Congress has not engaged in "regular order" vs. omnibus spending since the early 1990s.
When former Speaker Pelosi famously said "We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it", that was nothing particularly new either.
Omnibus bills are massive — thousands of pages! — much of which is not written by our elected representatives at all. Omnibus bills often come together at the last minute, before holiday breaks, and without time for even the most dedicated member of Congress to read the entire thing.
No one that has been handing over the job of "elected representative" to unelected bureaucrats and special interests deserves to be in the job at all. They are supposed to be debating the various budget provisions throughout the year — not trying to make the federal budget into the ultimate fly-by-night operation!
If President Trump really wants to reform government, he needs to rely less on executive order — after all, we saw how fast President Biden came into office and reversed so many Trump policies — and call for legislative solutions. Among them, budgets should not be passed by omnibus. Perhaps a return to regular order ought to be the subject of legislation to require this most basic of due diligence — rather than allowing regular order to remain a voluntary "best practice" that Congress is free to continue to ignore.
Dear Peter - Thank you for the well articulated article & podcast.
Congress’s past lack of interest (by both Democrats & Republicans) in addressing these known federal spending waste, fraud & abuse issues previously presented by past General Inspectors(GI), Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) & the Office of Management & Budgets (OMB) is truly inexcusable & as you had indicated, “an abysmal failure of Congress as a steward of the public risk”.
While there are a few conscientious members of Congress, (like Rand Paul R-KY), who have historically tried to address many of these wasteful federal spending issues, most have not & it would be good if viewing this podcast was mandatory of each of the 535 Members of Congress (with wide spread distribution to their public constituencies).
Whether you agree or not with Trump/Musk’s DOGE disrupting methods, it is clear the status quo handling of these issues by Congress & past administrations simply has never worked. Possibly DOGE’s review should include a closer public scrutiny of the current individual Member of Congress’s “lack of interest” in appropriately addressing these known federal spending waste, fraud & abuse. We can only hope the Trump/Musk DOGE efforts to effectively address these issue are achieved before they potentially crash & burn in their created chaos.
Not new for those who have time to keep up. But brand new to everyone else. It's coming on so fast and hard, they won't have the time to memory hole it.
The details are new, because that is the nature of current spending.
But even as we digest the new detail, we do well to understand that the underlying problems which bring us to this point are not new. They have been around for literally decades, and more importantly the Congress has known about them for decades.
People will be rightly shocked by the details they did not previously know, but when the shock subsides what I hope emerges is a fair bit of righteous wrath at the elected officials who abandoned their sworn public duty and either allowed this to happen or actively facilitated it.
What DOGE is doing is showing us more than we've ever seen. The details around USIAD were disturbing and had never been seen before. We don't have to rely on the gatekeepers to provide some biased report with filtered data. What DOGE is sharing isn't perfect. It's often confusing. But it's way more than we've ever seen. Transparency is why bureaucrats are upset. And it confirms what the people have suspected for decades.
However, even the debacle of USAID has been the topic of GAO reports,
"However, GAO found that, contrary to leading practices, USAID did not comprehensively assess or document, in fraud risk profiles, the relevant fraud risks affecting its assistance in the three conflict-affected countries GAO selected for its review—Nigeria, Somalia, and Ukraine. As a result, USAID cannot ensure it has identified and is mitigating all relevant fraud risks in these countries."
Which again points to the fact that the lack of internal controls and compliance even at USAID has been documented--but Congress especially has never followed up on what was reported.
What we are seeing in DOGE is the result of decades of Congress and the federal bureaucracy ignoring the warnings being given by the GAO and various Inspectors General.
Congress has not engaged in "regular order" vs. omnibus spending since the early 1990s.
When former Speaker Pelosi famously said "We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it", that was nothing particularly new either.
Omnibus bills are massive — thousands of pages! — much of which is not written by our elected representatives at all. Omnibus bills often come together at the last minute, before holiday breaks, and without time for even the most dedicated member of Congress to read the entire thing.
No one that has been handing over the job of "elected representative" to unelected bureaucrats and special interests deserves to be in the job at all. They are supposed to be debating the various budget provisions throughout the year — not trying to make the federal budget into the ultimate fly-by-night operation!
If President Trump really wants to reform government, he needs to rely less on executive order — after all, we saw how fast President Biden came into office and reversed so many Trump policies — and call for legislative solutions. Among them, budgets should not be passed by omnibus. Perhaps a return to regular order ought to be the subject of legislation to require this most basic of due diligence — rather than allowing regular order to remain a voluntary "best practice" that Congress is free to continue to ignore.
Dear Peter - Thank you for the well articulated article & podcast.
Congress’s past lack of interest (by both Democrats & Republicans) in addressing these known federal spending waste, fraud & abuse issues previously presented by past General Inspectors(GI), Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) & the Office of Management & Budgets (OMB) is truly inexcusable & as you had indicated, “an abysmal failure of Congress as a steward of the public risk”.
While there are a few conscientious members of Congress, (like Rand Paul R-KY), who have historically tried to address many of these wasteful federal spending issues, most have not & it would be good if viewing this podcast was mandatory of each of the 535 Members of Congress (with wide spread distribution to their public constituencies).
Whether you agree or not with Trump/Musk’s DOGE disrupting methods, it is clear the status quo handling of these issues by Congress & past administrations simply has never worked. Possibly DOGE’s review should include a closer public scrutiny of the current individual Member of Congress’s “lack of interest” in appropriately addressing these known federal spending waste, fraud & abuse. We can only hope the Trump/Musk DOGE efforts to effectively address these issue are achieved before they potentially crash & burn in their created chaos.
Not new for those who have time to keep up. But brand new to everyone else. It's coming on so fast and hard, they won't have the time to memory hole it.
The details are new, because that is the nature of current spending.
But even as we digest the new detail, we do well to understand that the underlying problems which bring us to this point are not new. They have been around for literally decades, and more importantly the Congress has known about them for decades.
People will be rightly shocked by the details they did not previously know, but when the shock subsides what I hope emerges is a fair bit of righteous wrath at the elected officials who abandoned their sworn public duty and either allowed this to happen or actively facilitated it.
Amen to that brother
What DOGE is doing is showing us more than we've ever seen. The details around USIAD were disturbing and had never been seen before. We don't have to rely on the gatekeepers to provide some biased report with filtered data. What DOGE is sharing isn't perfect. It's often confusing. But it's way more than we've ever seen. Transparency is why bureaucrats are upset. And it confirms what the people have suspected for decades.
The details are new.
However, even the debacle of USAID has been the topic of GAO reports,
"However, GAO found that, contrary to leading practices, USAID did not comprehensively assess or document, in fraud risk profiles, the relevant fraud risks affecting its assistance in the three conflict-affected countries GAO selected for its review—Nigeria, Somalia, and Ukraine. As a result, USAID cannot ensure it has identified and is mitigating all relevant fraud risks in these countries."
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106192
Which again points to the fact that the lack of internal controls and compliance even at USAID has been documented--but Congress especially has never followed up on what was reported.
What we are seeing in DOGE is the result of decades of Congress and the federal bureaucracy ignoring the warnings being given by the GAO and various Inspectors General.
Just the tip of the iceberg my friend. Just how far down does it go?
All the way to HELL!