DOGE is A 104-Year-Old Idea

Those squawking about efforts to root out government waste, fraud and abuse act as if it's a dangerous, new concept.  They obviously haven't been paying attention.  The Budget & Accounting Act of 1921 birthed the Government Accounting Office, which was DOGE before Elon Musk rode into Washington. 

The GAO is a non-partisan congressional watchdog overseeing how the federal government operates and spends taxpayers money.  The 104-year-old agency, renamed the Government Accountability Office in 2004, has recommended thousands of ways to save billions of dollars during its long history.

This little known agency has examined every nook and cranny of the federal government from Social Security, to the Department of Defense weapons systems, to Medicaid, foreign aid, cybersecurity, Internal Revenue Service, to Health and Human Services and federal disaster programs. 

The agency's reports are circulated to Congress, often detailing waste, potential fraud and efficiency improvements. On occasion, their findings are used by lawmakers to highlight the government's shortcomings in Congressional hearings.  Sometimes the agency work receives muted news coverage.

But there's one problem.  Federal agencies cited in the GAO's reports more often than not equivocate in adopting changes to address glaring weaknesses.  Unlike Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, the GAO does not have authority to force federal agencies to cut waste or implement findings.

An examination of selective reports by this writer found an alarming number of instances where agencies made little progress, despite calls to implement cost savings, modernize outdated systems, manage fraud risks, address human resource violations and harden cybersecurity protection.

To underscore the recalcitrance, the GAO in February catalogued 4,387 recommendations it had made since 2010, but noted that 764 had not been fully implemented five years later. Of the 1,881suggestions involving so-called, "high-risk" areas, 463 have not been completed as of this year.  

Translation: the government bureaucracy resists warnings and suggestions for improvement.   

In some cases, the GAO's reports have served as a road map for DOGE to inspect deficiencies.  For instance, agency reports in 2023 and 2024 pointed out that "fraud poses a significant risk" at the USAID (United States Agency for International Development.). 

In its letter to the agency, GAO used unsparing language: "Our first priority recommendation calls for agency guidance to require regular fraud risk assessments for USAID programs and documentation of program-specific fraud risk profiles.." 

Sure enough, DOGE ferreted out USAID funds that ended up funding Al Qaeda affiliated fighters in Syria and supporting poppy production in Afghanistan, benefiting the Taliban.  Two Hamas linked groups were on the receiving end of USAID funding funneled through a third party.

After the hurricane and fire damage devastated many cities, it came as no surprise to the GAO that residents were unsatisfied with the federal government response. The GAO offered this blistering assessment of the federal approach in its 2025 report:

"...disaster recovery is fragmented across 30 federal entities.  So many entities involved with multiple programs and authorities, differing requirements and timeframes, and limited data sharing across entities could make it harder for survivors and communities to navigate federal programs."

Translation: There should be a consolidation of agencies and responsibilities to improve efforts to get aid faster to Americans who need it. 

When Musk called for the return of government workers to their offices, it was greeted with cries of outrage from politicians and unions.  But not one media organization pointed out that the GAO had identified the cost to American taxpayers of maintaining empty buildings.

In a report, the GAO underscored annual maintenance and operating costs for the 277,000 government buildings was $10.3 billion in 2023. The agency calculated that with the wholesale adoption of telework, deferred maintenance and underutilization costs totaled $370 billion in 2024.

That's chump change for your federal government. Since 2002, the GAO wrote that federal agencies have reported about $2.8 TRILLION in estimated improper payments, including over $150 billion government-wide in each of the last seven years.

Now you know why there was so much push back when Musk wanted to review federal payment data.

DOGE and its champion Musk will eventually fade into history.  If government worked the way our Constitutional framers intended, lawmakers would grab the reins and hold federal agencies accountable. Unfortunately, they often have been doing just the opposite: feeding the unaccountable beast.

The GAO, with a workforce of 3,100, has demonstrated its chops for uncovering waste and inefficiency. But it lacks teeth to force change. Congress should consider legislating authority for the GAO to compel departments to comply in a timely manner with its recommendations or risk budget and force cuts. 

Without drastic changes, 100 years from now another Elon Musk will be needed to take a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy. 

Egg Prices Are Nothing to Yolk About

Egg prices are the center or yolk of the latest political ruckus. Democrats are egging on President Trump to lower the cost of a carton of a dozen Grade A large eggs as prices, adjusted for inflation, reached a 45-year high this week.  Democrat surrogates have flocked to social media to hen peck at the issue.

"I had to dip into my 401K to buy a carton of eggs," one woman posted. Another said: "Instead of cutting the government, cut egg prices." Others clucked: "The Powerball is up to 4 dozen eggs." "Broke an egg this morning.  My insurance company is sending an adjuster."  

You get the drift.  Donald Trump has single handedly jacked up egg prices to pay off his billionaire cronies. This is what passes as Washington political theater.  Twenty-one Democrat lawmakers dispatched a letter accusing Trump of "largely ignoring" the problem in his first three weeks in office.

The letter demands Trump "lower food prices by encouraging competition and fighting price gouging at each level of the food supply chain." The lawmakers, marshaled by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, pledged to work with the president to make eggs a great bargain again.

Democrats are the ones with egg on their faces if they believe Trump is responsible for surging egg prices.  They need to leave their cozy Washington nest and visit chicken farms in America.

Egg prices are skyrocketing because of a nationwide outbreak of avian influenza. The virus occurs naturally among wild aquatic birds (think ducks) worldwide. These migrating birds infect domestic poultry.  The highly contagious influenza spreads quickly among caged chickens. 

Euthanizing flocks is the best option to combat the spread. More than 150 million chickens have been killed in all 50 states to halt the virus since 2022, according to the Department of Agriculture (USDA).This is the largest outbreak in the United States since 2015.  

Even more worrisome, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports there have been bird flu detections in dairy cattle, including cows in Arizona. Although rare, there have been 68 human cases, including one confirmed death. CDC says the source of the human infections is unidentified.

As culling accelerates, egg prices have soared 53% since January of last year.  This past month prices for a carton of Grade A large eggs leapfrogged another 15%.  The national average price for a dozen eggs in January was $4.95.  That eclipses the record set in January 2023, when the price was $4.82.

Although prices are climbing, the demand has not slackened because high-protein eggs are considered a staple in most households. The average American eats 284 eggs a year, an increase from last year's total of 281.  (Per capita consumption is a measure of total egg production divided by the population.) 

There is little relief in sight for the American consumer.  In November, seven million chickens were destroyed. By last December, the number jumped to 18 million and rose to 23 million in January.  Despite the culling of infected chickens, the virus has been advancing like a Bataan Death March.

Most egg-laying farms maintain fewer than 100 chickens, but large producers house upwards of 100,000. Broiler farms, which bred chickens for meat, range in size from 40,000 chickens to more than 500,000. Once infections are detected, the safest course to euthanize the entire flock. 

Eggs Unlimited Vice President Brian Moscogiuri offers this perspective on the egg crisis. "In the last few months alone, since the middle of October, we've lost 45 million egg-laying hens. We've lost a significant amount of production, more than 13%." 

Eggs Unlimited is one of the largest international supplier of eggs. The firm ships eggs to major retailers, distributors and food service companies.  "For consumers, (we're) trying to limit their impact with the pricing and the supply chain shortages we're seeing right now," Moscogirui says.

Just this year about one-in-12 caged hens have been culled. Considering lifecycles, it takes about five months before hens begin laying eggs.  By comparison, chickens raised for meat are ready for slaughter after a month-and-a-half.  

With Easter on the horizon, the demand for eggs likely will shoot up. Some grocery stores are already limiting the number of cartons customers can purchase.  In a sign of the times, earlier this month 100,000 organic eggs worth an estimated $40,000 were stolen from a facility in Pennsylvania.

Consumers best hope are egg farmers. There are 48,952 businesses engaged in chicken egg production, centered in just ten states, accounting for 65% of the egg output. These small and large farms produced about 109 billion eggs in 2023, the latest year for which figures are available.

America's chicken egg-laying farms have dealt with adversity before and managed each time to scramble to restart production.   They will deliver again to  consumers who will no longer have to walk on egg shells when they search for egg cartons at the grocery store. 

Exposing The Troubled History Of The USAID

A storm of controversy swirls over a relatively unknown federal government agency that doles out billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to foreign countries.  New reporting has unearthed reports stretching over years warning about fraud, waste, sexual abuse and funding linked to terrorists.

President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) ignited the firestorm by uncovering reckless, wasteful spending and a lack of management accountability at the U.S. Agency for International Development.  The president shuttered USAID headquarters, locking out employees.  

USAID Background 

The agency, staffed by more than 10,000 workers, handed out $40 billion in 2023, the last year for which government figures are available. That workforce level does not include contractors.  USAID maintains more than 60 country and regional missions that develop projects to be funded. 

The bureaucracy distributed $42 billion to 130 countries, including Gaza.  In 2022, Congress appropriated an additional $46 billion to be managed partially or wholly by the agency for assistance to Ukraine. Since 2017, the USAID budget has more than doubled. 

An investigation and research by this writer found the troubled agency has a checkered history of a lack of transparency, credibility and a disregard for oversight.  Despite numerous admonishments, USAID continues to operate as if the agency is not answerable to the president or the federal government.

As a recent example, current and former USAID staff revolted when the agency's director Samantha Power voiced support for Israel after the country was attacked by Hamas in October. Many agency employees act as if they are running USAID, accountable only to themselves. 

Raising Red Flags

As far back as 2018, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Inspector General for USAID sounded alarms over the agency's funneling of taxpayer money to outside groups with limited oversight. Not only did the agency ignore the red flags, it doubled down on obfuscation. 

The agency, which boasts it prioritizes diversity, equity and inclusion, gifted United Nations agencies, development banks and foreign-based non-governmental organizations (NGO) with billions to be spread across the globe, including in lawless hotspots, including Sudan, Syria and Haiti. 

These activities, in particular, attracted the attention of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the GAO. The two discovered an appalling lack of oversight by the agency's practice of funneling the money through third parties.  

Here are selected highlights from reports from the Inspector General and the GAO:

• USAID failed to document 519 instances of misconduct for funds transmitted to the UN'S World Food Program.  Instead, the USAID only reported  29 instances of potential misconduct for aid, reflecting non-compliance with the agency's own standards.
• Investigations were hampered by UN agencies to prevent diversion of USAID funds to the terrorist organization Hamas. The OIG also listed its concern that United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRA) employees implicated in the October 7 attack on Israel had infiltrated USAID funded organizations. 
• USAID failed to share with the Inspector General information about UN individuals who have been terminated for criminal and serious misconduct.  In 2023, World Health Organization officials were found to have sexually assaulted women and girls while performing USAID-funded Ebola programs in Africa.
• OIG special agents have encountered resistance from foreign-based NGO's when requesting information about individuals alleged to have perpetuated fraud or engaged in sexual exploitation in running USAID-funded programs.
• A GAO report noted the USAID bureaus and missions lack ability to conduct direct oversight in conflict zones to verify the funds are being used for the intended humanitarian purpose.
• Inspectors found the USAID does not have "quality" data to support its $150 billion climate change initiative.  "Specifically, the data was not complete, accurate, accessible or current" the inspectors found. 
• The OIG ferreted out a scheme by a non-governmental organization in South Africa to bilk USAID out of $671,914 after the group submitted false payment claims to the agency.  The OIG cited other examples of fraudulent claims in its 2025 report, including a $2.02 million payment to an  Norwegian aid group. 
• A GAO analysis of the agency discovered the USAID sent money through a cutout organization that ended up funding China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.  To date, even Congress has been able to determine the amount of the funding. 

In its 2025 report, the OIG concluded that "theft and diversion of cash assistance, food, medicine and other commodities frustrates the intent of the United Sates" while undermining the agency's mission of humanitarian assistance. 

These reports are nonpartisan, authored by federal government employees and agencies.  The information has been available to Congress and the executive branch.  Why has there been no action to address the concerns from either political party?  That is the question no corporate media are asking.

A few in Congress have been aware of USAID's pattern of obstructionism. Iowa Senate Republican Joni Ernst revealed how the agency has been "stonewalling" her office for years as she sought documents detailing aid to businesses in Ukraine.  

USAID claimed the information was classified to deny the senator's requests.  After Ernst demanded to speak to the USAID Office of Security, the agency handed over a few documents. She discovered that 5,000 Ukrainian businesses received awards of up to $2 million each. 

DOGE Findings 

DOGE has exposed hundreds of millions of dollars for dubious USAID directed aid:

• $2 million for sex changes and LGBTQ activism in Guatemala.
• $1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia's workplaces and business communities.
• $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt.
• $70,000 for production of a DEI musical in Ireland.
• $47,000 for transgender operations in Colombia.
• $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam.
• $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru. 
• $2 million for pottery classes in Morocco. 
• $20 million for a Sesame Street workshop in Iraq to promote "inclusion, mutual respect and understanding across ethnic, religious and sectarian groups."
• $45 million to provide food assistance and economic support for Venezuelan migrants in Columbia. 

This reality stands in stark contrast to the growing legacy media stories that have appeared since the scandal broke. They paint a picture of USAID funding for desperate people in third-world countries in need of food assistance and medicine.  There has been no coverage of the OIG and GAO reports.

The media complicity has given cover for Democrats to spend political energy haranguing unelected "billionaire" Elon Musk for the revelations. The oligarchs are ruling Washington, they shout in defiance. Where's the outrage for USAID's wasteful spending of taxpayers dollars? Crickets. 

Democrats are targeting Musk as the villain because they endorse USAID's funding of social issues.  They are furious Musk exposed the foreign aid boondoggles. 

USAID Defenders 

USAID defenders make the case that the DOGE examples of millions of dollars of waste only amount to a fraction of the agency budget. Excusing a "little" misuse of funds is an example of Washington's hubris. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren reflects the Democrat Party's attitude:

"There is nothing in the constitution that says ordinary Americans have a right to see what we're spending tax dollars on," she said. Actually, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution requires the government to publish regular statements about how taxpayer money is spent.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made it clear he intends to fold USAID into the State Department, thus ending the agency's autonomous operation.  The secretary wants to continue foreign aid, but with more oversight and funding supporting the administration's objectives. 

Referencing the USAID, the president said "the American's people's money must be spent to advance their priorities, not line the pockets of contractors or to maintain projects that don't work." Typical Trump, overstatement? No, that quote is from 2009 and the president was Barrack Obama.  

No government agency no matter how noble sounding its name or mission has the right to fritter away taxpayer dollars. By defending the indefensible, Democrats are showing they are out of touch with average Americans who expect efficiency, transparency and accountability in their government.   

The Resistance To Cutting The Federal Budget

Howls of protest erupted after President Trump temporarily paused federal spending to ferret out waste. A hyper-partisan cacophony in Washington claimed it was practically unAmerican to fiddle with funds that Congress had already approved as part of the 2024-2025 fiscal year budget. 

Trump's move is a precursor to the upcoming budget battle, the defining issue of his first term.  Expect a fear mongering campaign orchestrated by the media and Democrats to cast spending reductions as a threat to the poor, veterans, seniors, the unemployed and low income Americans. 

However, ignoring the federal spending binge is no longer an option. The budget ballooned to $6.75 trillion for fiscal year 2024, resulting in a deficit of $1.933 trillion.  For perspective, spending increased 45% in just a single year from 2019 to 2020, nearly 20 times the average of the previous four decades.

Deficit spending has hiked the nation's debt to more than $36.2 trillion. America's indebtedness is increasing $5.93 billion every day.  The current budget contains $952 billion allotted to servicing the debt. Interest payments on debt amount to 13% of the federal budget, eclipsing defense spending.

No amount of Congressional caterwaul should deter the Trump Administration from surgically removing pork and waste from the federal budget.  The president's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is already serving up ideas to trim the fat, a lightning rod for Democrat resistance.

In its first move, the DOGE budget cleaver severed more than 104 diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) related contracts at 25 federal agencies, saving taxpayers more than $1 billion. A total of 21 Treasury Department contracts were ended, saving $25 million in a single agency.

Democrat naysayers who huffed that shaving the federal budget was next to impossible were left red-faced. The irony is that the party of big government once championed slashing federal spending when Democrat Bill Clinton occupied the White House. 

Clinton launched a National Performance Review, nicknamed REGO, beginning in 1993. During his first term, the effort yielded a 180,000 reduction in federal government employees through buyouts and staff eliminations.  The push saved $136 billion and shrunk government to its smallest size in 30 years.

This Democrat led effort, supported by Republicans, closed superfluous government offices, cut 16,0000 pages of regulations, passed a major procurement reform bill and introduced the electronic filing of taxes, saving millions of dollars. The endeavor helped balance the federal budget. 

Trump's effort will fail unless there is the same bipartisan offensive. However, little progress will be made if lawmakers refuse to touch so-called mandatory spending, which includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment compensation and other safety-net programs.

These programs comprise about 66% percent of the federal budget and run on automatic pilot.  Each fiscal year the costs escalate as more people are added to the rolls of these programs.  Elected officials fear reprisal from voters if they even hint at addressing these programs.

There can be no significant reduction in spending without snipping at these entitlement programs. 

As just one example, the welfare roles have not shrunk one iota despite the jobless rate falling from 6.3% at the start of the Biden presidency to 4.1%.  Some 84.6 million individuals are enrolled in Medicaid, about the same as 2020. Another 42.6 million Americans receive food stamps, same as 2021.

More Americans are working yet social programs haven't seen a decline. The explanation is that the Biden Administration allowed Democratic states, such as California, to ease eligibility requirements for Medicaid funds to pay for other social spending, such as homeless housing.  

Biden bureaucrats also boosted food stamp allotments and waived work requirements for able-bodied adults.  The Wall Street Journal calculated that by simply returning to pre-pandemic Medicaid spending levels (adjusted for inflation) it would generate more than $1.4 trillion in savings over a decade.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provided a range of options in December for carving addressing the federal budget, including changing cost-sharing rules for Medicare, reducing Medicare's coverage of bad debt and instituting new work rules for Social Security disability applicants.

There are a plethora of ways to place the federal budget on a diet, if Congress will act with courage.  For example, ending corporate welfare would save hundreds of billions of dollars that lawmakers regularly use to curry favor with big donors, lobbyists and industry special interest groups.

A 2022 bill known as the CHIPS and Science Act earmarked $53 billion for the country's semiconductor manufacturing industry.  One of the chief beneficiaries was Intel, which raked in $7.865 billion in taxpayer funds.  The money was supposed to create tens of thousands of jobs.

How well did that work out?  Intel announced recently it would layoff 15,000 employees, about 15% of its workforce.  A series of manufacturing missteps, the AI boom and a weak sales outlook was blamed for the layoffs.  Government has a checkered track record of funding private sector ventures. 

The so-called green energy bill, ballyhooed by the Biden Administration, shelled out $391 billion to invest in a variety of private businesses engaged in the manufacturing of solar panels and wind turbine components. Like most corporate largess, there is no accountability for results.

Another windfall for the green energy industry is tax subsidies.  The original price tag for this corporate welfare was $271 billion over 10 years.  The Biden Administration's last estimate projected a 170% jump in costs for the industry gift which was included in the laughably named Inflation Reduction Act. 

Unless Congress reins in spending, the United States is hurtling towards the debt cliff.  Mushrooming deficits and debt are unsustainable, approaching levels of third-world countries. Taxpayers should hold their elected representatives accountable for stopping the budget madness.   

Immigrant Parole Scheme Flying Under The Radar

The Trump Administration is expected to scrap a Biden-Harris program to fly virtually unvetted immigrants into the United States. The controversial plan was short-circuited last July after the media spotlighted reports of flagrant fraud, but flights resumed almost unnoticed in August of 2024.

The hastily cobbled program airlifted migrants from third-world countries Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela into the U.S. Taxpayers footed the bill for the Department of Homeland Security to hire  private jets to disperse the ragtag band of migrants to airports in 43 cities, avoiding public scrutiny. 

The sham program, known as CHNV, was inaugurated in 2022 by the administration after the number of illegal immigrants from those four countries were flooding the southern border in waves. The program's carrot was two-year periods of paroles to migrants from those four countries.

Border Patrol agents intercepted more than 17,500 illegal entrants from those four countries in 2020.  By 2021, the apprehensions skyrocketed ten fold to 181,000.  A year later, the numbers ballooned to 600,000 illegal entrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Instead of tightening border security, the administration green-lighted an ill-conceived program to stem the tide by using private aircraft to fly the immigrants directly to the U.S.  The White House initiated the program without Congressional approval in October 2022.

The scheme's architect, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, launched the spurious plan by airlifting Venezuelans into the country.  It drew little scrutiny from the media, so the administration doubled down in January, 2023,  expanding the scheme to include Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua immigrants.  

In an election year, the Biden-Harris Administration hoped the program would cause illegal crossings to tumble at the border, allowing them to spoon feed stories to the corporate media about the their successful efforts to deal with the immigration issue. This was about election optics not policy. 

The program quota was to shuttle in 30,000 immigrants from the each of the four countries monthly for a total of 300,000 annually.  The administration has admitted to resettling 541,000 immigrants, but CBS News estimated that the number of parolees is closer to 1.4 million since its inception in 2022.

The Homeland Security's $3 billion program allowed illegal immigrants to land in America under a temporary two-year parole with no plan to force the aliens to leave once their stays expired.  In fact, DHS could not reliably track the whereabouts once the immigrants arrived.

Despite the administration's effort to reduce crossings, the Border Patrol apprehended more than 179,000 CHNV illegal immigrants at the southern border in just the first nine months of fiscal year 2024.  The smoke-and-mirrors, election-year strategy was a spectacular failure. 

Yet the administration plowed ahead, with its Swiss cheese process for admitting these immigrants. Under the patchwork system, so-called supporters in the U.S. agreed to give financial assistance to a CHNV national.  Then the immigrants used a U.S. government app to upload photos and a biography.

The four countries could not be counted on to vet the immigrants. Therefore, Homeland Security relied on its employees to attempt to verify the information. To call it a farce, would be too charitable. 

This flawed process allowed CHNV immigrants residing in other countries to apply.  As a result, immigrants from 77 countries, including Fiji, Italy,  Sweden and Iceland returned to their homeland and then boarded flights to the U.S. Those immigrants were unlikely to ever cross the southern border.

Customs and Border Protection fingerprinted the immigrants once they were flown into the U.S. and granted the foreigners a two-year parole. Once stateside, the immigrants had the right to work in America, receive food stamps, Medicaid and welfare benefits. 

Inevitably, the program was exploited by immigrants from the CHNV countries.  For instance 100.948 forms were completed by 3,218 sponsors in the U.S.  Most of the "sponsors" were immigrants who had been beneficiaries of the misnamed "humanitarian" airlift program.  

Investigations uncovered immigrant sponsors listed the same addresses on more than 19,000 forms, allowing the incoming foreigners to skirt the requirement for an American sponsor.  Media reports documented that scammers were charging $5,000 to new CHNV arrivals.

Rampant fraud unearthed by the Fraud Detection & National Security Directorate (FDNSD) forced the government to eventually post on its webpage: "Beware of any scams or potential exploitation by anyone who asks for money associated with participation in this process." 

Venezuelan strongman Nicholas Madura took advantage of the government largess to empty prisons in his country to rid the penal system of notorious Tren de Aragua gang members who ruled the facilities. A DHS memo obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request reported the violent gang is now operating in 16 states. 

Police reports document that gang members have been charged in robberies, murders, shootings of police officers, gun smuggling and other crimes. Immigrant advocate groups and Biden apologists have maintained the reports of Tren de Aragua gang activity are overblown.

Initially, they claimed news reporting was exaggerated about gang members raiding an Aurora, Colorado, apartment complex. Weeks later the Aurora police chief announced that 16 gang members were in custody following a home invasion and kidnapping in the city. 

San Antonio Police recently arrested 19 members of Tren de Aragua who had taken over a vacant apartment complex.  CBS News reported the gang is so pervasive in New York City that its members are openly recruiting adolescents to join their criminal organization.

President Trump should end this dishonest experiment by ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to round up gang members for immediate deportation.  The second priority should be locate all CHNV parolees to immediately adjudicate their status as asylum seekers.  

The incoming administration also should pursue criminal action against DHS Secretary Mayorkas, who presided over the importation of millions of unvetted illegal immigrants.  During his tenure, he repeatedly falsely claimed the CHNV vetting process was safe and secure.

Holding federal government officials legally accountable would be a novel concept in official Washington.  However, this is an egregious case of negligence, using taxpayer funds to usher in criminals from foreign countries who threaten the safety of American citizens.   

Top 12 Predictions for 2025

One hazard of predicting the future is the world only remembers the clunkers.  Accurate forecasts are forgotten as fast as New Year's resolutions. Look no further than 100-year old predictions to validate this theory.  Can you name one prognosis from 1925 that was 100% correct?  Thought so.

English writer H.,G. Wells in 1925 forecast the following:"In a hundred years, there will not be numerous nations, but only three great masses of people--the United States of America, the United States of Europe and China."  Not bad for a fiction writer.

Dr. A.R. Wentz, a professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, anticipated that people would use a pocket-sized apparatus for communications to see and hear each other without being in the same room.  He was proven prescient with the advent of the iPhone.

Of course, history remembers only the duds.  A scientist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris believed in 100 years people would live to the age of 150 because society would be free by then from the ravages of germs. He obviously never foresaw the worldwide COVID scourge of 2020.

Perhaps the ugliest prediction about the future belongs to Albert E. Wiggam, an American psychologist, who surmised: "If we keep progressing in the wrong direction, as we have been doing, American beauty is bound to decline and there won't be a good-looking girl to be found 100 years from now." Ouch!

With modest expectations in mind, your writer offers these predictions for the New Year, acknowledging readers will heckle the embarrassing flops:

1. The economy roars past expectations of a consensus 1.9% expansion.  The Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measurement of economic output, grows by 2.6% on an annualized basis.  The economy is spurred by an extension of personal and corporate tax cuts, reductions in government regulations and increased exports of oil and natural gas.  Consumers spending increases as sentiment rises based on the tax cuts, abolishment of taxes on tips and the elimination of taxes on Social Security.

2.  Stocks shake off early volatility and end year with new records. An erratic market rules in the first quarter as traders assess the ability of President Trump to deliver on economic growth without igniting a crippling trade war over tariffs. The S&P index continues its record run, climbing 15% as the performance of stocks not included in the Magnificent 7 post better than expected gains after a modest selloff in the golden seven.  The NASDAQ leads the stock momentum, reaching new record closes.  The Dow lags but manages a modest 5% gain. A boost in merger-and-acquisition activity under the Trump Administration juices stocks in some categories. Meanwhile, Bitcoin soars to $200,000 on the promise of limited use of the crypto currency for some financial transactions,

3.  The job market, after tailing off in late 2024, experiences a modest uptick.  Most of the job growth last year was in healthcare, hospitality and government.  The Artificial Intelligence race fuels growth in jobs in IT, cloud computing, data centers and robotics.  Remote work continues to decline, replaced by a hybrid model.  Generative AI accelerates in replacing tasks performed by humans, ramping up productivity. Monthly job gains average 130,000-170,000 for the year, beating the second half of 2024. 

4.  Inflation cools by mid-year, ending 2025 at 2.2%.  The No. 1 threat to a return of heated inflation is a full year of wage hikes negotiated least year by major unions representing communications, airline flight attendants, postal workers and autoworkers.  In the new year, the pressure on wages will be contracts for freight railway workers, Boeing, the longshoremen and smaller airlines. But costs of groceries, fuel, raw materials, new efficiencies in supply changes and productivity improvements help bring down inflation.

5. The Federal Reserve takes a wait-and-see attitude for the first half of 2025 before reducing interest rates by 100 basis points (a full percentage point)  Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, miffed by jawboning by President Trump for steep rate cuts, resists the political pressure. Several fed governors break ranks and the case for rate cuts gains momentum on the Federal Open Market Committee (FMOC), leading Powell to reverse course and support lowering rates.  The DOGE effort slices $750 billion in spending to trim the deficit for the year, but more drastic cuts are derailed by Democrats and the entrenched bureaucracy. However, the reduction reduces the federal deficit for the year, giving the Fed more reasons to cut interest rates. 

6.  President Trump's promise of mass deportations falls short of "mass" after hundreds of  thousands of illegals are returned to their countries of origin.  Border Czar Tom Howland picks the low-hanging fruit during the first year, deporting illegal immigrant criminals and suspected terrorists.  However, Democrats and their allies in the media highlight exaggerated contributions of illegal immigrant workers, causing some Republicans in vulnerable districts to waiver in supporting the president. Early on the Trump administration ends the Biden era flights of immigrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti into the U.S, while also reducing border crossings to a trickle. 

7. Multimodal Artificial Intelligence and AI agents are the latest technological developments.  Advances in AI processes create breakthroughs in the generation of content, predictions and insights from multiple forms of data.  AI Agents act autonomously to achieve goals, adapting to changing circumstances and seamlessly working with humans.  These breakthroughs have applications in healthcare, education, communication services, supply chain management and product development. 

8. Once viewed as novelties, AI powered robots graduate from mundane, repetitive tasks to public-facing functions.   Robots already are deployed at warehouses, hospitals and in automotive industries.  In 2025, generative AI will enable robots to plan and replan their tasks, including the ability to understand objects they have never seen before. The new frontier will be creating robots that understand human commands, instead of relying on coded instructions.  Watch for robots to be deployed in fast food chains, where diners will be able tell the machines their order without using a keyboard on a kiosk.

9.  Investments in quantum computing and AI data centers accelerate as the global contest for dominance in those two technologies become nations' priorities.  The field of quantum informational science is critical to national security as the federal government continues to fund research and development. Goggle's parent Alphabet is among the leaders in the quantum field. Powering sprawling AI data centers, the nerve centers of the digital economy, is an issue demanding development of hyper-efficient, liquid cooled structures. The power conundrum is being tackled by  some of the world's biggest data users: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, NVIDIA and Meta.

10.  Electric vehicle sales stall after President Trump and the Republican Congress end the $7,500 tax credit.  In anticipation of the termination of the tax credit, sales of electric vehicles rose 12% in the fourth quarter 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.  Estimates of total EV sales in yearend 2024 are expected to hit 1.3 million, up from 1.2 million in 2023.  Eight percent of all new vehicles sold in the U.S. were electric in 2024, a high-water mark.  Hybrids gain traction with consumers as auto firms churn out more of these vehicles.

11.  Staggering battlefield losses convince Russia's Putin to consider a peace deal to end to the war in Ukraine. By at least one unofficial estimate, the Russians have lost 700,000 soldiers since escalation of the ongoing conflict in 2022. President Trump begins negotiations by challenging European nations to increase their NATO contributions and military support for Ukraine.  In return, he pledges more natural gas shipments to Europe to make up for the loss of Russian resources.  The moves bring Putin to the negotiating table with Ukraine.  Hostilities cease and Europe and the U.S. pledge billions to help Ukraine rebuild its infrastructure.

12.  There is another assassination attempt on the life of President Trump with evidence linking the incident to Iran.   The president places the harshest restrictions ever on Iran and gives Israel the green light to eliminate Iranian nuclear facilities. Under tariff pressure from the U.S., China decreases its purchase of Iranian oil, robbing the regime of one of its key sources of export income.  The Iranian regime teeters on the brink of collapse as protesters take to the streets. 

Clip and save these predictions for 100 years.  Then send an email to your writer about the accuracy of his prophetic abilities.  By then you will be living to the ripe old age of 200, according to this journalist's last prediction for the new year. 

Election 2024: A Historically Unconventional Race

The presidential race is thundering toward the finish line in the most inconceivable American election.  Donald Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts.  Kamala Harris carries the Democratic Party banner without the benefit of being elected by primary voters.  

Acts of political violence are a stain on American politics since the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.  Through the decades, three presidents have been killed and there have been seven presidential assassination attempts and the murder of Democrat candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. 

Another distinction of this election, Trump is the only presidential candidate who is a convicted felon.  Although even Democrats have dropped the reference because independents and Republicans are convinced the verdict was produced by a sham trial, it hovers over the presidential race. 

Vice President Harris holds the Democratic Party distinction of the only nominee to not receive a single primary vote since Vice President Hubert Humphrey in 1968.  Humphrey's nomination at the Democratic National Convention ended with his defeat to Richard Nixon.   

President Joe Biden after campaigning for more than a year dropped out on July 21, barely four months until election day.  A humbling debate performance cleared the way for Harris to assume the mantle.  Theories continue to ruminate about what prompted Biden's abrupt about face.

With the election in the homestretch, the polls continue to show the outcome will likely be decided by hundreds of thousands of voters in a few so-called swing states.  On the bellwether list: Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada.  

In 2020, Biden's victory in those states cleared the way for his election. He won those six states by a total popular vote of 312,362.   In Pennsylvania, the Democrat won by 81,660 votes out of more than 3 million ballots case.  He carried Wisconsin by a slimmer margin, 20,682 votes and Nevada by 33,596.

Razor-thin vote margins in Arizona (10,457) and Georgia (11,779) benefited Biden.  Even Michigan, a charter member of the Big Blue Wall named for traditionally voting Democrat, gave Biden a comparatively slim edge of 154,188 votes out of more than 5 million ballots.  

Consider that the 2020 race was decided by less than 400,000 votes out of 158 million ballots cast.  Turnout was seven percentage points higher than the 2016 election.  A record 66% of citizens voted in the election. Some experts are forecasting higher turnout this cycle.

The two candidates are crisscrossing paths with each other ending up in the same state on the same day as they deliver their closing arguments in swing state voters.  A shift in a scintilla of votes could end up titling the election to Harris or Trump.  Dueling camps have bombarded the air waves with attack ads.

What started out as an election about issues, has descended into the junk yard politics mantra: Negative sells.  Trump is painted as Adolf Hitler, who murdered six million Jews and started a world war.  The caricature has been responsible for fueling a toxic political divide that threatens to rupture the country.

Trump has branded Harris a socialist and critiqued her intellect in demeaning language.  His early reference to Harris' racial ethnicity cringed even his supporters.  Both candidates are covered in mud and the voters are left in the quandary of selecting the person with the fewest smudges.  

Unsurprisingly,  national polls reveal the race is deadlocked with less than two weeks until Election Day.  Looking under the hood of the polls, there are positive and negative signs for both campaigns.  Polls agree on one point: Harris and Trump both have above average unfavorable ratings. 

Worrisome for the team Harris is that she is underperforming with key demographics that were responsible for Biden's narrow win.  She has lost support among Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, particularly men in those demographics.  If the trend continues, it will not bode well for Harris.

Trump is behind with college graduates and suburban women.  Abortion is proving to be an issue that still moves the needle with swaths of voters across party lines.  It was a crucial wedge issue in the 2022 midterms and could once again cleve Trump support among independents. 

Mail-in voting, a tool used extensively during the Covid-era election of 2020, is trending lower.  It turned out to be a boon for Democrats, but at least early signs don't indicate it will be as robust this year. However, early voting is on pace to break records, galloping ahead of 2020 and 2016 levels.

Political watchers are noticing early voting among Republicans is outperforming Democrats, a once unthinkable outcome. Republicans have traditionally preferred to cast ballots on Election Day.  

On election night, the early results in Pennsylvania will offer a clue to the remainder of the evening.  Biden banked 36.2 percent more early votes than Trump in 2020 to offset Republicans voting advantage on Election Day.  If Harris falls below 25%, it will be a clunker of a start to a long agonizing evening. 

The final tally could take days, since Arizona and Nevada are notoriously slow reporting results. Whatever the outcome, expect fireworks from the losing side.  Candidates have accused each other of being a threat to Democracy. There will be no gracious concession speeches.

Adding to the turbulence is revelations by U.S. spy agencies that foreign actors are using covert influence campaigns to interfere in the election. Intelligence indicates Russia, Iran and China are sewing discord and disinformation. Expect the losing candidate to point to election interference as a factor in their defeat.  

Campaign rancor and the divisive cultural chasm have the makings of a potential power keg in the election aftermath. The nation's temperature is north of 98.6 degrees. Let's pray for decorum in the name of saving democracy.  We should all want a peaceful end to this fractious election.