will be start-ups and research centers that were at the cutting edge of innovation.””
“When Democrats pushed the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) through Congress in 2021—with hardly any bipartisan support—Donald Trump warned Republicans not to vote for it. “Patriots will never forget!” said Trump, who described the bill as “a loser for the USA, a terrible deal, and makes the Republicans look weak, foolish, and dumb.”
Patriots may never forget, but it appears that Trump—who is now taking credit for projects funded by the bill—has.”
“Aside from his norm-breaking appeal, Milei’s approach is far different than Trump’s. Milei vowed free-market reforms to overturn decades of populist Perónism—a statist ideology that infected Argentina’s politics since Juan Domingo Perón won the presidency in 1946. His authoritarian approach has dominated the country’s politics for 80 years, with Milei beating Perónist opponents.
By contrast, Trump is overturning America’s historical embrace of free markets and free trade. He sets himself up as an all-powerful charismatic leader, inserts the feds deeply into the economy, and expands the reach of police and military forces. Like Perón, he’s doing it in the name of the “working class.” The U.S. Department of State once described Perónism as a “vague concept of social justice in some ways more akin to a religion than a political movement,” which sounds eerily like MAGA.
Perónism is more avowedly leftist than Trumpism, but MAGA’s “right-wing” policies sometimes seem indistinguishable from left-wing ones. Argentina’s populist movement has been successful at one thing: turning one of the world’s wealthiest countries into an impoverished basket case. Americans think of Argentina as a benighted third-world nation. But as economist Dan Mitchell explains, it was the 10th wealthiest nation in the world when Perón took over. It was often viewed as a European nation that happened to be in Latin America.
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On an unrelated note, Milei isn’t smitten by overseas authoritarians, unlike our president. Overall, Milei is using his power to loosen the government’s grip, whereas Trump—although he occasionally reduces regulations—is centralizing government power. The two men have bad hair and unpredictable temperaments, but beyond that the similarities dissipate quickly.”
“Flush with cash from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has spent millions of dollars on flashy custom SUVs and trucks the agency says are essential for public safety and recruitment efforts to meet President Donald Trump’s mass deportation goals.
Government contracts made public and reviewed by The Washington Post reveal that ICE has contracted more than $2.4 million for Chevrolet Tahoes, Ford Expeditions, and other vehicles, as well as custom graphic wraps. The gold-detailed wraps will include the words “DEFEND THE HOMELAND,” according to a social media post by the contractor, Maryland’s AP Tinting & Graphics, along with the words “INTEGRITY,” “COURAGE,” and “ENDURANCE.”
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The cost of the new ICE vehicles is in addition to the over $700,000 the agency spent on a pair of trucks designed to mimic Trump’s private jet and used in a Department of Homeland Security social media post on August 14. The wrapped GMC Yukon SUV and Ford Raptor pickup truck were pictured stationed in front of national monuments and government buildings around D.C., with the caption “We will have our country back.” The trucks were also showcased in a recruitment ad posted on social media featuring music by the rapper DaBaby, with the lyrics “My heart so cold I think I’m done with ice (Uh, brr)” and “Better not pull up with no knife (Okay)/’Cause I bring guns to fights.”
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The insistence that ICE must spend millions in taxpayer dollars on gaudy vehicles is ironic, considering the agency’s M.O. of using masked, plain-clothed agents in unmarked vehicles to target and arrest undocumented immigrants and violate Americans’ rights. But just as ICE’s immigration crackdown hasn’t really gotten dangerous people off the streets, neither will its marketing ploy protect public safety.”
“The takeover has allowed Trump to flex his muscles, but it’s coming at a steep cost to American taxpayers. The Intercept reports that the use of military forces in Washington, D.C., could cost $1 million per day. With more National Guard members flooding into the capital, the campaign could end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars, according to The Intercept.
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“Trump hosted a “big, beautiful” military parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Army. The event, which happened to coincide with the president’s 79th birthday, included a barrage of tanks, jet flyovers, and soldiers walking through the nation’s capital, and ended up costing American taxpayers $25 million to $45 million. That’s “$277,778–$500,000 per minute,” Reason’s Billy Binion reported.
Trump has also displayed America’s military power at his Independence Day celebrations, including the 2019 “Salute to America,” which ran up a tab of more than $13 million, and the 2020 events in D.C. and Mount Rushmore that cost close to $15 million. Next year’s Independence Day, which will be America’s 250th birthday, is expected to be even bigger. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) appropriated $150 million to the Interior Department for “events, celebrations, and activities surrounding the observance and commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.”
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The OBBBA also allocated nearly $30 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for detention facility maintenance, transportation costs, and recruitment efforts at the agency. ICE appears to be sparing no expense.
In addition to offering starting salaries of nearly $90,000 and signing bonuses up to $50,000, ICE has also wasted taxpayer money on marketing gimmicks and vehicle upgrades. Recently, the agency spent “$2.4 million for Chevrolet Tahoes, Ford Expeditions, and other vehicles, as well as custom graphic wraps,” writes Reason’s Autumn Billings. These gold-detailed wraps include the words DEFEND THE HOMELAND, INTEGRITY, COURAGE, and ENDURANCE.
This vehicle spending is on top of the $700,000 that ICE spent on two gold-wrapped trucks, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) used in a (cringe) recruitment campaign on X.
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On Tuesday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the entire U.S.-Mexico border wall will be painted black. “That is specifically at the request of the president, who understands that in the hot temperatures down here when something is painted black it gets even warmer and it will make it even harder for people to climb,” said Noem.
During his first stint in the White House, Trump proposed an identical plan. The Washington Post reviewed a copy of federal painting estimates at the time, which showed “costs ranging from $500 million for two coats of acrylic paint to more than $3 billion for a premium ‘powder coating’ on the structure’s 30-foot steel bollards.”
More than five years later, the cost to paint the border wall is sure to be higher.
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In 2018, Trump signed a $3.9 billion agreement with Boeing that would see the airplane manufacturer deliver two new jets to the Air Force One fleet by 2022. The planes are now expected to be delivered by 2027, years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.
Under the terms of the contract, the cost overruns will be paid for by Boeing. Despite these delays, Trump may soon be flying in a luxury jetliner that was gifted to him by the Qatari government. While the president has called this new Air Force One “free,” renovating the plane will cost Americans millions of dollars. As The New York Times reports, the Pentagon recently transferred $934 million from a nuclear missile project account to a classified project, which “congressional budget sleuths have come to think…almost certainly” includes the renovation of this new jet.
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In January, Trump revived an executive order that he signed in his first administration to establish a National Garden of American Heroes. The garden, which is expected to open next year on America’s 250th birthday, will include 250 life-sized statues of American heroes.
But the $34 million project has run into a basic, but serious, issue: America doesn’t have enough quality sculptors to complete the garden by next July or a designated location to put it. Daniel Kunitz, editor of Sculpture magazine, told Politico that the idea “seems completely unworkable.””
The U.S. debt issue is a political problem. In order to get elected, politicians promise to not cut taxes and/or to not cut benefits, when a combination of these is needed to fix the debt.
“President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel nearly $5 billion in federal aid without congressional authorization appears to be a straightforward violation of federal law.
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While that spending might be wasteful or foolish, the president does not have the authority to refuse to spend money that has been appropriated by Congress—though the Trump administration seems eager to challenge that limitation on executive power.
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The laws that govern the federal budget process—most importantly, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA)—allow presidents to make rescission requests to Congress. Trump did that earlier this year, and lawmakers followed through by cutting $9 billion in previously approved spending. The law also allows the executive branch to freeze funding for up to 45 days while Congress considers such a request.
Ross Vought, the director of the White House budget office, has argued that the executive branch can use that 45-day window to do exactly what Trump is now attempting: cancel any spending during the final 45 days of the fiscal year, which ends on September 30. “By withholding the cash for that full timeframe—regardless of action by Congress—the White House would treat the funding as expired when the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30,” Politico explained earlier this year.
Vought is wrong about that.
“The President has no unilateral authority to impound funds,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded in 2018 when it was asked by the House Budget Committee to examine the question of pocket rescissions. “We conclude that the ICA does not permit the impoundment of funds through their date of expiration. The plain language of the ICA permits only the temporary withholding of budget authority and provides that unless Congress rescinds the amounts at issue, they must be made available for obligation.”
Indeed, if the president were allowed to cancel any federal spending within the final 45 days of the fiscal year, then he could effectively cancel any federal spending at any time—by delaying the release of funds until the end of the year, then canceling them.”