The Democratic resistance is in full post-election swing, deriding President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet post choices and vowing to fight his policies tooth and nail once he’s sworn in – if not before.

The target of much derision has been the Department of Government Efficiency, to be run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The “two people to run one department” snark has been flying among liberal pundits.

It’s telling that an office designed to combat government waste and inefficiency is the subject of ridicule, and not the waste and inefficiency itself.

There’s plenty of it.

The Congressional Budget Office issued a report in July, finding that Congress provided $516 billion in appropriations this fiscal year to programs that had expired under federal law.

“Nearly two-thirds ($320 billion) of that $516 billion was provided for activities whose authorizations expired more than a decade ago,” the report said.

The Government Accountability Office found that the federal government made $247 billion worth of payment errors in fiscal year 2022 and $236 billion in 2023.

In 2022, the majority of improper payments spanned across 82 programs, a majority coming from Medicaid ($81 billion) and Medicare ($47 billion).

“Improper payments and fraud are long-standing and significant problems in the federal government,” said House testimony from GAO in September.

There’s more, of course. As NewsNation reported, federal government agencies are using just 12% of the space in their headquarters buildings on average, according to the Public Buildings Reform Board, an independent federal agency focused on recommending the disposal of underutilized federal properties.

But just because these spaces are largely empty doesn’t mean they won’t be furnished. The House Oversight Committee spent $3.3 billion on furniture over the past few years. Some agencies spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on updating empty conference rooms.

Where were the lawmakers who slammed corporations for high grocery prices when our government was splashing out on tables and chairs for unused offices? There are much better ways to spend $3.3 billion.

And we don’t just waste our dollars at home. Grants approved by the Biden Administration since December 2022 include $45 million for a “diversity and inclusion” scholarship in Burma.

The Heritage Foundation reported that Burma (also known as Myanmar) has a badly flawed judicial system, rampant corruption, and high poverty due to a lack of property rights and heavy government interference in the economy. A $45 million DEI scholarship will do nothing to address those problems.

There’s also $3 million for “girl-centered climate action” in Brazil. This hefty grant goes to an organization based in the Netherlands to promote DEI-infused environmental activism in Brazil.

Our tax dollars at work – just not for taxpayers.

Bloated programs, wasteful spending and government blunders are part of the laundry list of problems needing to be solved in America. Backlash against these boondoggles is part of the reason Trump is heading back to the White House.

Democrats can do much to repair their split with the working class by supporting efforts to end government waste and inefficiency, even if there are two people running the department.

Or they can simply resist, and be part of the problem.

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