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government accountability office
Trump’s Budget Cuts Will Only Make Things Worse for Struggling Rural Hospitals
The budget bill will put enormous strain on rural hospitals, which are often the largest local employer in addition to crucial care providers.
Sep 14, 2025
Bari Senecal waits outside the emergency department at Columbia Memorial Hospital in Hudson, New York. “I do construction. I fell three stories,” Senecal explains. “I was on top of the scaffold and this new kid we hired didn’t put the braces on correctly.”
Like 70 million Americans, Senecal qualifies for Medicaid, the state and federally-funded public health insurance program for low-income patients. She also qualifies for Medicare. She’s what’s known as being “dual-eligible.”
At Columbia Memorial, 63% of patient service revenue is reimbursed through a combination of the two programs. But “we run a deficit every year,” says Dorothy Urschel, CEO of Columbia Memorial Health. “For many, many years, we’ve been reimbursed at well below cost.”
The hospital has the only emergency room serving the more than 110,000 residents scattered among two predominately rural counties. “Of course, we’re struggling,” says Urschel. “But rural community hospitals always struggle.”
Columbia Memorial already closed its maternity ward in 2020—part of a distressingly common trend. A recent study from the Journal of the American Medical Association found that more than half of rural counties now have no hospital-based obstetric services whatsoever.
Like other rural hospitals across the country, Columbia Memorial is bracing for the loss of Medicaid-covered patients and funding because of the Republican reconciliation bill, dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which was signed by US President Donald Trump this summer.
Over the last decade more than 100 rural hospitals have closed across the country—50 of them in just the last eight years.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill will cut $911 billion in federal Medicaid spending over the next decade and result in an estimated 10.3 million people losing their Medicaid health insurance. Add in cuts to the Affordable Care Act and the number of people expected to lose their insurance rises to 16 million.
According to Larry Levitt, vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, this amounts to “the biggest rollback in federal support for health coverage ever.” And it will put enormous strain on rural hospitals especially—which in Columbia County and elsewhere are often the largest local employer in addition to crucial care providers.
The GOP staggered these cuts so that the worst effects of the budget changes won’t be felt until after the midterm elections in 2026 are safely past. But “some rural hospitals around the country have already started closing” in anticipation of the cuts, warns Michael Chameides, a member of the Columbia County Board of Supervisors.
Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) provided a list of 338 rural hospitals in danger of either closing or drastically scaling back services. All 338 had experienced three consecutive years of negative total profit margins and were in the top 10% of institutions with patients on Medicaid.
Rural hospitals facing disaster are identified individually according to which state will see the losses. Kentucky, Louisiana, and California top the list with 35, 33, and 28 rural hospitals identified as at risk of closure, respectively. New York has 11. (Columbia Memorial isn’t officially one of them, but Garnet Medical Health Center Catskills, another Hudson Valley hospital, is.)
An estimated 1,796 hospitals remain in rural America, but those numbers obscure the level at which the services they offer may have already contracted. According to the Government Accountability Office, over the last decade more than 100 rural hospitals have closed across the country—50 of them in just the last eight years.
In New York and every other state, as federal funding runs dry it will be up to the governor and legislature to make provisions for struggling rural hospitals—or stand by and watch them collapse.
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Nonpartisan Watchdog Agency Finds Trump Admin Illegally Withheld Head Start Funds
"The Trump administration broke the law and denied communities the funding they need to create jobs, grow their economies, and support working families," said one Democratic lawmaker.
Jul 23, 2025
The Trump administration has violated at least two federal laws by withholding close to $1 billion from Head Start, the program that provides preschool education to low-income families, a nonpartisan watchdog agency found on Wednesday.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) illegally impounded crucial funds from Head Start between January 20 and April 15 of this year, when it distributed only 65% of the money it had provided to the early childhood education program over the same period in 2024.
Head Start lost more than $825 million over that time period, forcing some centers to close.
The GAO found that withholding the funds violated the Head Start Act and the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), which restricts the president's ability to rescind or delay funding that has already been appropriated by Congress.
"HHS has not provided the information we requested regarding factual information and its legal views concerning the potential impoundment of appropriated funds," said the GAO. "Yet publicly available evidence, including data recorded by HHS on its Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System, indicates that between January 20, 2025, and April 15, 2025, HHS withheld from disbursement funds appropriated for Head Start. Based on this evidence, we conclude that HHS violated the ICA."
The office added in its decision that "the Constitution grants the president no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation... If the administration wishes to make changes to the appropriation provided for Head Start, it must propose legislation for consideration by Congress."
Previously, the GAO has advised Congress that the Trump administration illegally withheld funds for an electric vehicle charging system and for the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
"Today's legal opinion from the nonpartisan GAO reaffirms a simple truth: The power of the purse belongs to Congress, not the president," said U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), ranking member of the House Budget Committee. "By blocking these investments, the Trump administration broke the law and denied communities the funding they need to create jobs, grow their economies, and support working families."
"Instead of trying to destroy preschool programs and breaking our laws to hurt working families, President Trump needs to ensure every penny of these funds get out in a timely, consistent way moving forward."
The administration has proposed entirely eliminating Head Start, which provides education to more than 750,000 children. Earlier this month it announced that children who are undocumented immigrants will no longer be accepted into the program—prompting a lawsuit that was filed this week by 21 Democratic state attorneys general.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who serves as vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, condemned President Donald Trump for "stealing money from preschool programs."
"No president in modern history has demonstrated such contempt for working and low-income American families as Donald Trump," said Murray, noting that a Head Start program in her state's Lower Yakima Valley was among those that had to temporarily close earlier this year, impacting more than 400 children and more than 70 staffers.
"Today, a top government watchdog confirmed what we've known for months: President Trump has illegally held up vast sums of funding for Head Start programs across America—blocking funding that working families count on every day for pre-K and so many critical services Head Start offers," said Murray.
"Trump has signaled he would like to eliminate Head Start—but that's not his choice to make," she added. "Congress delivered this funding for Head Start on a bipartisan basis, and instead of trying to destroy preschool programs and breaking our laws to hurt working families, President Trump needs to ensure every penny of these funds get out in a timely, consistent way moving forward—and he must also finally get out the rest of the investments he has been robbing the American people of."
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Rebalancing Checks and Balances: How to Curb Executive Abuse
President Trump has conclusively demonstrated that the executive branch cannot be trusted to police itself in following the law. Congress must act to prevent future overreach.
Apr 25, 2025
In his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump has moved aggressively to expand the authority of the executive branch, thereby upending our traditional system of checks and balances among the three branches of government. Reforming this system while he still holds office will be impossible, but he will eventually move on, and Congress should be planning now for changes to the system of shared governance to limit outsize executive authority and prevent future autocratic abuses.
Although President Trump has pushed the envelope further than most could have imagined possible, his abuse of power is reminiscent of the Nixon administration. After the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Richard Nixon, Congress took steps, such as the Anti-Impoundment Act, to curb presidential excesses. Following the second Trump administration, an even more fundamental restructuring may be in order.
One thrust of Trump’s second term has been a concerted effort to sideline the legal referees charged with checking abuses. Nearly a score of inspectors generals charged with addressing fraud and abuse have been summarily dismissed without cause. The Office of Government Ethics has been decapitated. The head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel charged with enforcement of civil service laws, such as whistleblower protection, has been removed.
America did not intend to elect a dictator.
The net result is that violations of laws and ethics go unchecked because independent oversight has been neutralized. To prevent the recurrence of future lawless regimes, Congress should reinstitute some of the checks Mr. Trump has shredded but in a way that insulates them from unilateral executive reversal. Congress needs to strengthen the institutional guardrails against executive violations of ethical standards and for protection of federal employees from illegal actions and enforceable standards for scientific integrity.
One step would be a statute relocating inspectors general (IGs) within the legislative branch. IGs do not perform an inherently executive function as they lack authority to implement their recommendations. Congress should appoint fixed-term IGs and team them with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), another legislative body, to keep this strengthened watchdog function beyond executive obstruction.
In this restructuring, the independent IGs could also conduct scientific integrity reviews to resolve challenges to the accuracy of scientific and technical agency information. This would put control of scientific and technical data and analyses beyond the unilateral control of the very bureaucracies responsible for creating them and thereby prevent them from peddling disinformation. Moreover, uniform procedures would facilitate the use of expert scientists from other agencies, universities, and other institutions to serve as review panels.
Similarly, institutions charged with enforcing civil service protections, such as the Office of Special Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics, should be moved into the legislative branch, as well, to prevent them from executive nullification.
Most fundamentally, the executive should not be able to control the judges who decide on disputes the executive branch has with its employees, contractors, and others. Basic fairness requires that these referees be impartial and not under the direct control of one party in the disagreement.
These referee positions are also not inherently executive in nature. For example, under the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984, Congress designated its GAO to serve as an independent and impartial forum for the resolution of disputes concerning the awards of federal contracts. Similarly, investigations into and reviews of employment abuses and related disputes could be handled by statutorily relocated Offices of Special Counsel and Government Ethics.
Significantly, one of the more insidious recent Trump initiatives is asserting his authority to summarily remove administrative law judges (ALJs) who preside over hearings regarding administrative or legal disputes between federal agencies and affected parties. The prospect of removal at will undoubtedly pressures ALJs to alter their decisions to favor the executive agencies.
Mr. Trump is also attempting (once again) to sideline the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the civil service court which hears legal disputes about the illegal termination or treatment of federal employees. During his first term, President Trump shuttered MSPB by refusing to appoint any persons to fill MSPB vacancies. The three-member MSPB soon lost a quorum to decided cases and entered the Biden administration with a backlog of undecided appeals of more than 3,700 cases.
In his current term, Trump is trying the same approach, seeking to remove one of the two remaining MSPB members midway in her five-year term. As a result, the MSPB has once again been shuttered and may not reopen for years,
To enforce the basic rule of law, Congress should move the cadres of administrative law judges and the MSPB to the judicial branch so that the basic fairness of these decision-makers is safeguarded and they are shielded from further executive interference.
While President Trump may claim that he is implementing the will of the public, a recent Wall Street Journal poll found broad bipartisan support for limiting Trump’s unilateral executive authority. America did not intend to elect a dictator.
Yet, the principal takeaway from events of the past few months is that President Trump has conclusively demonstrated that the executive branch cannot be trusted to police itself in following the law. To prevent future presidents from assuming the same authoritarian posture as Trump, Congress must act decisively to fundamentally rebalance our system of checks and balances.
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Keystone, 'Safest Pipeline in the World,' Ruptures—Again
President Donald Trump wants to revive Keystone XL, a highly controversial extension of the tar sands pipeline system, despite three massive leaks over the past eight years.
Apr 08, 2025
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
The Keystone pipeline—which carries hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil nearly 2,700 miles from the Alberta tar sands to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma daily—was abruptly shut down Tuesday morning following a rupture in North Dakota, marking yet another accident along what proponents have called the "safest pipeline in the world."
South Bow, the Canadian company that manages the Keystone system, said it shut down the pipeline—which transports an average of around 624,000 barrels of crude oil per day—after detection systems sounded the alarm on a pressure drop. The company said the spill is confined to an agricultural field about 60 miles southwest of Fargo.
"The affected segment has been isolated, and operations and containment resources have been mobilized to site," the company said, according to The Associated Press. "Our primary focus right now is the safety of onsite personnel and mitigating risk to the environment."
As the AP reported:
It wasn't clear what caused the rupture of the underground pipeline or the amount of crude oil released into the field. An employee working at the site near Fort Ransom heard a "mechanical bang" and shut down the pipeline within about two minutes, said Bill Suess, spill investigation program manager with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality. Oil surfaced about 300 yards (274 meters) south of the pump station in a field and emergency personnel responded, Suess said.
A proposed extension known as Keystone XL would have carried more tar sands oil—widely considered the world's dirtiest fuel—to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. Opponents warned of the danger of leaks, with a 2021 report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office noting that there were 22 accidents along the conduit between 2010 and 2020. These include leaks of more than 100,000 gallons per spill in 2017, 2019, and 2022.
"Keystone's incident history illustrates the problematic pipeline's systemic issues," Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, said in a statement Tuesday. "The Keystone pipeline appears to be on track to hit its average of about a significant failure every year. It's time to address this pipeline's shortcomings."
Following more than a decade of pressure from climate, environmental, Indigenous, and other groups, then-President Joe Biden revoked Keystone XL's permit on his first day in office in January 2021. President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a "drill, baby, drill" platform, now wants to revive Keystone XL.
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Sanders Warns Musk's Call for $700 Billion in Cuts Is a 'Prelude' to Social Security Privatization
"Why do you lie so much about Social Security? To get people to lose faith in the system, and then you can give it over to Wall Street," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Mar 11, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders warned late Monday that billionaire Elon Musk's new call for up to $700 billion in cuts to mandatory federal spending is an alarming step in the direction of Social Security privatization, a longstanding—and deeply unpopular—goal of right-wing politicians and corporate-funded think tanks.
Musk, who is spearheading a large-scale assault on federal agencies and workers, told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on Monday that "waste and fraud" in "entitlement spending"—a category that includes Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—is "the big one to eliminate," estimating that up to $700 billion could be cut from such programs.
It's not clear where Musk, who has lied repeatedly about Social Security in recent weeks, got the $700 billion figure. As Rolling Stone's Andrew Perez noted, "There is no expert on the planet who thinks there is $700 billion worth of annual fraud in America's safety net programs."
"Musk at one point in the interview cited a Government Accountability Office report which estimated that the government may lose between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud, but that report covered the whole of the federal government—not just those programs," Perez wrote.
A 2024 report from the Social Security Administration's inspector general found that of the $8.6 trillion in Social Security benefits paid out between 2015 and 2022, roughly $71.8 billion was dispensed improperly—0.84% of the total.
"I think this is a prelude not only to cutting benefits, but to privatizing Social Security itself. I think that's in the back of their mind."
Musk also baselessly claimed that mandatory federal spending on programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is a "mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants, by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters." (In reality, undocumented immigrants pay taxes that help finance Social Security and Medicare but cannot receive benefits from the programs.)
Sanders (I-Vt.) couldn't hide his disgust when he was asked during a CNN appearance to respond to Musk's remarks.
"Well, he has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. They have already laid off 2,500 employees of the Social Security Administration," said Sanders. "If you ask me, I think this is a prelude not only to cutting benefits, but to privatizing Social Security itself. I think that's in the back of their mind."
"Why do you lie so much about Social Security? Why do you make it look like it's a broken, dysfunctional system?" Sanders asked. "The reason is to get people to lose faith in the system, and then you can give it over to Wall Street. That's my view."
Musk's latest attack on Social Security, a remarkably efficient program that has never missed a payment, came as his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has effectively taken over the Social Security Administration (SSA) and is pushing for massive cuts to the agency's staff and budget based on egregious lies.
"Appearing to misread a chart, for example, Musk said on social media in February that DOGE had identified payments to 'tens of millions' of deceased Americans—an incorrect assertion repeated by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt," The Washington Post reported last week.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees—a union engaged in a legal fight against the Trump administration's purge of the federal workforce—wrote Monday that Musk's latest comments show that he "doesn't just want to cut the SSA workforce."
"He wants to eliminate Social Security entirely," Kelley added.
Joel Payne, chief communications officer at MoveOn Civic Action, said in a statement Tuesday that "Elon Musk and the Trump-led Republican Party are promising exactly what they have been trying to do for years: gut Social Security."
"Republicans want to illegally fire tens of thousands of workers responsible for making sure American seniors get their Social Security and then let Musk take his chainsaw to our benefits," said Payne. "We won't let them do it. Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Republicans need to keep their hands off our Social Security."
The progressive advocacy group Social Security Works sounded a similarly defiant note.
"Elon Musk is a conman and a criminal, born with an emerald mine instead of a moral compass," the group wrote on social media. "Of course he wants to destroy Social Security, because he can't get his tiny greedy fingers on it any other way. HELL NO!"
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How Can Congressional Dems Fight Back Against Trump and Musk? Oversight
There are far too many tools at congressional Democrats’ disposal for them to throw up their hands and act as though nothing can be done.
Feb 28, 2025
Earlier this month, as Elon Musk and his DOGE agents were initiating their chaotic takeover of the federal government, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies (D-N.Y.) was asked what Democrats could do to slow Musk down or win concession in budget negotiations. In response, Jeffries literally threw up his hands and posed his own now-infamous question: “What leverage do we have?”
It was a wildly out-of-touch answer.
For one thing, the self-pitying tone is out of step with public opinion—Democratic voters and activists have been demanding more fight from their representatives. They want fewer (in fact, zero) Democratic Senators voting to confirm Trump nominees, and more spine in budget negotiation to get the simple concession of “no more unconstitutional impoundment of the funds we appropriate.” Fewer instances of Democratic representatives folding under the corrupting influence of crypto campaign cash to support industry-backed bills. More visiting and amplifying the voices of the people most harmed by DOGE’s cuts and firings.
As the minority party, Democrats certainly have less power, but they are far from powerless.
Further, Jeffries’ question suggests a concerning lack of familiarity with the modest—but substantial, and potentially impactful—array of tools at his and his colleagues’ disposal. In fact, as I lay out below, there are many things congressional Democrats can do, including requesting investigations from accountability offices; utilizing formal and informal hearings; writing letters to agency heads; and being opportunistic about accountability maneuvers at their disposal, even those unlikely to succeed in an immediate sense.
Congressional Oversight As The Minority Party
Democrats need to be winning the messaging battle, constantly telling the American people how Trump and DOGE are facilitating material harms. In that fight, Democrats have a key, but largely neglected, point of leverage: congressional oversight.
Prior to last year’s election, I wrote in Common Dreams that Democrats needed to better utilize their congressional oversight powers. But that was when Democrats had a Senate majority, and therefore the power to conduct official hearings, investigations, and issue subpoenas.
So, what can they do now?
Request Investigations from Accountability Offices
As the minority party, Democrats certainly have less power, but they are far from powerless. For starters, they can outsource investigations and research to nonpartisan offices like the Congressional Research Service, Inspectors General, or the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Each office has their usefulness, but given that President Donald Trump fired 17 Inspector General in a corrupt move that is currently being litigated, Democrats should focus on utilizing the GAO.
The GAO is an independent agency that acts as a watchdog at the request of Congress, conducting investigations to examine how federal dollars are spent and offering nonpartisan solutions on how to improve federal programs. (Essentially, GAO is what DOGE claims to be, minus the neo-nazi tendencies, complete lack of expertise, and rampant corruption.) Any member of Congress can request the GAO look into a given topic or program, though the office can take anywhere from a few months to over a year before finalizing reports.
For every instance of DOGE wreaking havoc, Democrats need to request a corresponding investigation, even if the GAO doesn’t have capacity to undertake each one or release the reports on an expedited timeline.
The long-term nature of the process can be leveraged strategically, though, with just a little bit of media savvy. In January of 2024, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) successfully requested a GAO report on the Community Health Center Fund and former President Joe Biden’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) program. He and his Republican colleagues then utilized the investigation to hold press conferences and release statements attacking the Biden administration for “prevent[ing] students and families from accessing crucial financial aid.” They got the spotlight they were looking for on their issue of choice, even though the GAO report wasn’t issued until two months prior to the election. (Of course, Republicans have done nothing to help implement the recommendations GAO made, now that the report is out.)
Regardless of whether Republican concern was genuine, the utility is clear. Democrats can make headlines today simply by requesting and securing investigations they are entitled, by virtue of being members of Congress, to ask for. In fact, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) recently did just that, successfully asking the GAO to investigate Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent giving DOGE access to payment systems. Perhaps more importantly, however, Democrats can use the GAO report that will eventually result to remind the American people of Bessent’s lawlessness long after it was buried in the public’s mind under a deluge of other scandals.
This tactic needs to be used for every agency and program under attack from DOGE. Request the GAO to investigate how spending freezes at the USDA and USAID will affect farmers. Request a report on staffing cuts at the FAA and the effect on air safety and travel times. Spend tax season demanding a review of how decimating the IRS will increase tax avoidance by the wealthy and increase wait times. For every instance of DOGE wreaking havoc, Democrats need to request a corresponding investigation, even if the GAO doesn’t have capacity to undertake each one or release the reports on an expedited timeline. (If Democrats ever give votes to an appropriations process that once again governs federal spending, they should request the GAO expand its staffing. Sadly, there are many talented recent civil servants on the job market.)
Utilize Hearings, Both Formal and Informal
Without control in either chamber, Democrats have little say over official Congressional hearings. But they still have two important roles they can harness: calling witnesses and asking questions. Democrats cannot subpoena witnesses, but they can still choose a witness to voluntarily appear at hearings. This often results in experts that can calmly explain the intricacies of an issue and recommend how to improve the situation. This isn’t bad on its face, but in the era of DOGE decimation, Democrats should be discerning in their witness choices.
Each DOGE attack means someone lost their job and someone is a victim of the funding cuts. Leverage this harm! Bring in people who have been fired at a given agency to explain exactly who they used to help or protect. Bring in the victims to explain how their lives will now be worse because of Trump and Musk. Democrats can force Congressional Republicans to face the people affected by their failure to constrain Trump. As recent vitriolic town halls exemplify, there’s ample appetite to make Republicans answer publicly for their cowardice.
In the same vein, Democrats need to be combative in every hearing. We rolled out a series of suggested questions for Trump nominees in their confirmation hearings, including new questions that Secretary of Education nominee Linda McMahon needs to answer before her confirmation vote. Unfortunately, Democrats were woefully unprepared, even praising some nominees and failing to use their fully allotted questioning time. This needs to change. Every hearing is an opportunity to produce a viral clip that can break through to people otherwise not paying attention.
Additionally, as my colleague Emma Marsano explained in this newsletter last week, Democrats can also hold informal hearings that amplify the voices of people most impacted by executive overreach. There are, unfortunately, countless examples they could be elevating through hearings, social media, press hits, and coordination with influencers. Democrats could also creatively use their franking privileges—sending mail to their constitutions using their signature as postage rather than a stamp—to inform constituents on “matters of public concern” or issue “questionnaires seeking public opinion” to get an idea of how DOGE actions are affecting people locally.
Flood the Zone with Letters
Members of Congress regularly send letters to heads of executive departments demanding answers and information regarding happenings under their purview. To their credit, Democrats have made good use of letters: to OMB Director Russell Vought demanding he reverse attacks on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; to the SEC and other agencies demanding an investigation into Trump’s meme coin; to HUD Secretary Scott Turner highlighting the effect that proposed staffing cuts will have on seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, among many others.
While this method of oversight is virtually all bark, it’s a useful tool in garnering headlines to amplify your message. Democratic members on each congressional committee should closely monitor DOGE and other executive branch attacks on government functions, then produce as many letters as possible with the goal of getting coverage in the media. Not every letter will be picked up, but every headline that tells the public “Democrats are Fighting Republican Attacks on [Fill in the Blank]” is useful. These letters can also be referred back to as launching points for formal investigations or hearings should Democrats regain either chamber in the midterms.
Take Longshots, Even if They Miss
Democrats can try to utilize subpoena and impeachment powers, even if they are longshots. My colleague Kenny Stancil explained yesterday in The American Prospect that Democrats can (and should) move to impeach Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for his capitulation to, and lying about, DOGE’s attempts to access payment systems. While unlikely to result in a successful impeachment vote, it raises the issue’s salience and forces congressional Republicans to own it.
Similarly, earlier this month Democrats in the Oversight Committee tried to rush through a vote to subpoena Musk while Republicans were out of the room. It was a long shot that fell short, but it’s worth trying such tactics at every opportunity, on the off chance it works one time.
To be clear, none of these tactics alone will save us. Trump’s administration will continue to terrorize the civil service, and congressional Republicans will continue to stand by. But with many months between now and the midterms, Democrats need to use—no, leverage—every form of oversight at their disposal to slow down the onslaught, inform the American public, and ensure Republicans pay a hefty price.
There are far too many tools at congressional Democrats’ disposal for them to throw up their hands and act as though nothing can be done—people elected them to do something, and they need to act like it, especially with so much at stake.
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Analysis Warns Climate Crisis Threatens US Nuclear Reactors
"Climate change is expected to exacerbate natural hazards—including heat, drought, wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, and sea level rise," the report reads.
Apr 03, 2024
The nation's nuclear reactors may be at risk due to the climate emergency, according to a report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office on Tuesday.
The report claims the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) needs to consider these risks as it regulates nuclear power plants going forward. There are currently 94 nuclear reactors in the United States that could be affected.
" Climate change is expected to exacerbate natural hazards—including heat, drought, wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, and sea-level rise. In addition, climate change may affect extreme cold weather events," the report reads. "Risks to nuclear power plants from these hazards include loss of offsite power, damage to systems and equipment, and diminished cooling capacity, potentially resulting in reduced operations or plant shutdowns."
Extreme weather event like floods can pose safety risks to #NuclearPower plants. #ClimateChange is likely to make these natural hazards more severe.
Our new report looks at how @NRCgov could better address climate risks to nuclear power plants: https://t.co/lZhGAjtNkF pic.twitter.com/MOjambENtG
— U.S. GAO (@USGAO) April 2, 2024
The report notes that many new reactors are currently being developed, which increases the need for the NRC to properly regulate those reactors.
It says that the NRC has mostly used historical data to "identify and assess safety risks," which would not account for the climate risks that are likely to threaten reactors in the future. The report claims most reactors could be negatively impacted by future climate risks.
Beyond Nuclear, which advocates against nuclear power and weapons, said in a statement that that GAO's findings and recommendations confirm what the group has been litigating with the NRC—that "the agency cannot continue to ignore the safety impacts on nuclear power plants from the worsening climate crisis."
"These risks include a worsening of natural hazards and encompass heat and cold, drought, wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, and sea-level rise, according to the GAO, all of which could seriously jeopardize the safe operation of the nation's current fleet that is going through extreme license renewals—and any future new... nuclear reactors if not properly safeguarded," the group said.
Plans to triple the amount of nuclear power in 22 countries by 2050 that were announced at the most recent United Nations climate summit have been denounced as "dangerous" and not a realistic solution to address the climate emergency.
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Watchdog Finds Trump Border Wall Harmed Environment, Indigenous Sites, and Wildlife
"This racist political stunt has been an ineffective waste of billions of American taxpayers' dollars—and now we know it has caused immeasurable, irreparable harm," said Congressman Raúl Grijalva.
Sep 07, 2023
A U.S. government watchdog agency on Thursday released a report exposing how former President Donald Trump's wall construction along the nation's border with Mexico negatively affected cultural and natural resources, as critics have long argued.
"The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Defense (DOD) installed about 458 miles of border barrier panels across the southwest border from January 2017 through January 2021," according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. "Most (81%) of the miles of panels replaced existing barriers."
"The agencies installed over 62% of barrier miles on federal lands, including on those managed by the Department of the Interior," the report continues. "Interior and CBP officials, as well as federally recognized tribes and stakeholders, noted that the barriers led to various impacts, including to cultural resources, water sources, and endangered species, and from erosion."
The GAO document details how the border wall work caused severe erosion; disrupted natural water flows; damaged native plants while spreading invasive species; disturbed wildlife habitats and migration patterns, including for threatened and endangered species; and destroyed Indigenous burial grounds and sacred sites.
"From the start, President Trump's border wall was nothing more than a symbolic message of hate, aimed at vilifying migrants and bolstering extreme MAGA rhetoric," said U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who requested the report in May 2021. "This racist political stunt has been an ineffective waste of billions of American taxpayers' dollars—and now we know it has caused immeasurable, irreparable harm to our environment and cultural heritage as well."
"So much damage has been done, but we still have the opportunity to keep it from getting worse," he stressed. "Environmental restoration and mitigation work must be led by science and input from the right stakeholders, including tribes and communities along the border. So many corners were cut in building the wall—let's not repeat history by cutting corners in repairing the damage it caused."
"The report also makes clear that federal land management agencies, like the Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service, must be involved in environmental restoration and mitigation. These agencies have the utmost expertise and scientific knowledge of the borderlands," he added, calling on Congress to include funds for Interior and the Forest Service in the fiscal year 2024 budget "to make sure they have a strong leadership role going forward."
The GAO's report broadly recommends that the CBP commissioner and Interior secretary jointly document "a strategy to mitigate cultural and natural resource impacts from border barrier construction that defines agency roles and responsibilities for undertaking specific mitigation actions; identifies the costs, associated funding sources, and time frames necessary to implement them; and specifies when agencies are to consult with tribes."
The document adds that "the commissioner of CBP, with input from Interior, DOD, tribes, and stakeholders, should evaluate lessons learned from its prior assessments of potential impacts." The agencies have agreed to implement the recommendations, according to the GAO.
Building the border wall—which also increased rates of serious injuries and deaths among migrants—was a prominent pledge in Trump's 2016 campaign messaging. It was part of a broader anti-migrant platform that continued into his presidency, which also featured the notorious family separation policy.
When Democratic President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, he delivered on a campaign promise to suspend work on the wall. The following month, he ended Trump's related emergency declaration and halted funding toward wall construction. That April, DOD announced that it was canceling all border barrier projects paid for with funds originally intended for other military uses.
While Biden was widely praised for those moves, the GAO report points out that "pausing construction and canceling contracts exacerbated some of the negative impacts because contractors left project sites in an incomplete or unrestored state as of the January 2021 pause, and the sites remained that way, at times, for more than a year."
Biden—who has faced criticism from rights groups for some of his immigration policies—is seeking reelection in 2024. He is expected to face the Republican nominee. Trump is currently the GOP front-runner, despite his various legal problems and arguments that he is constitutionally barred from holding office again after inciting the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
The GAO report was released the same day as a United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) alert that the number of kids traveling major migration routes in Latin America and the Caribbean hit a new record, due to gang violence, instability, poverty, and the climate emergency. As Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, CBP has recorded more than 83,000 children entering the United States in the first eight months of this year.
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'Rigged' US Tax Code Blamed as Wealthy See Major Retirement Account Gains
"It is unacceptable that taxpayers are forced to spend billions of dollars subsidizing the retirement accounts of the wealthiest people in America," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Jul 28, 2023
A report published Thursday by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office shows that the median retirement account balance of high-income U.S. households nearly doubled between 2007 and 2019 while those in the middle class saw their retirement savings stagnate—if they had savings at all.
The GAO report was commissioned by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who both pointed to the massive subsidies the federal government provides to tax-advantaged retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts (IRAs).
Citing Treasury Department data, the GAO's new report notes that "the estimated federal tax expenditure, or annual net revenue forgone, for tax-preferred retirement accounts was over $195 billion in 2022."
Those tax benefits flow disproportionately to high-income households. Daniel Hemel, a professor at New York University School of Law, wrote last year that "as of 2019, nearly 29,000 taxpayers had amassed 'mega-IRAs'—individual retirement accounts with balances of $5 million or more—while half of American households had no retirement accounts at all."
"Overall," Hemel added, "according to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 10th of households reap a larger share of the income tax subsidy for retirement savings than the bottom 80%."
In a statement on Friday, Sanders said that "at a time when half of older Americans have no retirement savings at all, it is unacceptable that taxpayers are forced to spend billions of dollars subsidizing the retirement accounts of the wealthiest people in America."
"The same Republican politicians who support cutting Social Security have no problem providing massive tax breaks to subsidize the retirement accounts of the top 1%," Sanders continued. "In America today, 55% of seniors are trying to survive on less than $25,000 a year. Given that reality, our job is to make sure that the working class in our country are able to retire with the dignity and the respect that they deserve, not to provide more tax breaks to the billionaire class."
"Our rigged tax code is subsidizing the retirement of billionaires and leaving everyone else to foot the bill."
The GAO found that the median retirement account balance for high-income households was about $605,000 in 2019, roughly nine times the balance of middle-income households—$64,300.
"In 2007, the median for high-income households was about four times that of middle-income households (about $333,000 and $86,800, respectively)," the GAO report states.
The report observes that high-income individuals benefit disproportionately from tax-advantaged retirement accounts for several reasons, including because they're far more likely to work for organizations that "offer pensions plans and contribute to retirement savings accounts." Lower-income households rely more heavily on Social Security, which GOP lawmakers continue to attack.
Additionally, the report notes, "the generosity of retirement plans often increases with income, up to a certain income threshold."
As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains, "the primary retirement tax subsidies allow people to contribute to accounts such as a traditional 401(k) or IRA plan on a pre-tax basis. That is, taxpayers can defer all taxes on retirement contributions and earnings until they withdraw the money in retirement, at which point it is taxed as ordinary income."
Whitehouse, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said Friday that "our rigged tax code is subsidizing the retirement of billionaires and leaving everyone else to foot the bill."
"As a result, wealthy households have nine times more saved than the average middle-class household, and just 10% of the lowest-income families have anything saved at all," the senator added. "Auto-enrollment in workplace retirement accounts would reduce the access gap and make it easier to save, but we must also protect Social Security for all and ensure the wealthy pay their fair share so that all can retire with financial security."
The GAO report comes months after a separate analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Jobs With Justice highlighted the special treatment that corporate CEOs receive in the skewed U.S. tax code.
"Employees with 401(k) plans face hard caps on the amounts they can set aside in these accounts every year," the groups wrote. "By contrast, Section 409A of the tax code allows top corporate executives to place unlimited amounts in special 'nonqualified tax-deferred compensation' accounts."
At the end of 2021, IPS and Jobs With Justice found, leading U.S. CEOs had around $9 billion in special retirement accounts that aren't available to their employees.
Last year, Congress passed bipartisan legislation that expanded federal subsidies for retirement accounts, a move that critics said would likely worsen inequality.
As Hemel wrote after the House passed the bill, which was ultimately folded into the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, "Bipartisan support for SECURE 2.0 is part of a decadeslong pattern: While loudly and proudly proclaiming that their goal is to nurture nest eggs for the working class, lawmakers have constructed a complex of tax shelters for the well-to-do."
"It's working out just fine for the financial institutions that manage assets in IRAs and 401(k)s," Hemel added. "The combined amount in those vehicles reached $21.6 trillion at the end of 2021—up fivefold since 2000—and the more money that pours in, the more that managers collect in fees."
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As Quietly as Possible, the Government is Renewing Its Assault on Your Privacy
Having failed to secure an anti-encryption bill, the FBI and justice department are now engaged in a multi-pronged attack on all sorts of other privacy rights
Jun 22, 2016
With their dangerous crusade for an anti-encryption bill in Congress all but dead (for now), the FBI and US Justice Department are now engaged in a multi-pronged attack on all sorts of other privacy rights - this time, with much less public scrutiny.
A report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office harshly criticized the FBI last week for its little-discussed but frequently used facial recognition database and called on the bureau to implement myriad privacy and safety protections. It turns out the database has far more photos than anyone thought - 411.9m to be exact - and the vast majority are not mugshots of criminals, but driver's license photos from over a dozen states and passport photos of millions of completely innocent people. The feds searched it over 36,000 times from 2011 to 2015 (no court order needed) while also apparently having no idea how accurate it is.
Worse, the FBI wants its hundreds of millions of facial recognition photos and its entire biometric database, including fingerprints and DNA profiles, to be exempt from important Privacy Act protections. As the Intercept reported two weeks ago: "Specifically, the FBI's proposal would exempt the database from the provisions in the Privacy Act that require federal agencies to share with individuals the information they collect about them and that give people the legal right to determine the accuracy and fairness of how their personal information is collected and used."
In Congress, Senate Republicans are pushing for a vote this week on controversial new warrantless surveillance measures that would let the FBI use unconstitutional National Security Letters to get email records and internet browsing history from countless US citizens - without going to a judge or court at all. The Senate leadership is bringing the measure up to vote by invoking the Orlando attack, despite the fact that we know the FBI had no problem surveilling the Orlando killer when he was previously investigated. It is a blatant attempt to exploit the tragedy in order to gain powers the FBI has long asked for (powers, by the way, the FBI is already reportedly using, despite the justice department telling them it's basically illegal).
The justice department, meanwhile, is busy attempting to implement a new rule for the court system that would make it much easier for the FBI to hack into computers worldwide - including those of hacking victims. Using the obscure process for amending the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the department has convinced the courts that they should be able to get one warrant to potentially hack thousands of computers, and shouldn't have to comply with the normal rules involving getting the court order in the jurisdiction where the crime occurred.
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation has noted, "this is a recipe for disaster," and it is being done by circumventing the normal democratic process. Several organizations (including Freedom of the Press Foundation, the organization I work for) have called on Congress to put a stop to it.
Also, in the courts, the Justice Department has continued to argue that the US government doesn't need a warrant to gather Americans' cell phone location information—even though that type of information can give authorities their precise whereabouts 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Justice Department convinced the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals last month to overturn its previous ruling that police need a probable cause warrant to get such information. The court agreed with the justice department that cellphone users don't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" around their location, even though it is some of the most intimate information that exists, giving law enforcement officials a detailed picture of your life that even your close friends and family may not know.
Last year, the FBI director disingenuously tried to claim that the pendulum "has swung too far" in the way of privacy despite the fact that the agency has virtually unprecedented access to all sorts of information on Americans. If it wasn't clear before, it should be now: they plan on using any means necessary to further erode the rights of hundreds of millions of citizens in their crusade against privacy.
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