The dystopian man who lives in the House that Enslaved People Built campaigned that he would reduce inflation, not eliminate “fraud waste and abuse” and address immigration issues through mass deportations.
He can’t fix inflation by attempting to bully Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, who is justifiably standing his ground until his term ends in May 2026. If he chooses to be a thorn in the side of the man who appointed him, he can stay on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors until January of 2028.
The president’s promise to end “fraud, waste and abuse” meant that he had his chainsaw-carrying toady, Elon Musk, slash his way through government agencies, laying off or firing thousands of workers, eliminating critical programs and generally creating havoc until the bromance ended badly. Hell has no fury like a billionaire scorned.
Children are starving all over the world, but especially in Gaza, where the evil annihilator, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is limiting food aid and denying that children are starving there. The media visuals of little children with ribs protruding, young boys scrambling to collect flour and mothers crying with anguish as their children languish in their arms would touch even the hardest of hearts, except for Mr. Netanyahu, who declares that there is no starvation in Gaza.
Even our president, not well known for his tender heart, has challenged his crony on this matter. If our president is so concerned, though, why has he authorized the destruction of life-saving food because, thanks to cuts in USAID, there was no way to distribute the food before its expiration date in late July.
About 500 tons of food, valued at $793,000, would have fed at least 30,000 children. Instead, U.S. taxpayer dollar-funded food was either used as landfill or incinerated, costing another $100,000 in disposal costs. Fraud, waste and abuse, anyone?
A month or so ago, the State Department destroyed $10 million worth of birth control supplies purchased by USAID for women in developing countries. The supplies included birth control pills, injectable contraceptives, IUDs and others. Stored in warehouses in Belgium, the January 2025 foreign aid freeze included this birth control, valued at nearly $10 million. Several global agencies, including Planned Parenthood International, offered to pay for the distribution of these products, but our government refused, choosing to incinerate the items instead, at a cost of $167,000.
Some had a shelf life of several years, possibly good until 2027 or later. This administration would rather light a match to useful birth control supplies, incinerating the hopes and dreams of women internationally. This administration embraces and celebrates fraud, waste and abuse when it fits its ideological purposes. A bipartisan group of legislators, including Republican U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Jean Shaheen of New Hampshire, opposed the wasteful destruction, but it happened anyway! More fraud, waste and abuse from an administration that promised to eliminate it.
Food and birth control products incinerated. Valuable research halted. The very administration that says it wants to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse is causing it, lighting a fire to taxpayer dollars, golfing through crises as myopic as Nero, fiddling while Rome burned.
Dr. Julianne Malveaux is a Washington, D.C.-based economist and author.