USAID head is considering criminal referrals over agency spending concerns. Here's what wasteful government spending means for American taxpayers

Trump's battle against wasteful government spending

Trump wasted little time addressing the country’s alleged wasteful spending, issuing an executive order to freeze U.S. foreign and development aid on his first day in office.

“It doesn’t mean that we’re not doing foreign aid,” said Tammy Bruce, spokesperson for the State Department, in a recent press briefing. “It’s a matter of how are we going to be doing the aid and if it is effective, and if it is efficient.”

Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), however, has called out the Trump administration's cuts to foreign aid, highlighting the drastic cuts to USAID's staff.

"Ninety-four percent of USAID staff have been fired," Murphy said. "The representatives of the administration in charge of cost-cutting have made it clear that the goal is to destroy USAID."

The Supreme Court recently rejected the White House’s request to cancel $2 billion in already allocated foreign aid, marking a significant legal setback for DOGE. But that won’t stop the Trump administration from seeking out wasteful spending, which is apparently so prevalent within USAID that Marocco is considering criminal charges.

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How wasteful government spending affects tax payers

According to the Cato Institute, federal spending has risen faster than tax revenues, which has greatly contributed to Congress’ inability to balance the budget for the last two decades. In fact, the situation had become so imbalanced that by 2023, the U.S. government was spending nearly $2 billion more than it was earning in revenues.

Since then, the government’s annual spending has skyrocketed to a record $6.7 trillion, raising concerns about the long-term sustainability of such spending.

“As the government spends it runs up a deficit,” Richard Stern, a budget and spending expert with the Heritage Foundation, shared with CNBC. “What happens is, it’s sucking all the oxygen out of the room. It’s destroying investment. It’s mortgaging our futures. It’s slowing our growth. Today, the inflation you’re seeing is a large result of that.”

Since billions of taxpayer dollars are reportedly wasted every year, wasteful spending undoubtedly plays a big part in America’s inability to balance the budget. In 2022, the government lost a staggering $247 billion to improper payments, which essentially are payments that were made incorrectly, according to the Government Accountability Office.

“The government has just lost, as if you dropped it on the sidewalk, trillions and trillions of dollars over the last few decades,” said Stern. “That is money that was stolen from hardworking Americans to just simply get wasted.”

As Stern mentioned earlier, wasteful spending has contributed to the inflation that we see today, but that’s not the only pain that misallocated funds and simple human errors can impose on the American taxpayer.

• Higher taxes: Wasteful spending can impact taxpayers if/when governments raise taxes to cover the losses.
• Reduced public services: The government’s spending has sparked concern over whether there are enough funds left for critical public services. Shortages in funding for services like education and health care can lead to overcrowded classrooms and understaffed hospitals.
• Lack of accountability in government: Politicians rarely let you under the hood when it comes to government spending, but the Trump administration’s "Radical Transparency About Wasteful Spending" push aims to do just that. "I therefore direct the heads of executive departments and agencies to take all appropriate actions to make public, to the maximum extent permitted by law and as the heads of agencies deem appropriate to promote the policies of my Administration, the complete details of every terminated program, cancelled contract, terminated grant, or any other discontinued obligation of Federal funds," said President Trump in a White House briefing.