Why Democrats’ Total Control In Virginia Is Starting To Backfire
'Convenient scapegoat'
No more free ride for federal grant hogs
Washington has an old joke: Nothing is more permanent than a temporary government program.
Look past the quip and a pattern emerges. Programs created to address specific problems rarely disappear when those problems recede. They develop constituencies, build bureaucracies, and acquire defenders. Programs meant to die are kept alive through zombie funding long after their original purpose has faded.
Federal grants are not entitlements. Recipients should earn and re-earn them through demonstrated performance.
Milton Friedman spent decades explaining why. In “Free to Choose,” he distilled the point into a simple insight: When you spend your own money on yourself, you care about cost and value. When you spend someone else’s money on someone else — which is precisely what federal grantmaking entails — neither cost nor value receives the same scrutiny it would if the money were your own.
That is the system the Trump administration is now trying to change through a sweeping overhaul of federal grant regulations developed by the Office of Management and Budget. The core idea is simple enough that it should not require federal rulemaking to defend: Public money should produce public results. If it does not, the money should not continue automatically.
Washington has often operated on the opposite assumption. Grants get awarded. Organizations build staffs around them. Those staffs lobby to preserve them. Programs that fail rarely disappear cleanly; they are restructured, rebranded, and refunded. The constituency for any particular line of spending is loud and organized. The constituency for cutting it is diffuse and quiet. That is not a bug. It is a feature that benefits insiders and leaves taxpayers with the bill.
The proposed reforms rest on a simple principle: Federal funding should be earned continuously, not granted automatically. Stronger reporting requirements would force grantees to demonstrate results rather than document activity. Expanded use of the Treasury Department’s Do Not Pay system would help prevent improper payments before funds go out — a meaningful safeguard given that the OMB reported roughly $236 billion in improper payments government-wide in the 2023 fiscal year. Enhanced transparency rules would make it easier for taxpayers to see where federal dollars go and what they produce.
The goal is to shift federal grantmaking from routine renewal to ongoing performance review.
The proposal also takes on something Washington rarely discusses honestly: grantee capture. When a nonprofit receives most of its revenue from federal grants, it no longer operates as a purely independent civic institution. It functions as a publicly funded contractor with a development office. Taxpayers deserve to know when groups presenting themselves as independent advocates also depend heavily on federal money.
RELATED: ‘Pigs at the trough’: Spencer Pratt and Bill Maher come together to blast California ‘socialists’
One provision deserves special support: ensuring that faith-based organizations can compete for grants on equal terms with secular ones. Charitable-choice provisions dating to the 1996 welfare reform law, executive-branch guidance under President Bush, and Executive Order 14332 signed by President Trump in 2025 already prohibit religious discrimination in many grant competitions.
But law on paper and law in practice often diverge. The federal government should judge applicants on their ability to deliver results — not on whether they pray before staff meetings.
Critics will argue that these reforms could be used to disadvantage political opponents. Some of that criticism will land. Implementation will matter enormously, and the effort’s credibility will depend on whether agencies apply performance metrics consistently and transparently across programs.
But the underlying principle should command broad support: Federal grants are not entitlements. Recipients should earn and re-earn them through demonstrated performance. Any serious steward of public resources should embrace that standard.
Friedman understood that bad incentive structures produce bad outcomes regardless of the intentions of the people operating within them. The federal grant system has tolerated weak incentives for too long. Large flows of public money require constant oversight. Without it, mistakes, waste, and fraud become predictable.
After decades of promises to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, the Trump administration’s reforms represent something Washington too rarely attempts: real change.
Every dollar the federal government spends was earned by someone outside Washington. Taxpayers deserve to know it was used well.
How Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill Is Reversing Rampant State Waste And Fraud
A recent congressional hearing showed the scope of the state waste, fraud, and abuse problem our nation faces.Trump’s Modest Budget Cuts Mean Nothing If He Won’t Touch Rampant Entitlements
The admin likely wished to avoid political attacks about the GOP 'cutting' Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security before the midterms.I walked away from California Democrats to keep my sanity
It used to feel good to be a Democrat in California.
Emphasis on used to — and President Trump’s recent State of the Union address illuminated exactly why I left the party.
California is not failing because it cares too much. It is failing because it confuses caring with governing.
In Silicon Valley, voting blue often feels like the default setting.
In many professional circles, especially in technology and venture communities, political alignment is assumed. Fundraisers double as social gatherings.
It feels compassionate, enlightened, on the right side of history.
But that night, the president challenged any member of Congress to stand who believes that the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. Shockingly, Democrats remained seated, providing a stunning visual of the current values of the Democratic Party.
What changed my mind was not the rhetoric. It was the outcomes. California is the glaring example of the failure of liberal policies.
Three areas illustrate the pattern.
Elections: Confidence is a safeguard
California does not require photo identification to vote in person. A voter provides a name and address and signs the roster. More than 30 states require some form of voter ID, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Countries such as Canada, France, and Germany require identification to vote. A 2023 Gallup poll found roughly three-quarters of Americans support requiring photo identification at the polls, including majorities across party lines.
Even if large-scale fraud is difficult to quantify, administrative failures and inconsistent verification practices fuel public doubt. Visible safeguards deter misconduct and preserve confidence in the system.
When California Democrats treat voter ID as ideological heresy, they weaken the legitimacy of the system they claim to defend.
Family: When the state becomes the decision-maker
Under California law, minors ages 12 and older may consent to certain mental health services without parental notification if deemed mature enough by a provider. State law also allows minors to access reproductive health services confidentially. Recent legislation has expanded confidentiality protections in sensitive areas.
The justification is protection, but the effect is state supremacy in decisions that belong to parents.
The Supreme Court has long recognized parental rights as fundamental. Family authority is the first layer of civil society.
When the state positions itself as the confidential decision-maker in significant medical and psychological matters involving minors, it undermines that sovereignty.
It is not compassionate to expand state authority at the expense of parental sovereignty. It is government overreach into the most intimate sphere of civil society. As the co-founders of Moms for Liberty have put it, “We do not co-parent with the government.”
Compassion cannot justify dissolving the family as the primary unit of accountability.
Fiscal reality: Math still applies
California’s budget rests on a narrow and volatile base. The Legislative Analyst’s Office has documented that the top 1% of earners account for close to half of the state’s personal income tax revenue. That revenue is heavily tied to capital gains and is therefore inherently unstable.
Instead of broadening and stabilizing that base, state leadership has repeatedly targeted it. Wealth-based tax proposals focus on the very taxpayers who fund a disproportionate share of state commitments. Capital is mobile. IRS data shows sustained net out-migration of high-income households from California to states such as Texas and Florida over the past decade.
Then comes execution.
California’s high-speed rail project, approved in 2008 at an estimated $33 billion, is now projected to exceed $100 billion and remains incomplete. Florida, by contrast, expanded Brightline passenger rail through a public-private partnership model that attracted private capital and delivered major segments on time.
Between 2019 and 2023, California spent roughly $24 billion on homelessness programs. During that same period, homelessness rose statewide. In 2024, the California state auditor found the state failed to consistently track whether billions in spending produced measurable results.
The pattern is simple.
Spend expansively. Measure loosely. Promise morally. Deliver inconsistently.
The issue is not the stated goals, but the absence of discipline.
In each case, the rhetoric was noble, and the result was dysfunction.
RELATED: Gavin Newsom’s California is looting Medicaid in broad daylight 
This is the governing model Kamala Harris rose within and that Gavin Newsom refined over time. Not because they lack intelligence, but because the system they represent rewards virtue-signaling over measurable performance. It resists basic electoral safeguards despite broad public support. It expands state authority into the family. It builds budgets on volatile revenue while accelerating out-migration. It spends billions without demanding outcome verification.
If that framework scales nationally, the consequences will be dire.
I did not leave the Democratic Party because I stopped caring about vulnerable people. I left because I care about institutional durability. Compassion matters. But governing requires discipline. California is not failing because it cares too much. It is failing because it confuses caring with governing. Compassion without competence becomes institutional rot.
If you are a Democrat in California who feels uneasy but cannot quite articulate why, I understand. I defended the language long after I stopped believing in the results. At some point, loyalty to outcomes must matter more than loyalty to a label. It did for me.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
We Could Completely Get Rid Of Social Security, And It Still Wouldn’t Balance The U.S. Budget
Today’s politicians are literally mortgaging away our children’s financial futures so they can try to win another election.America built smart cars on dumb road funding
On Friday, in an open letter to the 119th Congress, I joined more than 100 economists and public policy experts from universities, think tanks, and businesses across the country urging practical reform of the Highway Trust Fund. Our message is straightforward: Congress can — and should — take incremental, bipartisan steps now to put the fund on a stable, sustainable path.
The Highway Trust Fund long embodied a simple user-fee compact: People who use the roads pay for them. That bargain delivered predictable funding and reinforced fiscal discipline.
Congress has repeatedly patched the shortfall with transfers from the general fund, which papers over the problem while weakening the principle that made the system durable.
Now the system is fraying. Fuel taxes have not kept pace with inflation, rising construction costs, or improved fuel efficiency. Electric and hybrid vehicles — a growing share of the fleet — often contribute little or nothing through fuel taxes. Congress has repeatedly patched the shortfall with transfers from the general fund, which papers over the problem while weakening the principle that made the system durable.
Congress does not need to solve every long-term challenge in one bill. It can make meaningful progress in the next surface transportation reauthorization, which lawmakers must pass by Sept. 30.
First, lawmakers should reinforce the user-pay principle by ensuring all road users — including drivers of electric and hybrid vehicles — contribute a fair share through transparent, enforceable mechanisms. Fairness demands no less. When some users effectively get an exemption, the burden shifts to everyone else or to taxpayers at large.
Second, Congress should improve price sensitivity. Heavy commercial vehicles impose disproportionate wear and tear on highways and bridges. User fees should better reflect vehicle weight and road impact. That change would improve fairness and send clearer economic signals about infrastructure costs. A system that reflects actual use and damage is more rational — and more defensible.
Third, legislators should evaluate a transition from per-gallon fuel taxes to mileage-based user fees. A well-designed road-usage charge would ensure payments reflect miles driven and vehicle characteristics.
Any transition must preserve the core user-pay principle while avoiding disproportionate burdens on low-income households, small businesses, and farmers. State pilot programs show mileage-based systems can protect privacy and maintain public trust. Congress should build on that experience rather than delay modernization.
Fourth, Washington should reduce reliance on general-fund bailouts and set clearer expectations for revenue reform in the next major reauthorization cycle. Temporary patches undermine fiscal responsibility and create uncertainty for state planners and private investors.
RELATED: Trump is getting the job done for American truckers
Revenue reform alone will not secure the system. Transportation infrastructure now depends on digital systems that guide vehicles and manage logistics. America’s economy relies heavily on GPS-enabled positioning and timing. Disruptions to systems overseen by the U.S. Department of Transportation would ripple across freight networks, emergency services, and daily commutes.
China and Russia have shown the capability to interfere with satellite systems and GPS signals. A prolonged outage would cost billions of dollars per day. Vehicles sold in the U.S. should incorporate tested backup positioning technologies to guard against such threats.
Supply-chain security also demands attention. Chinese firms such as BYD and CATL dominate global battery production. The concentration of manufacturing — and embedded telematics — in companies subject to influence by the Chinese Communist Party raises legitimate concerns about espionage and strategic vulnerability.
The U.S. should expand domestic battery production and charging infrastructure, reducing dependence on foreign-controlled systems that can compromise data security and resilience.
Finally, Congress should pursue sensible federal deregulation to reduce the needlessly high cost of transportation projects — and require state and local partners to do the same. Streamlined permitting, faster reviews, and fewer duplicative requirements would stretch every Highway Trust Fund dollar and deliver projects faster.
These proposals are not partisan. They are practical steps rooted in fiscal responsibility and national security. A stable source of funding for roads is not merely a budget issue; it is essential to economic competitiveness, national mobility, and public safety. By reinforcing the user-pay principle, modernizing revenue mechanisms, protecting digital infrastructure, and strengthening supply chains, Congress can signal a shared commitment to safeguarding America’s transportation future.
The 119th Congress has an opportunity to restore the Highway Trust Fund’s integrity. Lawmakers should seize it.
Today's top stories
www.theblaze.com
www.theblaze.com
www.theblaze.com
thefederalist.com
thefederalist.com
www.theblaze.com