The site for ranting and reporting by John Masters
“Waste” should describe money spent badly. Too often, it becomes a political label applied before anyone proves that a program failed, cost too much, or duplicated another service.
This essay looks at how that label can be used to weaken support for public programs before the facts are settled. Real waste should be cut. Political dislike should be debated honestly. Those are not the same thing.
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The Hillsborough County DOGE committee reviewed a large volume of records and announced more than $678 million in possible savings. But its own report also admits that the work involved limited due diligence, no transaction-level testing, and no independent verification.
That does not make the report useless. It does mean the public should treat it as a list of leads, questions, and proposed cuts, not as proof that hundreds of millions of dollars were wasted. A lot of documents can produce a big number. They do not automatically produce an audit.
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Not every proposed cut is the same. Unused software licenses, underused vehicles, vague contracts, and weak bidding rules are real places to look for waste.
But the Hillsborough County DOGE report also targets nonprofits, equity work, community outreach, and cultural programs. In this essay, I separate genuine control problems from programs that appear to have been labeled “waste” because committee members do not like their purpose.
Political opposition is fair. Calling it financial analysis is not.
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The Hillsborough County DOGE committee says it found roughly $678 million in potential savings. That sounds impressive, until you look at what the number actually includes: entire public programs, contract limits, fund balances, possible management changes, and spending choices committee members simply do not support.
In my latest essay, I take a closer look at the report and the difference between finding real waste and labeling any disliked program as waste. The committee may have raised some fair questions about fleet use, software licenses, contracts, and oversight. But cutting a service is not the same as making government more efficient, and a large number is not proof.
Read moreTaking his cues from former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzalez has decided to make the War on Porn “one of the top priorities” of the AG’s office. In early August, the FBI’s Washington Field Office sent around a job listing to recruit eight federal agents, a supervisor and support staff to take on “manufacturers and purveyors” of pornography.
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