“Project 2025’s main ask was to cut USAID funding to at least 2019 levels! Read that again: literal Project 2025 was envisioning a world where the Trump administration would cut six years of USAID funding growth, not even mentioning the possibility of eliminating USAID as an independent agency.”

Everyone is misunderstanding what happened to USAID
I read 18 pieces reckoning with the end of USAID. Here`s what they get wrong.

()

That`s about half of what it cost for USAID for a whole year www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...

First 6 Days of Iran War Cost U.S. $11.3 Billion, Pentagon Says

(nytimes.com)

funding USAID (an agency which Trump and Musk illegally destroyed) cost each individual American taxpayer about $64 annually while saving millions of lives around the world.

instead, we`ve got:

Secretary Marco Rubio claimed no one died as a result of cuts to USAID. That’s not what we found.

After Trump officials cut food aid to Kenya, children starved to death in an American-made hunger crisis.

(Published Dec. 2025)

After Trump Officials Cut Food Aid to Kenya, Children Starved to Death
“Brutal and traumatizing”: Interviews and a trove of internal documents show government officials and aid workers desperately tried to warn Trump advisers about impending disaster and death.

(propublica.org)

I still think the best way to think of the ending of US AID is as the single worst genocide committed by any one US presidential administration.

even given all the horrific things the US has done, it`s not really that close. 750k dead already; expected 14 million.

Faine Greenwood(faineg.bsky.social): this is exactly why I am absolutely not willing to overlook anyone who was once “advocating for ending USAID” as merely committing a little oopsie-daisy-booboo, by the way

By Slashing Foreign Aid, Trump Is Fueling the Spread of HIV in Uganda (theintercept.com)

The other thing being missed: USAID had a number of successful programs to halt VZ migration in the region (in Colombia). Those got shut down and now Trump threatens both VZ and Colombia. What does that do to refugee movement?

Alexander Clarkson(aphclarkson.bsky.social): It is telling how even high quality outlets like the America`s Quarterly podcast often don`t think through scenarios where Trump`s violent incompetence might cause an electoral collapse of the US Right or even more chaos in Venezuela that affect his ability to shape outcomes

The U.S. *was* feeding poor people then Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and JD Vance illegally killed off USAID.

Blake Herzinger(bdherzinger.bsky.social): Seeing a leader of the United States adopt this line is revolting. While the US remains imperfect, it is also the global leader in FDI as well as the world’s leading destination for inbound investment. China would love to have an economy like America’s.

Musk, who think he’s humanity’s savior, will likely be remembered as the man who caused the deaths of 15 million people www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
(thelancet.com)

“This little girl is Achol Deng, 8, who likewise died when she lost access to antiretrovirals because of the U.S.A.I.D. freeze.”

There was not excuse for a sudden pause and cancellation of USAID programs with no transition plan.

It’s one thing to say you don’t want America to save these lives. Cancelling with no transition period guaranteed no one else could.

"Every day that PEPFAR’s work is interrupted, 230 babies are born with H.I.V. in South Africa who otherwise would not have been infected."
(nytimes.com)

His decimation of U.S.A.I.D. has had fatal consequences.

[Musk] told Joe Rogan this year, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” referring to the emotion as a “bug” in our system.

Yet even as he prides himself on dispassionate rigor, Musk has proved remarkably uninterested in figuring out how the government that he sought to transform really works. Samantha Power, head of U.S.A.I.D. under Biden, told me she tried to speak with members of the new administration, hoping to convince them there were elements of U.S.A.I.D.’s work that they could leverage for their own agenda. But aside from one meeting with transition officials, her outreach was ignored. (nytimes.com)

In February, Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) in effect shut down the US Agency for International Development, the main conduit for US aid, saying it was “time for it to die”.

The co-founder of Microsoft, and once the world’s richest man himself, said the abruptness of the cuts had left life-saving food and medicines expiring in warehouses and could cause the resurgence of diseases such as measles, HIV and polio.

“The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one,” he told the Financial Times. (ft.com)

HHS’ purge of workers who release gov't records under the Freedom of Information Act “raise grave transparency, accountability, and privacy concerns,” Sen. Ron Wyden told Secretary RFK Jr. on Thursday.

He joins a growing chorus of voices criticizing the firings. (kffhealthnews.org)

Two of Musk’s most strident goons manually, one-by-one, killed lifesaving programs even those Rubio wants credit for trying to save, on Musk’s orders.

Here’s a quick thread breaking down what the, formerly, Global Engagement Center actually did—so you can understand what Marco Rubio’s decision really means, and why its closure could have serious consequences for U.S. national security.
The GEC:
* was created by the U.S. State Department to counter foreign disinformation and targeted propaganda from countries like Russia, China, Iran, and extremist groups. It has been specifically focused on foreign actors, not domestic speech.
* tracked fake news campaigns & troll farms tied to state-sponsored interference. It shared intelligence with allies like NATO and the EU and funded independent media, fact-checking, and digital literacy programs.
* helped expose Russian disinfo during elections, COVID, and with the Ukraine war. It backed researchers who studied how misinfo spreads online and invested in tools to track bots & influence networks.
* has been a crucial firewall against authoritarian propaganda and shutting it down could weaken U.S. defenses in the information war.
Disinformation attacks will now go unchecked as the US loses its primary watchdog. In a time where wars are now being fought in cyberspace, this is a dangerous move.

I look at close to 100 stories a week and even more outside of work. I’ve done this ten years.

This is among the most horrific things I’ve ever read — testimony from dying children whose access to medicine has been cut off by the Trump administration.

(npr.org)

Deaths due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth declined 40% globally between 2000 and 2023.

Maternal deaths rose by 40,000 in 2021 due to the Covid pandemic

“Countries have not had time to put in place and plan for what other financing they’re going to use, what other workers they’re going to use, [and] what are the trade-offs they’re going to make in their systems to try to make sure the most essential services can continue.”

So the DOGE bros are bragging today that they got "DEI scholarships for Burma" canceled.

These are USAID's Lincoln Scholarships, which help young people struggling for freedom in Burma's dictatorship - a cause America has supported under Republican & Democratic presidents. 1/
What could be "woke" or "DEI" about these scholarships? The only clue is that USAID says they're for students "of diverse backgrounds" (oh no, diversity!). This is essential for Burma, where the military has exploited ethnic and religious divisions to stay in power. 2/
As a Senator, Marco Rubio strongly supported human rights in Burma. He urged the Biden administration to do even more to help its people, including specifically the persecuted Rohingya ethnic minority - which I guess now would count as DEI. 3/
(Senate.gov)
It looks like these geniuses are just going through grant awards and killing anything that uses words like "diversity" and "inclusion," even though in countries where ethnic and religious minorities are murdered and persecuted, these have long been American goals. 4/
More on the Lincoln Scholarships here: (iie.org)

Let me explain why the total destruction of USAID - happening as we speak - matters so much.

China - where Musk makes his money - wants USAID destroyed. So does Russia. Trump and Musk are doing the bidding of Beijing and Moscow. Why?

Over the last week, 50% of the Global Health Bureau and 60% of the Humanitarian Assistance Bureau have been fired. Aid programs everywhere have been closed. The U.S. is in full retreat from the world.

Dystopian. No good reason for it.

The immediate consequences of this are cataclysmic. Malnourished babies who depend on U.S. aid will die. Anti-terrorism programs will shut down and our most deadly enemies will get stronger. Diseases that threaten the U.S. will go unabated and reach our shores faster.

And China will fill the void. As developing countries will now ONLY be able to rely on China for help, they will cut more deals with Beijing to give them control of ports, critical mineral deposits, etc.

U.S. power will shrink. U.S. jobs will be lost.

But Trump isn't satisfied just to close programs and fire staff. He is now planning to ELIMINATE THE ENTIRE AGENCY. Maybe this weekend.

a. That would be illegal. He cannot unilaterally close a federal agency. Another assault on the Constitution.

b. Another gift to China!

But why? Why hand a victory to terrorists and China and Russia? Why kill babies intentionally?

Who benefits when Trump is so soft on our enemies? Maybe billionaires like Musk who make $ in China? Maybe someone buying all that secret Trump meme coin?

It all feels so corrupt.
(AP News)

This is what Trump’s cruelty and chaos has unleashed.

A CNN KFile review of Rubio’s past comments shows he has been for more than a decade a major supporter of foreign aid and USAID, which in fiscal year 2023 distributed more than $40 billion in foreign aid to more than 160 different countries.

But just three years ago, Rubio argued the Biden administration in a 2022 letter to prioritize USAID’s funding as a key tool to “counter the Chinese Communist Party’s expanding global influence.”

“Anybody who tells you that we can slash foreign aid and that will bring us to balance is lying to you. Foreign aid is less than one percent of our budget. It’s just not true,” he added in August 2019, while speaking to the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches.

Here is United States law regarding the President's attempts to close our development assistance agency in secret over the weekend.

It is illegal. No ambiguity.

Americans decide with their actions, today, if the US is a country of laws or—something else.

Lifesaving treatment and prevention programs for tuberculosis, malaria, H.I.V. and other diseases cannot access funds to continue work.

Medical supplies, including drugs to stop hemorrhages in pregnant women and rehydration salts that treat life-threatening diarrhea in toddlers, cannot reach villages in Zambia because the trucking companies transporting them were paid through a suspended supply project of the United States Agency for International Development, U.S.A.I.D.

Dozens of clinical trials in South Asia, Africa and Latin America have been suspended. Thousands of people enrolled in the studies have drugs, vaccines and medical devices in their bodies but no longer have access to continuing treatment or to the researchers who were supervising their care.

Wow who could’ve guessed that this would happen

It’s almost as if USAID was a pillar of American soft power and influence in the world

It’s almost as if it was entirely predictable that America’s adversaries would work to fill the void left by USAID’s destruction
(link)

I worked on PEPFAR programs across southern Africa for over a decade. In 2001, on my first work trip to Soweto, I saw rows of patients with advanced AIDS—emaciated, with buckets under their cots due to non-stop diarrhea. Then PEPFAR launched in 2003.

The Stop TB Partnership estimates that since Jan 24th, there have been almost 12K additional deaths from TB worldwide. This threatens to reverse years of progress in TB prevention, diagnosis & treatment.

The idea that other nations or domestic budgets can fill this gap overnight is unrealistic. In Zambia, for example, US HIV aid equals 50% of the national health budget. This was a sudden rupture, not a gradual shift to local ownership.

Historically, the US has been a pivotal force in global health, providing funding, expertise & diplomatic support.

Meanwhile, China is increasing its influence in Africa through initiatives like the Belt & Road program. But its contributions to global health remain limited in scope, leaving a gap in leadership that the US used to fill.7

A resulting resurgence of the HIV epidemic would have “devastating consequences” globally, researchers warned, after estimating between 4.4m and 10.8m extra new infections in the next five years due to the cuts.

The modelling, published in the Lancet HIV, is the first to analyse the potential combined impact of funding cuts from leading donors, and projects a 24% reduction in global international HIV funding by 2026.

The world's richest man stole food from the world's poorest children. Now they are beginning to die
(link)

Tuberculosis, the deadliest infectious disease on the planet, kills more than 1.25M people a year. New infections are expected to surge by 30% as a result of closing USAID, a memo says. The increase will inevitably lead to cases in the U.S.
(propublica)

As of last week the estimated deaths CURRENTLY as a result of the USAID funding freeze was over 15,000 people.

That's how many people Elon Musk killed with his targeting of that agency.

Those are the direct deaths from things like, oxygen no longer being delivered.

The final toll, is millions.

It will be millions because we'll have deaths from preventable transmissible disease. We'll have mass casualties from natural disasters where we're no longer there. We'll have increases in illness and death due to the abject impoverishment where people do not have enough calories to survive.

And none of this was needful on any level.

It's just such an awful illegal evil.

For this alone, Elon Musk should go to forever prison.

Rubio terminated 5800 USAID contracts – more than 90% of its foreign aid programs – in defiance of the courts.

Here's a list of just some of the lifesaving awards that were terminated. Nearly all were Congressionally mandated. They've saved millions of lives.
1. All malaria supplies protecting 53 million people, mostly children, including bed nets, diagnostics, preventive drugs, and treatments – terminated.
2. All tuberculosis programs, including the Global TB Drug Facility – terminated.
3. All supplies of US-manufactured emergency food packets for starving children on the brink of death – terminated. (the New Republic)
?4. USAID's contract supporting deadly outbreak prevention, detection, and response, including Ebola and Bird Flu, in 50 countries – terminated.
5. All deployable U.S. teams for earthquake assistance – terminated.
6. All U.S.-backed development programming in Afghanistan, including maternal and child health services and girls education – terminated. (Estimated to cause >1,200 maternal deaths by 2028.) (better world campaign)
7. Over 1,000 food kitchens in Sudan, a country with almost 25 million people experiencing acute food insecurity – terminated. (NPR)
8. USAID's contract for supplying essential medicines for maternal and child health in countries worldwide – terminated.
9. Services from the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation - just one organization - reaching 350,000 people on HIV treatment, including nearly 10,000 children and more than 10,000 HIV-positive pregnant women – terminated.
10. Every USAID program in the former Soviet countries in Central Asia, including health programs to combat tuberculosis, along with agricultural programs – terminated. (voanews)
11. Screening program with the Mexican government to identify illicit drugs like fentanyl being smuggled at the US border.
12. A project in the Democratic Republic of Congo that operates the only source of water for 250,000 displaced people in camps located in the center of current conflict.

Here is United States law regarding the President's attempts to close our development assistance agency in secret over the weekend.

It is illegal. No ambiguity.

Americans decide with their actions, today, if the US is a country of laws or–something else.
(link)

God. Not only did the Trump Admin give USAID workers only 15 minutes to clear their desks, they refused to allow one to take a picture of his dead wife's name on USAID's memorial wall. She was a foreign service officer.

How fucking cruel can they be?

NEW: The Trump administration promised to take months to carefully review all foreign aid.

But less than four weeks later, they cancelled 10,000 programs at once – including those they had already deemed to be critical, lifesaving operations.
@annabarryjester and I got internal USAID and State Department documents that show how haphazard and cursory the process appears to have been. That evidence contradicts what the government has said in court to justify its sweeping actions.
(link)

Been thinking about this story all day:

In their warehouse, Moore said, there are around 400,000 boxes of USAID-branded RUTF ready to be shipped out. He estimates that if USAID doesn't pay MANA for those boxes, he will have at least $10 million in wasted peanut butter pouches on his hands. And that doesn't include an additional $14 million in reimbursements from the federal government that he was already waiting for. He is unsure whether or when he will get paid.

Erin Boyd, a USAID nutrition adviser who was laid off from the agency in January, told CNN it is not an overstatement to say that children will die as a result of the decimation of USAID and funding for RUTF.

(link)

Other programs canceled by Trump admin:

- Distribution of food supplement for severely malnourished children
- Distribution malaria prevention resources
- Prenatal care for vulnerable mothers and kids
- Tracking spread of ebola and bird flu

Obviously, none of this is pro-life.

Devastating is an understatement. This would ensure US social science would barely be a shell of itself for the foreseeable future, if ever back to its current status ever again.

Pam Davis-Kean, PhD(umpamdk.bsky.social): The NSF 2027 budget has noted that they will close out the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science Program (SBE). This is not a good thing. nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/FY-202...

tl;dr: NIH is running at about 60% of pre-Trump levels and NSF is running at about 20% of pre-Trump levels of funding-outlays (some directorates far below even that). Utterly catastrophic. An unforced disaster for U.S. society, and the world

Noam Ross(noamross.net): For #NSF and #NIH watchers, Grant Witness now has interactive data on numbers of grants and total funding obligations, broken down by institute and directorate, new awards and non-competitive renewals.

The stranglehold on new awards is still a disaster.

grant-witness.us/funding_curv...

Before 2025, US federal funding provided 45% of the global cancer research budget. So yet another blow to everyone affected by cancer in the coming decades

Joshua Weitz(joshuasweitz.bsky.social): A 20% budget cut atop multiyear funding-induced cuts to research and direct terminations of projects underway will further degrade American leadership in science.

This is early news & not even a proposal or appropriations - precisely the reason to speak out now.

(rollcall.com)

This is an incredible documentation of the systematic, intentional collapse of American health science, by Elizabeth Ginexi.

The gutting of NIH has been as bad as the gutting of CDC

In 2024, NIH published 756 funding announcements

In 2025, it published 120

In 2026, as of March 15, it has published 14“

The decline is not limited to a few institutes. It is systemic. The National Cancer Institute, which historically published more Notice of Funding Opportunities [NOFOs] than any other institute, has gone nearly silent.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, responsible for pandemic preparedness and emerging disease response, has published almost nothing.

Institutes focused on mental health, aging, drug abuse, environmental health, & rare diseases have all but stopped issuing targeted funding announcements.

This is not a temporary slowdown. It is a structural collapse.

Under the new system, every NOFO must be approved by political appointees in the NIH director’s office & HHS before it can be posted....NOFOs must also be approved by the OMB. This adds another layer of political review to what was previously a scientific decision-making process.

When NIH stops issuing targeted funding announcements, specific kinds of research become much harder to sustain.....Rare disease research suffers....Emerging threats become harder to address quickly. When COVID-19 emerged, NIH issued emergency funding announcements within weeks......Innovation in underfunded areas stalls......Scientific program staff lose the ability to steward their fields.

The collapse of NIH funding announcements is part of a larger pattern I have documented in previous essays: restructuring the agency without congressional authorization. (elizabethginexi.substack.com)

DOGE allegedly used ChatGPT to identify 1,400 NEH grants it said were DEI. Grants were terminated April 2025, according to a court filing. E.g.

Film: 1873 Colfax massacre
Film: first female pilots flying for U.S. military in WWII
Film: “Untold Story of Jewish Women Slave Labor in the Holocaust“

DOGE representatives allegedly used ChatGPT to identify approximately 1,400 National Endowment for the Humanities grants related to diversity that were terminated in April of last year, according to a new court filing released today.

(politico.com)

— Eileen Clancy 🧿 (clancyny.bsky.social) 3091 3091

Breaking News: The Trump administration repealed the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and well being, meaning that the EPA can no longer regulate them. nyti.ms/4rSszQu
(nyti.ms)

The formal withdrawal of the WHO will have major consequences for both the United States & the WHO itself.

First, let’s think about the U.S.

The U.S. has shot itself in the foot—it has now made itself much more vulnerable to disaster and devastation when the next epidemic or pandemic hits.

A ????

Madhu Pai, MD, PhD(madhupai.bsky.social): I spoke (www.cbc.ca)

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.
(nature.com)

The Trump regime got rid of 10,109 PhDs in science and related fields, representing 14% of the total number of PhD scientists in the federal workforce.
(science.org)

How many STEM Ph.D.s were lost from the U.S. federal government last year?

My colleagues @mghersher.bsky.social and @policyhound.bsky.social dug into a recent data release to find the answer. A @science.org exclusive.

www.science.org/content/arti...

Conservatives have soured on cost-benefit analysis since it turns out thatthe benefits of many environmental regulations far outweigh their costs. The Trump EPA`s response: stop counting the number of lives saved by regulations. (legal-planet.org)

Well, this is an utter disaster for science.

This gutting of peer review is very likely driven by Project 2025/OMB/Vought, very likely is about funding junk science, and very likely is coming for #NIH and biomedical research next.
🧪

An absolute bedrock institution for understanding how the planet works, just civilization-scaled vandalism by the most incurious morons on Earth

A tiny trial in New York has shown that personalized mRNA vaccines can provoke massive, lasting immune responses against pancreatic cancer, even as sweeping federal cuts now threaten the fragile labs required to produce them. (theintellectualistofficial.substack.com)

But a March survey from Nature found 75% -- 3 in 4! -- researchers are *thinking* about leaving the U.S.

With huge funding cuts at every level from Federal agencies thru university grants, what`s different now is that many may have no choice but to leave.

(gift link)
(wsj.com)

The full ruling explaining why NIH grant cuts are illegal came out today.

It`s just as blistering as the judge`s oral remarks. And it uncovers fresh details in DOGE`s role orchestrating the cuts — and on the cuts at Columbia.

Here are my top highlights from the 103-page ruling. 🧵

Max Kozlov(maxkozlov.bsky.social): After ru (www.nature.com)

Trump is closing all four climate observatory stations in Alaska, Hawaii, American Samoa, and Antartica. Because you can`t have high CO2 levels if you don`t *measure* CO2 levels.

roll_safe.gif
(nytimes.com)

25/n

Nadja Cech with the question I also had, having been in the DS-safety/efficacy world many years ago: “NCCIH publishes valuable info on safety of dietary supplements. What happens with the website not being updated with this info?“

Director: “We are literally heartbroken about the website“
(nccih.nih.gov)

Instead of scientific peer review, here comes political peer review

Mike Dettinger(mdettinger.bsky.social): EPA has (www.washingtonpost.com)

The CDC has quietly and drastically scaled back the country’s most comprehensive system for tracking the food-borne illnesses estimated to sicken millions of Americans each year.
(nyti.ms)

The CDC has lost a third of its work force this year. The Trump administration maintains that the losses are necessary, but critics say that there is no real plan, only animosity.
(nytimes.com)

Political interference at the FDA, and across government, has become so regular under this administration that legal experts are worried the public may be increasingly indifferent.

via @lizzylawrence.bsky.social
(statnews.com)

Ugh... This study has existed for decades, providing valuable health data for all sorts of topics and publications. This is just more awful news. 🛟😷 (statnews.com)

Thinking of calling CDC to report a potential disease outbreak? Don`t bother; no one will answer, a former CDC employee said Tuesday, at a press conference organized by @firedbutfighting.bsky.social.

Read more at: https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/washington-watch/117943?trw=no
(medpagetoday.com)

The DOGE-triggered brain drain has destroyed government science, endangered research, and left America fading to black.
(motherjones.com)

I think the *speed* at which RFK Jr and his Great Barrington Declaration/anti-vaxx/Brownstone wrecking crew have been dismantling the US public health system has been really astonishing

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD(elizabethjacobs.bsky.social): Well, Senators Bill Cassidy and Thom Tillis, you wanted RFK Jr. to “go wild” at HHS.

Congratulations. You’ve achieved your goal. He is well on his way to completely destroying the US vaccine program.

The National Weather Service is working to hire back hundreds of positions laid off or otherwise cut by the Trump administration, but it’s progressing at a snail’s pace, with about 80 final job offers accepted for meteorologists, hydrologists and other specialized staff. https://cnn.it/3MvtkPN
(cnn.it)

NIH rescinds Scientific Integrity Policy, which protects against political interference and grant termination.

Carl T. Bergstrom(carlbergstrom.com): 1. Another Friday afternoon massacre of sorts:

NIH just rescinded its Scientific Integrity Policy.

h/t @lizborkowski.bsky.socia (l)

Trump’s Attacks on Institutions Threaten a Bulwark of Economic Strength
The president’s efforts to control the Federal Reserve and Bureau of Labor Statistics carry risks. But collectively, the moves could be even more damaging, economists warn.

Individually, each move carries risks, according to economists across the political spectrum. Undermining Fed independence could lead to faster inflation. Meddling with economic statistics could drive up the government’s borrowing costs. Cutting research funding could threaten long-term economic growth.

Taken together, the Trump administration’s efforts to expand its influence into spheres that were once insulated from political meddling pose a larger threat, potentially undermining the United States’ previously unshakable reputation as a reliable, predictable place to do business.

“These are all real components of why people would trust the United States, and if you start taking them apart, you start eroding that trust,” said Norbert Michel, an economist at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “At some point you’re no longer the thing that gives people confidence. You’re just another third-world country.”

“Good economic data is the bedrock of good policy,” said Donald Kohn, who served as vice chair of the Fed during the 2008 financial crisis.

Economists worry that the politicization of government statistics could set the United States on a path similar to that of Argentina, Greece and Turkey, other countries that have tried to suppress or fudge politically inconvenient data. (nytimes.com)

Heard from #AHRQ that the entire grants staff has been let go! They are unable to issue funds for grants already funded, let alone fund new grants. This is outrageous and will make Americans poorer and sicker. Why? A brief thread about just some recent AHRQ-funded research:

Incredible shrinking Cone of Uncertainty! Kartina 2005 vs Helene 2024. Dramatic improvement in hurricane forecasting due to expertise of NOAA scientists at NHC & AOML. Since 2005 forecast error on 5-day track has decreased by ~50%! We often take these accurate forecasts for granted but years of hard work helped get us here. A big thank you to NHC. Great figure by Steve Bowen at Gallagher Re

Over 120 mRNA cancer trials are now at risk as the Trump admin cuts funding & tells researchers to scrub “mRNA” from grant proposals.

What started as COVID fearmongering is now derailing life-saving cancer research.

Hope remains - but scientists say time is running out.
(theguardian.com)

In his first months in office, President Trump has slashed funding for medical research, threatening a longstanding alliance between the federal government and universities that helped make the United States the world leader in medical science.

Some changes have been starkly visible, but the country’s medical grant-making machinery has also radically transformed outside the public eye, a New York Times analysis found. To understand the cuts, The Times trawled through detailed grant data from the National Institutes of Health, interviewed dozens of affected researchers and spoke to agency insiders who said that their government jobs have become unrecognizable.

In all, the N.I.H., the world’s premier public funder of medical research, has ended 1,389 awards and delayed sending funding to more than 1,000 additional projects, The Times found. From the day Mr. Trump was inaugurated through April, the agency awarded $1.6 billion less compared with the same period last year, a reduction of one-fifth. (N.I.H. records for May are not yet comparable.)

The delays have stifled research on drug discovery, blood vessel health and injury response. In some cases, scientists have cut staff, paused hiring, trimmed back supplies or delayed experiments. Health officials have not explained which projects have been held up, why or for how long. (nytimes.com)

It's hard to avoid recalling this passage from the English historian Tony Judt:

"By far the best thing about America is its universities. Not Harvard, Yale, e tutti quanti: though marvelous, they are not distinctively American-their roots reach across the ocean to Oxford, Heidelberg, and beyond. Nowhere else in the world, however, can boast such public universities. You drive for miles across a godforsaken midwestern scrubscape, pockmarked by billboards, Motel 6s, and a military parade of food chains, when-like some pedagogical mirage dreamed up by nineteenth-century English gentlemen-there appears...a library! And not just any library: at Bloomington, the University of Indiana boasts a 7.8-million-volume collection in more than nine hundred languages, housed in a magnificent double-towered mausoleum of Indiana limestone." (https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/05/27/america-my-new-found-land/)

Nick Kapur (nickkapur.bsky.social): Bloodbath in Indiana higher ed as public colleges and universities ordered to eliminate 20% of all degree programs, apparently based purely on student demand (=enrollments) and not any rational calculation of need or value.

Most incredible about this is that IU-Bloomington has long been the no. 1 university in the world for teaching Asian languages and cultures, with many programs found nowhere else.

They're slashing many of IU-B's most distinctive programs with zero thought or debate. They probably don't even know.

(ipm.org)

Judge Young is beyond livid — and fuming. He has another hearing that was supposed to begin minutes ago, and he's still going.

"I've never seen a record where racial discrimination is so palpable. I've been on the bench for 40 years. I've never seen government racial discrimination like this."

For the record: I'm not a court reporter and can't pretend to be. But what I just witnessed was simply remarkable. I've never seen a sitting US judge excoriate the US government so forcefully. I can't convey just how angry the judge was.

Research-funding cuts and immigration changes threaten some of America’s economic advantages

A March 2025 survey by the journal Nature of more than 1,600 scientists in the U.S. found that three-quarters have considered leaving the country. Respondents specifically cited the Trump administration’s hostility to scientific research and those who practice it.

Historically, three-quarters of international students who earn a Ph.D. in the U.S. have stayed long-term. America’s ability to retain these workers—who are not just highly trained but expensive to educate—has been one key to the country’s pre-eminence in innovation. (wsj.com)

From brain gain to brain drain:
"Despite representing only 4% of the world’s population, the United States accounts for over half of science Nobel Prizes awarded since 2000, hosts seven of The Times Higher Education Top 10 science universities, and incubates firms such as Alphabet (Google), Meta and Pfizer that turn federally funded discoveries into billion-dollar markets.

The domestic STEM talent pool alone cannot sustain this research output. The U.S. is reliant on a steady and strong influx of foreign scientists – a brain gain. In 2021, foreign-born people constituted 43% of doctorate-level scientists and engineers in the U.S. They make up a significant share of America’s elite researchers: Since 2000, 37 of the 104 U.S. Nobel laureates in the hard sciences, more than a third, were born outside the country." (theconversation.com)

This report from @sanders.senate.gov didn't get enough attention yesterday. It tracks how much funding from science Trump has killed.

Trump officials effectively cut $2.7 billion in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in the first three months of 2025. For example, Trump cut cancer research by 31 percent through March, compared to the same timeframe last year

(sanders.senate.gov)

HAPPY 75th, NSF!

We’re celebrating this milestone by highlighting some of NSF’s most transformative accomplishments—innovations that have shaped our world and continue to drive progress in health, technology, the environment, and beyond.

In the 1950s, the NSF began laying foundations for American science.
After WWII devastated Europe’s research infrastructure, the U.S. stepped up—with the newly founded NSF funding massive projects like the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia.

In the 1960s, NSF helped give ASL the recognition it deserved.
At the time, ASL wasn’t seen as a “real” language. But thanks to NSF funding, William Stokoe published the 1st ASL dictionary in 1965—revolutionizing how Deaf language and culture were viewed.

The first MRI scan in 1977 changed medicine forever—but it didn’t come out of nowhere. It was built on years of NSF-funded breakthroughs in nuclear magnetic resonance, biophysics, biochemistry, and computer engineering.

In the 1980s, NSF laid the foundation for the internet.

NSFNET, launched in 1986, connected scientists to supercomputers across the country—becoming the de facto internet backbone before commercial services took over in 1995

The internet exists because we invested in science.
Decades before it changed the world, the NSF laid the groundwork for the internet—funding research, building networks, and connecting universities. Without public investment, there would be no world wide web.

Math funded by NSF is saving lives.
Breakthroughs in matching theory led to algorithms that revolutionized kidney donation—helping match patients with the right donors faster and more efficiently.

In 2019, we saw the unseeable.
The first image of a black hole stunned the world—and it wouldn’t have happened without the NSF, which provided the largest share of funding to the Event Horizon Telescope project.

NSF is powering the future of AI—investing $500M+ annually into foundational and translational research.

From building 25+ national AI institutes to expanding access through NAIRR and growing the AI workforce, this is public science at work.

75 years of scientific discovery—now on the chopping block.

Trump’s 2025 budget proposes a 56% cut to the NSF. Over 1,000 grants terminated. 37 divisions abolished. Funding frozen.

This isn’t just reckless—it’s a war on knowledge, a war on progress. (pubs.aip.org)

This graph from @JonBruner tells an important story: America's current dominance in science only began after the mid-1930s, when persecuted scientists began fleeing universities in Germany and then elsewhere in occupied Europe.

Note especially the complete lack of German Nobel Prizes in physics between around 1933 and the 1950s. Hitler specifically persecuted "Jewish physics", prompting Einstein and others to flee to the US (enabling the US to build the atomic bomb, so it was very consequential).

The current anti-science movement in the US has a similar hatred of entire fields, especially climate science and medical science. The whole government-funded scientific enterprise is being systematically defunded, but those fields seem to be particularly singled out.

In coming years I fully expect that there will be a precipitous drop in US Nobel Prize winners. The question is whether other countries will be able to find homes for fleeing American scientists, as America once did for European scientists.

Something else worth noting: the collapse in British Nobel Prize awards after 1979. That's no coincidence, as the government of Margaret Thatcher slashed funding for basic research because it was not considered to be of value to industry. Many British scientists fled abroad.

Another data point to add to the thread. Note the drastic fall in British science Nobels after the Thatcher government defunded basic research, followed by a resurgence in the 2000s once funding was restored.

Harvard researcher Dr Sarah Fortune was only two years away from creating a vaccine that could have saved the 1.25 million people killed each year by tuberculosis. But last month, she received a letter telling her that the $60 million grant funding her research was being halted by President Trump.
(thetimes.com)

Moronic own goal.

Some of these policies are legitimately indistinguishable from the answer to the thought exercise: “If I was president and wanted to destroy America’s competitive advantage, this is what I would do”

What does America get from foreign students?
- They subsidize American students' education
- They inject life into small towns across America
- They do a large portion of America's STEM research

Over 60% of American computer science PhDs are international students, and you think you're just going to magically conjure up homegrown researchers to replace them, and then win the AI race with magic Trump fairy dust?

You're a complete moron
(noahpinion.blog)

The US government is aiming to get rid of a quarter million people involved in science research and education by 2026.

I have no words.
(nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov)

Another one of DOGE's "accomplishments": they cut the FDA division responsible for bringing cheaper generic drugs to markets.

I'm sure that will save tons of money.

Thanks again, Elon! (marginalrevolution.com)

This graphic of Trump’s cuts to NASA’s research fleet is insane.

Why do this? Who wants this? Who was complaining we were exploring space too much? The only principle seems to be “if it can’t go directly into Trump or Musk’s own pockets, dump it in the trash.”

Chairman of neuroscience at John Hopkins cancelled a US conference because foreign scientists would be afraid they couldn't get in. But having the conference in the UK might be a problem because foreign students in the US don't want to leave, as they might not get back in!

Trump administration has declared war on Elite Human Capital. National suicide.

At Johns Hopkins, which has long received more N.I.H. funding than any other university, Richard Huganir, the chairman of neuroscience, said he is “terrified” of being unable to enroll international students. His department has 36 labs with 100 graduate students and postdocs, about 30 percent are international.

“For us, it would be losing 30 percent of our work force,” he said. “They are integral to the whole fabric of American science, and losing that population would be devastating.”

Graduate students and postdocs are going home to China and Korea for jobs, he said.

Beyond losing talent, Dr. Huganir worries about the increasing isolation of American science. He canceled plans to host an international meeting at Hopkins because foreign scientists did not want to come to the United States; organizers considered moving it to Oxford, in England, but realized international students in the United States would not go because they fear not being allowed back in. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top federal health official, this week said he wanted to bar scientists at the N.I.H. and other federal agencies from publishing in leading scientific journals, which he called “corrupt.”

(nytimes.com)

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.
(scienceimpacts.org)

“However bad everyone on the outside thinks it is, it is a million times worse. They’re dismantling and destroying everything.”

Read, share, respond. Call your representatives. The health and well-being of Americans & America's innovation economy are at stake.

"Along with firing about 2500 of the agency’s 20,000-strong federal workforce and pushing others to retire, Trump officials have used what some call “bureaucratic sabotage” in ways that likely explain why NIH has disbursed at least $1.8 billion less in funding to outside researchers in this administration’s first 3 months than it did in the same time period in 2024. They have canceled more than 800 grants on topics such as HIV research, transgender health, and vaccine hesitancy. NIH, at HHS’s behest, also tried to impose a crippling cut in the overhead payments made to universities that carry out grant-funded research.

More disruption looms, including HHS-demanded cuts to billions of dollars in contracts that fund key support staff and research centers and a White House proposal due any day now that will likely aim to slash up to 44% from NIH’s $47.4 billion budget and overhaul its structure. An agency that once had strong bipartisan support and was seen as the crown jewel of U.S. science, and the envy of the world, now faces a diminished, uncertain future." (science.org)

Most Americans frequently use federal science information. But few are concerned that cuts to federal science spending could affect their access to such information, a new poll finds.

The Trump administration has made deep budget and personnel cuts to federal agencies that collect weather data and do safety inspections at factories that make food and prescription drugs, among many science-related functions.

Weather forecasts are one of the most ubiquitous federal science products in American life, the poll found. The vast majority of those polled said they use weather forecasts on a day-to-day basis. All U.S. weather forecasts, including those on nightly TV broadcasts, in the newspaper and on phone apps, rely on a host of federally supported data.

The DOGE bro spent days “screaming at people he did not believe were working fast enough” to disseminate termination notices, said an employee.

In April, the CFPB fired nearly 1,500 employees at DOGE’s direction, leaving only about 200 people—then forced to work around the clock to manage the loss.
(newrepublic.com)

President Trump has proposed slashing federal scientific funding. Economists say the long-term consequences could be dire.

The budget proposes deep cuts for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, which oversees everything from telescopes peering deep into space to robotic probes exploring planets like Mars. Many of these projects cost billions of dollars to build and launch, but the budget cuts are so deep "that it will require NASA to turn off active spacecraft that are producing good science for pennies on the dollar for what the U.S. taxpayer paid for them," Dreier says.

It's not just spacecraft — Trump's proposed budget for the federal government would switch off huge swaths of America's scientific enterprise. The National Science Foundation (NSF) would be slashed in half. The National Institutes of Health would lose $17 billion in funding. Other agencies like the Energy Department, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would all see deep cuts totaling billions of dollars.

Here's an updated look at new awards from NSF. Comparison is between April/May of 2024 vs. this year. You can see the pause from 4/15–4/22, as well as the freeze started on 4/30. (Other flat areas are from weekends)

Important to remind everyone that this is an ILLEGAL DIRECTIVE from the Executive Branch (impoundment).

Nature (nature.com): Staff members at the US National Science Foundation (NSF) were told on 30 April to “stop awarding all funding actions until further notice,” according to an email seen by Nature. (nature.com: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones)

One of the best non-PhD students I’ve supervised just chose a European PhD program over very good US programs—he didn’t want to face the risks of staying here as a Chinese national. The US is losing top talent due to poor leadership.

Most people don’t understand how *new* most cancer treatments are. The treatment that cured my lymphoma was developed when I was a teenager. The treatments that will cure our children’s cancers are being put on hold right now.

Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast): If I were the richest man in the world, I would simply not cut cancer research funding. Tons of talented scientists are losing their funding because a bunch of very rich people want a tax cut. Countless cures and treatments will be postponed or perhaps they will never come to fruition.

Alarming. 'Within minutes after DOGE accessed the NLRB's systems, someone with an IP address in Russia started trying to log in, according to Berulis' disclosure. The attempts were "near real-time," according to the disclosure.'

This feels like the defining image from this year’s Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting.

The National Science Foundatipn paid for a booth in the exhibit hall. But the booth sits empty, because NSF has been DOGE’d, and there is no one left to send.

My fellow republicans - this is wrong:

I am absolutely heartbroken at the news the funding for brain cancer research has been completely cut from NIH. My father and millions of others have been treated there for Glioblastoma and other brain cancers with miracle doctors and nurses. At NIH among other treatments is a proton beam they only exists in two other places other in America. The proton beam lasers around brain tumors and kills them. It is nothing short of a miracle (among all the other cancer treatments at NIH).

Those of us who are a part of the brain cancer community are mourning today. America and NIH have always been a beacon of hope for those of us praying for a cure.

Some government spending is needed and appropriate - cancer research is one of them. I am heartbroken by this. Heartbroken.

Multiple strands of conservative politics — from culture war to fiscal panic to RFK’s know-nothingism to tech millenarianism — are colliding to dismantle American scientific research.

(slowboring.com)

Starting in January 2025, various government health datasets were removed, restored, manipulated, or not posted as planned. The authors of a new Perspective write that the consequences of these changes could be far-reaching. Read the full Perspective: nej.md/4bYvujL

#MedSky #HealthPolicy
(link)

SCOOP: As the Trump administration continues its efforts to slash the US federal workforce, the team responsible for publishing data used in advanced research in astrophysics, nuclear fusion, and other fields appears to be on the chopping block.
(link)

A friend drove two hours today for her breast cancer chemotherapy only to learn it was canceled due to NIH cuts. Clinical trial ended midstream. No treatment, no restart, no plan, no information. Her bro-in-law's chemo was also canceled.
(link)

I say this often but Germany was the preeminent research power until 1933 and in 100 since years has never caught up to where it was before the purge of Jews

David Rothschild (davmicrot.bsky.social): US has had hegemony over science since WW2, it has made US rich & powerful with academic dominance spilling into tech dominance. With Musk/Trump squashing funding & free speech & immigration we are going to quickly lose that to EU & China & India, who will stop sending their best & brightest to US. (theguardian.com)

+1 on this: The US stands out relative to other country because of decades of big-time investment in scientific infrastructure. That is why the US won on science and attracting talent.
Trump is dismantling that infrastructure now, but it has never existed in other countries to the same degree.

Yvette Cendes (whereisyvette.bsky.social): Pet peeve: I hate how often ppl claim "all the researchers will just move to Europe/Canada!" You vastly under-estimate how little money there is there vs the USA- and unless that changes ASAP this loss is just going to decimate global science, full stop. (link)

Exclusive: NIH officials have advised some scientists to remove references to mRNA vaccines from their grant applications, in expectation the Trump administration intends to abandon most research in the field.

By @ArthurAllen202 (KFF Health News)

This is horrible to post, but I may as well post it. We are essentially shutting down research operations in my group, which is focused on treatments for pediatric brain cancer. I'm a well funded investigator, and there's no choice. Science can't function without the stability of NIH

In light of this deeply illegal activity at NSF and the ongoing attack on American science, I'm posting the slides from my 2017 talk at the American Physical Society about the Nazi take over of German physics/why German is no longer science's lingua franca ?
1/26
(link)

I wrote a short blog post about the tragedy currently unfolding in the evaluation industry. Trump is destroying vital research capacity and decades of instructional knowledge for pocket change. (rooseveltinstitute.org)

These are some of the NIH "study sections" that were planned for 2025 but did not meet (study sections are panels of experts who review research grant applications to ensure only the best science gets funded)
--> Cancer Prevention Study Section
--> Developmental Brain Disorders Study Section
--> Interventions to Prevent and Treat Addictions Study Section
--> Learning, Memory and Decision Neuroscience Study Section
--> Brain Injury and Neurovascular Disorders Study Section
--> Mechanisms of Cancer Therapeutics A Study Section
--> Lifestyle and Health Behaviors Study Section

This is a $45,408,138 grant, set to run from 2019 to 2030, to study methods for helping students with disabilities achieve their post-high school goals.

It was just arbitrarily cancelled.

This is too expensive but SpaceX funtime isn't and god forbid we tax billionaires.

(link)

I need people to understand how difficult it is to get an NIH grant. You spend months writing a proposal, following strict guidelines that include a detailed multiyear budget, bios of everyone on your team, plans for participant safety & ethical conduct. Then you send it off

And if you didn't make any mistakes, it goes on to peer review. Three outside researchers with deep expertise in your research area write critiques covering multiple facets of your research (whether your topic is important, your methods are sound, your team is qualified)

And score your proposal based on their critiques. If you are lucky and your proposal scores in the top half of all proposals received by the NIH in that cycle, then you get discussed in a study section meeting by a few dozen peer reviews who pick apart every possible limitation

Of your project. I have been in study sections and it amazes me that anyone ever gets funded at all, because the critiques can be so harsh. After the discussion, everyone scores your proposal again, and then only a certain percentage of proposals are recommended for funding,

At which point they get another layer of review. Depending on the specific agency where you're submitting, your "payline" - the % of proposals recommended for funding - might be as low as 7%, which means that you have to do better than 93% of proposals submitted that cycle

In order to move forward. You can design an amazing, important research project and write it up perfectly but maybe your proposal only scores in the top 15% and so you're out of luck. You have a chance to revise and submit the grant again, and the whole she-bang starts over.

It can take years to get funded, and the whole process involves not just you, the investigator, but also your collaborators, the grants office at your university that has to approve everything including your budget, the peer reviewers, and the whole staff at NIH.

Typically NIH grants are for five years, so the scope of your project covers five years of work and your budget is written with specific expenses in each year. The administration's move to freeze all grant funding is devastating to science and research, because you have a bunch

of these multi-year projects that have been designed specifically to run across a particular timeframe. Usually in your first few years of funding you hire staff and recruit graduate students or postdoctoral trainees to help with the research so there are actual JOBS at risk.

Anyway, the point is there are a trillion tiny hoops you must jump through in order to get a federal grant, and NIH reviewers are quite conservative - not in a political sense, but in the sense that they are risk-averse and only want to fund projects that are highly feasible and

well-justified. Despite the wacky grant titles that sometimes get cherry-picked and flung around the internet, there's no woke DEI mob running around doing fly-by-night studies that lack a solid basic in scientific rigor. Arbitrarily pulling the plug on scientific research

By suspending all grant funding overnight is a huge waste of taxpayer money and a completely inefficient use of federal resources. Science and research make us competitive and even a short pause can lead to unconscionable delays in paying staff and running time-sensitive studies.

The NAEP 2024 -2025 Long Term Trend Age 17 assessment will not be administered in the upcoming weeks

Unbroken testing series since early 1970s

Nothing like ignorance to keep our country moving forward.

You cannot recover from this with future investments

The data uncollected are lost forever

By @katherinejwu.com

"The NIH... supported 99 percent of the drugs approved in the U.S. from 2010 to 2019. The agency has had a hand in "nearly all of our major medical breakthroughs over the past several decades,"

The NIH is in a struggle for its (and our) lives. This is existential to America:
(link)

Francis Collins led the mapping of the human genome, and chose to do big scientific to benefit the public. He is a a former NIH Director.
He just resigned his position in government. His resignation letter:
(francis-collins-nih-retires)

NEW: US Treasury watchdog finds that of the 7,315 IRS workers terminated by DOGE, just 43 were documented underperformers. Almost 50% of the fired employees had been appraised as working at or above expectations. www.icij.org/news/2025/09... via @icij.org
(icij.org)

The IRS is a tax agency we have to interact with, and also a key means that a lot of safety net programs (EITC, CTC) are delivered.
Since Trump took over, the IRS has
*lost 3/4ths of agency leadership
*one quarter of employees
*is now on its 8th leader
New leader has no experience, also leading SSA

EXCLUSIVE: Federal tax prosecutions fell to their lowest level in decades this year, declining more than 27% from the year before as the Trump administration cut the ranks of attorneys and agents who pursue those cases, a Reuters examination has found.
(reuters.com)

Trump admin. caught in a lie regarding mass IRS layoffs.

The Trump admin. fired 7,300+ probationary IRS employees in February, with a termination letter stating: "taking into account your performance... your continued employment... is not in the public interest." However, a new IG report found that 51% of those newer probationary employees didn't even have a performance evaluation on record yet. And for the other employees who had been evaluated, 99% (!) were deemed "fully successful" at their jobs, or better.
(tigta.gov)

Your stat of the day, from TIGTA. Just from the probationary firings and first deferred resignations, the IRS lost 31% of its revenue agents (auditors).

(tigta.gov)

What is happening at the IRS?
*Revenue losses will exceed any 'savings' DOGE claims
*Audit function dismantled to benefit the wealthiest
*Turned into a part of Trump's deportation system, moving migrants out of the formal economy

IRS layoffs have just started, but already:
*38% of unit that focuses on billionaires have been cut - the richest 1% account for 28% of tax dodging
*If IRS pursues cuts, revenue loss of $2.4 trillion over a decade - thats a lot more than DOGE's phony savings

IRS is being weaponized to become part of Trump's mass deportation plan.
DHS has deputized IRS agents. Now, they have an agreement with IRS to receive data about undocumented immigrants. ICE has told IRS they hope this will facilitate the deportation of up to 7 million people.

America will become one of the countries where tax payments are largely optional for the very rich, and avoided by poorer migrants. Pushing migrants into the informal economy is estimated to cost $313 billion

We should be very worried when the entire C-suite of the IRS has exited because they do not want to be associated with what happens next.


(donmoynihan.substack.com)

BREAKING: The Trump administration plans to eliminate the IRS' Direct File program, an electronic system for filing your tax returns for free.

(sfgate.com)

The IRS will be on its fifth Commissioner since January. It turns out that the new acting Commissioner, announced 2 days ago, was selected by Musk.
Bessent, the Treasury Secretary who oversees IRS, was not told. He persuaded Trump to reverse the decision. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/this-tax-d...

(link)

SCOOP: Elon Musk’s DOGE has plans to stage a “hackathon” next week in Washington, DC. The goal is to create a single “mega API”—a bridge that lets software systems talk to one another—for [illegally] accessing IRS data, sources tell WIRED.
(Wired)

Projected tax revenue this year is down 10% ($500 billion) as Trump's downsizing is emboldening tax cheats

To put $500 billion in context, the US spent ~$825 billion on the Defense Department in fiscal 2024.

The current tax gap is $700 billion. Think about almost doubling the tax gap in a single year.

(WashPo)

The IRS will begin laying off roughly 6,000 employees on Thursday as part of the Trump administration's push to downsize the federal work force, three people familiar with the agency's plans said.
(link)

BREAKING: The IRS is drafting plans to cut its workforce of 90,000 by as much as half.

A reduction in force of tens of thousands of employees would render the IRS "dysfunctional," said John Koskinen, a former IRS commissioner.
(Full Story)

Important new analysis from @NatashaRSarin and @The_Budget_Lab suggest to me that DOGE's IRS cuts could easily cost the federal government close to a trillion dollars over the next decade that may well exceed any cuts in spending that prove feasible and judiciously sustainable.
(budgetlab.yale.edu)

@SecScottBessent has a moral obligation to protect the nation’s tax collection system from this assault.

Sarin and colleagues suggest a range from $395 billion to $2.4 trillion for the revenue cost of the IRS cuts. After studying their methodologies, a reasonable estimate is somewhere in between. $395B seems very conservative to me based on earlier research I did with Sarin, as well as recent academic research by @nhendren82, @bsprungkeyser and coauthors highlighting that when you catch an individual taking a bogus home office deduction, for example, you get more revenue this year and in subsequent years as they don’t repeat their error:
(QJE, “A Welfare Analysis of Tax Audits Across the Income Distribution,” )

Musk/Trump/NYT is going to call firing IRS agents savings, but the lost revenue will be many times their salaries: this all about making it easier for rich people to cheat on their taxes.

The New York Times (nytimes.com): The IRS will begin laying off roughly 6,000 employees on Thursday as part of the Trump administration's push to downsize the federal work force, three people familiar with the agency's plans said.
(link)

NEW: Get ready for delayed tax refunds, long hold times + dropped calls with the IRS, thanks to Trump illegally firing more than 6,000 employees there today.

*Except if you're a wealthy tax evader. You will now "feast" as the IRS strains to function. www.huffpost.com/entry/irs-ma...
(link)

BREAKING: The 7,000 IRS agents fired by Trump and DOGE appear to have mainly been employees who worked in the Large Business and International (LB&I) division, which audits companies with more than $10 million in assets and high-income individuals.

Weird, right? It's almost as if they are trying to help Billionaires and cut the revenue of the US, meaning that the middle class will suffer.

Long-strained customer services at Social Security became worse since President Trump began his second term, agency data and interviews show, as thousands of employees were fired or quit and reassignments left inexperienced staff to handle the aftermath.
(washingtonpost.com)

.0018% odds that a Social Security claim is “likely fraudulent.” We literally have a better chance of getting hit by an asteroid.

So why are Republicans letting Trump, Musk, and DOGE destroy Social Security over it?

Natalie Alms (almsnatalie.bsky.social): SCOOP: Since SSA installed new anti-fraud checks on claims made over the phone, only 2 claims out of over 110,000 were found to likely be fraudulent, according to internal documents I obtained. The policy has slowed down payments, though. Retirement claim processing is down 25%

(nextgov.com)

Social Security wait times have grown under Trump. Here's why.

Hold times at Social Security's 1-800 number averaged 60 minutes last year, during the Biden admin. Under Trump, they top 90 mins.

The Social Security Administration already had historically low staff levels when Trump took office in January. That meant wait times to reach employees by phone, email or in person were already high when the Trump administration began to slash staff amidst efforts to downsize government.

"There's been a general decline in the number of people handling the work, and a gigantic increase in the number of people who need to be taken care of and that's been going on for years," he said. The recent staff cuts will likely speed up the decline, he said, though it may take a while for the full effects to become visible.(usatoday.com)

In recent weeks, Social Security has been plagued by problems related to technology, system errors, and even the marking of living people as dead.

"It’s more than just an inconvenience, because other institutions rely on Social Security numbers to do business, Glasgow said. Being declared dead “impacts their bank account. This impacts their insurance. This impacts their ability to work. This impacts their ability to get anything done in society.”

“They are terminating people’s financial lives,” O’Malley said."
(KFF health news)

Elon Musk and his DOGE foot soldiers have effectively “killed” countless citizens through their database meddling.

Now, those living dead are showing up at Social Security offices looking to be resurrected. (thedailybeast.com)

J.D. Vance said 40% of the people calling into the Social Security system were committing fraud.

That’s a lie and they’re using this misinformation to burn the system to the ground.

3 things you need to know 📽️🧵👇🏼
1) They’ve started by gutting staff and offices. If no one’s there to pick up the phone, then checks don’t go out.

Nearly 10,000 workers in the Social Security Administration have been fired, and they’re in the process of closing field offices across the country. For seniors needing assistance, that means longer wait times and, ultimately, not getting access to the benefits they earned.

2) They're in the process of eliminating phone verification.

At first, they forced seniors – who might not be able to get a ride or drive – to physically go into a field office. And it’s an office they’re likely going to close. Now they’re eliminating phone services for retirees and survivors –for those applying for benefits, managing beneficiary info, or making direct deposit changes.

3) The budget.

Congressional Republicans have introduced proposals to cut or privatize Social Security. They believe that misinformation and lies about Social Security will create an environment where they can make these cuts. That brings us back to why J.D. Vance’s comment is so terrifying. 40 million seniors rely on Social Security for half of their income. Any changes to this system will hurt people. Everything they’re doing is making it harder for our seniors. And they don’t care. They absolutely don’t care. Because all of this is so unpopular, they haven’t moved as fast. The more you speak out, the better.

Office closures, staffing and service cuts, and policy changes at the Social Security Administration (SSA) have caused “complete, utter chaos” and are threatening to send the agency into a “death spiral”, according to workers at the agency.

An average of almost 69 million Americans per month will receive a social security benefit in 2025, totaling about $1.6tn in benefits paid during the year and accounting for 22% of the federal budget.

The SSA website has crashed several times this month.

The office of the inspector general at SSA reported in August 2024 that a record backlog of payment actions impacting social security beneficiaries was due to lack of staffing, increased workloads, and decreased funding for the agency, driving improper payments because staff weren’t available to update records.

In 2024, social security direct deposit fraud was at a rate of 0.00625% and less than 1% of social security payments had been found to be incorrect.

Oertel also dismissed false claims from Trump and Musk that dead people are getting social security benefits.

“They don’t understand or they don’t care. Those people aren’t collecting benefits, but the numbers are still technically active, because you can’t just erase social security numbers,” he said, noting that the numbers began being issued in the 1930s and are not deleted or reused, so they still remain in the system.

There is simply no fat to cut at Social Security: every cut is cutting into bone. Trump has already announced a 12% cut and DOGE is calling for more cuts.
(donmoynihan.substack.com)

Why DOGE is struggling to find fraud in Social Security
Elon Musk put a big target on the Social Security Administration in the first weeks of the Trump administration, claiming it is plagued by “immense waste” and promising audits to root out “the extreme levels of fraud.” President Donald Trump said during his joint address to Congress earlier this month that Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service was already “identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud” at the agency.

DOGE/SSA marked this person dead and *removed his savings from his bank account,* cancelled his social security and Medicare. #seattle
(link)

SSA is in complete chaos. Buried in this article is a service worker noting that "the phone never stops ringing" and **retirement claims aren't being processed**. Hard to overstate the significance of that. End goal is to privatize the agency. (link)

This was entirely foreseeable, and many of us warned that if the Department abandoned all of its principles, the decent public servants in its ranks would abandon the Department.

DOJ Admits ‘Unprecedented’ National Security Staffing Challenges
The Justice Department acknowledged facing “unprecedented” national security workforce constraints due to high turnover compounded by rising overseas threats and new responsibilities, according to a d...

(news.bloomberglaw.com)

A fintech credit card called Bilt is the subject of hundreds of complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But investigators can’t follow up. If they do, the company can report them via a tip line to get them fired. buff.ly/twAqcnP

When Consumer Protection Stops, Scammers Run Amok
Without the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, scammers are using the affordability crisis to prey on Americans. One case study is a credit card known as Bilt.

(buff.ly)

The Trump administration has delayed billions of dollars for projects to protect Americans from floods, wildfires and hurricanes. Local leaders are increasingly anxious. n.pr/48ieTXk

Trump administration cuts turned rural towns into sitting ducks for disasters
The Trump administration has delayed billions of dollars for projects to protect Americans from floods, wildfires and hurricanes. Local leaders are increasingly anxious.

(n.pr)

The president who fired hundreds of thousands of federal workers is nonetheless spending far more every day than his predecessors. www.pbump.net/o/trump-like...
(pbump.net)

New, from me: The federal government is required to track job satisfaction among its employees.
The Trump admin stopped collecting the data, so a nonprofit stepped in.
The results show that a collapse in morale and zero trust in Trump agency leaders. 🧵 (donmoynihan.substack.com)

Just a year ago, we heard reducing the deficit was so important Elon Musk had to fire as many scientists, forest rangers and Black women on the government’s payroll that he could find.

Now? 🤷🏾‍♂️

Law Dork, March 14: DOJ is barely even a functional law firm at this point. Each day there is more proof. www.lawdork.com/p/doj-is-bar...

Judge Ejects Federal Prosecutor From Court and Orders Bosses to Testify
Judge Zahid Quraishi ordered a hearing on who had the authority to lead New Jersey’s top federal law enforcement office.
(nytimes.com)

(lawdork.com)

The Trump DOJ is hemorrhaging so many lawyers that it is now allowing U.S. attorney`s offices to hire new federal prosecutors straight out of law school news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/...

DOJ to Allow Hiring of US Prosecutors Straight Out of Law School
The Justice Department has waived a policy requiring newly hired federal prosecutors to possess at least one year of experience practicing law, as US attorney’s offices struggle to find qualified repl...

(news.bloomberglaw.com)

This is underreported story. But it’s important.

Acts of domestic terrorism are predictably spiking in the aftermath of our attack on Iran - and Trump and Patel gutted the FBI counterterrorism team, leaving the country intentionally exposed.

This is from the same Administration that DOGE`d the entire Honors Program class of highly credentialed new-graduate attorneys.

Ben Penn(benjaminpenn.bsky.social): SCOOP: DOJ has waived policy requiring newly hired prosecutors to have least a year (more often 3 years) experience practicing law. As DOJ struggles to replace mass departures w/ qualified applicants, this move allows hiring straight out of law school. news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/.. ()

Look at these charts. TransUnion and Experian, two of the three major credit bureaus, have started dismissing a larger share of consumer complaints without help. The timing coincides with the Trump administration’s dismantling of the CFPB. www.propublica.org/article/cred... @joeljacobs.bsky.social
(propublica.org)

Without this Education Department oversight, borrowers could “be placed in the wrong loan repayment status, billed for incorrect amounts“ and more, the U.S. Government Accountability Office says. n.pr/4cATsE1

Federal oversight protects student borrowers. Some of it has stopped, watchdog says
Without this Education Department oversight, borrowers could “be placed in the wrong loan repayment status, billed for incorrect amounts“ and more, the U.S. Government Accountability Office says.

(n.pr)

I knew that the Department of War shot a missile into a school & killed 175 civilians, mostly children.

This is learned today:

Secretary of War Hegseth had cut the teams assigned to prevent such tragedies by 90%. (npr.org)

Piece by piece they’re dismantling more of the Ed Dept’s programming & responsibilities; pushing them off to other agencies that have little or no comparable efforts, personnel, or training to effectively support schools, colleges, & communities like the Ed Dept is charged to do.

Education Department hands off more of its responsibilities to other US agencies
The Education Department is handing over more of its programs and grants to other federal agencies. It announced a pair of new agreements Monday that move the Trump administration closer to its goal o...

(apnews.com)

NSF Update

Funding curve overall. A little bit of progress in the past week, but only a little bit.

Now by Directorate...

1/11

Scoop–CFPB just fired employee alexisgoldstein.bsky.social for allegedly disrupting & documenting a meeting a year ago between CFPB & DOGE

She says she`s being retaliated against after asking DOGE visitors who they were & if they`d completed training on handling info

CFPB Fires Employee Over a Confrontation With DOGE a Year Ago
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fired an employee for disrupting and documenting a 2025 meeting between the agency and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to emails r

(bloomberg.com)

New in PN: The death of the CIA Factbook and Trump`s war on usefulness

“There’s nothing partisan about the CIA World Factbook, so it’s hard to imagine how allowing people to use it could impede the MAGA agenda. Unless, that is, you realize the Factbook had to go *precisely because it was useful.*“
(publicnotice.co)

Reyes then looks at the merits of Noem`s termination decision, and concludes that is filled with either verifiably false information or complete nonsequitors unrelated to Haitian TPS; evidence of arbitrary and capricious and pretextual decision-making, not a real, serious review.

Why would someone with a Russian IP address even be aware that DOGE was firehosing data out of a US federal agency?

How would that entity with a Russian IP address know where or how to tap into that firehose of outgoing data, without being tipped off by DOGE? (govexec.com)

DOJ has become an absolute joke. This response about why Lindsey Halligan continues putting herself out as U.S. Attorney is both over the top in presentation and embarrassingly bad as to argument.

This is a very grim measure of how bad things are: Every year, some amazing federal public employees receive awards. This year`s winners were not asked to speak. The organizers “wanted to protect them from being singled out by Trump administration cost-cutters.“ www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/...
(csmonitor.com)

NEW: The USDA has terminated its annual Food Insecurity Survey, making it impossible to know just how devastating an impact Trump’s backdoor SNAP cuts.
(motherjones.com)

If you`re following the unbuilding of CBS News:

“A story with on-camera sources, legal clearance, and five rounds of vetting gets killed for not being ready. A story with anonymous sources and internal objections gets published because the editor-in-chief wanted it.“ www.readtpa.com/p/what-the-t...
(readtpa.com)

The Justice Department’s unraveling is accelerating:
- Civil Rights Division resignations
- another prosecutor purged
- bipartisan condemnation of Powell/Fed probe
- multiple court defeats in recent days
- White House takeover
- Trump slams Bondi

An institution in crisis. (ms.now)

NEW: Mass resignations at the DoJ Civil Rights Division - including the Chief of the Criminal Section - over the administration’s refusal to investigate the murder of Renee Good. www.cbsnews.com/news/minneap...
(cbsnews.com)

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been dissolved, ending its 58 years as the primary funder for PBS, NPR and local TV and radio stations
(huffpost.com)

Exclusive: Trails maintained by the U.S. Forest Service are being “abandoned” and deteriorating rapidly, threatening visitor safety, after the Trump administration cut staff, according to an internal report obtained by The Post.

(wapo.st)

And guess what?

The FCC immediately changed the website to state that the agency is not independent right after Carr`s comments!

CATO INSTITUTE:

Despite DOGE slashing jobs, government spending in every month of 2025 “was greater than in every other year .. An observer who did not know when DOGE started could not identify it” on a chart. 🤡
(cato.org)

This account of how the Trump admin carried out a once-unthinkable overhaul of government in 2025 is based on a year’s worth of messages and interviews with more than 1,200 current and former federal workers. Please read from me and @merylkornfield.bsky.social. wapo.st/4b14KAy
(wapo.st)

“We are trading 50 years of ‘gold standard’ reputation for a single week of political quiet.” www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/b...
(nytimes.com)

The attorney generals say the Trump administration is refusing to accept funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which could hurt consumers in their states. n.pr/4jayME5
(n.pr)

This piece is a great illustration of how the long-term effect of Trump’s destruction of US institutions won’t be felt in a dramatic market collapse, but rather in permanently worse economic conditions, and lower prosperity.
(giftarticle.ft.com)

New in PN: The blame for alleged fraud in Minnesota belongs to conservatives

“Republican policies have created a perfect vicious cycle: Privatize services, let private companies run amok, then declare that the government is the problem. And the Trump administration is turbo-charging it.“
(publicnotice.co)

“The agency charged with overseeing U.S. labor relations has been largely sidelined for the past year, mired in a legal limbo that has delayed the handling of major cases and fueled deep uncertainty about the future of federal labor law.“
(nytimes.com)

Usually, when I need an appointment at the VA, I can get one within 2 weeks. Today, I called for an appointment and the next available is in May, 2026. Firing 35K people will do that. The Trump administration hates veterans.

“Community groups have long tried to address homelessness in the LA park. Workers with a St. John’s Community Health street medicine clinic that was serving homeless people said agents pointed guns at them & instructed them to stop their work & leave.”
(nytimes.com)

The State Department has shuttered the team involved in South China Sea security, getting rid of top experts on the subject at a time when the administration says security in the region is a priority.
(n.pr)

“several international organizations... had offered to buy or accept a donation of the contraceptives. The government would have incurred no costs or might have even been able to recoup taxpayer funds under those scenarios.“

(Gift link)
(nytimes.com)

New numbers show ICE is devouring US law enforcement: 1 in 5 US marshals, 1 in 5 FBI agents, half of all DEA agents, and over two-thirds of all ATF agents are now assigned to ICE enforcement. These are agencies with critical jobs they`re now NOT doing.
(doomsdayscenario.co)

BLS had to cut back on data collection eroding the quality of inflation estimates (bls.gov)

I hope people realize how absolutely fucked this situation is.

This isn’t normal. People are resigning all over the place because the government is mishandling our data, ruining our public health services, and generally making Americans less safe.

Reductions in Force not required by shutdowns, have never happened in any previous shutdown, and a judge has ruled they are illegal.
The shutdown is an excuse, not a reason, for them to do what they wanted to do: destroy government.

Aaron Rupar(atrupar.com): Lee Zeldin announces on Fox that there will be “severe“ layoffs at the EPA if the shutdown continues

The Federal Aviation Administration will reduce air traffic at many busy airports to maintain safety during the government shutdown, which has led to staffing shortages of air traffic controllers. n.pr/4oN8zwM
(n.pr)

The CFPB was created. The Trump administration is seeking to eliminate it, despite the fact that Congress has passed no law enabling it to do so.

Reuters(reuters.com): US consumer watchdog says it is legally blocked from accessing funds reut.rs/4p5bX6 (x)

Scoop - Trump has fired all the sitting members on the Commission on Fine Arts, an independent agency expected to review his construction projects.
(washingtonpost.com)

They’ve laid off so many people that the government is now getting its economic data from DoorDash.

Donald Trump and Russ Vought already sidelined the financial cop on the beat protecting you from scams.

Now they want CFPB staff to recite a “humility” pledge to kiss up to the big banks.

Donald Trump is Wall Street first.
(nytimes.com)

The “DOGE is gone“ articles are clickbait but this one gets it closer to the truth: DOGE is not gone, it just claims to have “no centralized leadership“ anymore -- in other words, its leadership is hiding in an attempt to avoid blame.
(nextgov.com)

Trump’s echo chamber:

Very little U.S travel

No rallies or contact with supporters

Right-wing media

Dinners with rich donors and billionaires

Truth Social

Lack of staff to tell him no www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
(theatlantic.com)

Donald Trump wants to be recognized as a peacemaker.

His deputies obliged today by putting his name on the headquarters of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an agency that DOGE tried to kill.

The new name — the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace — “adds insult to injury,“ said a lawyer for USIP staff.
(washingtonpost.com)

Here`s the expertise of the people Kash fired in September because they took a knee to deescalate a situation in 2020.
(storage.courtlistener.com)

They also close the Office of Transformation at the Social Security Administration. And 18F and the US Digital Service. Basically, they are shuttering the parts of government filled with tech specialists and dedicated to improving services. Because they don`t want to improve services.

Catherine Rampell(crampell.bsky.social): DOGE has (www.taxnotes.com)

U.S. Justice Dept disbands cryptocurrency enforcement unit - www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...
(reuters.com)

After Hurricane Katrina, Congress passed a law to strengthen the nation’s disaster response.

That landmark law required that FEMA administrators have a “demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management.” It also prohibited the homeland security secretary from interfering with FEMA’s “authorities, responsibilities or functions,” among other things.

But the Trump administration has ignored both requirements of the law, the FEMA employees wrote in the letter.
(nytimes.com)

Economists said ousting the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics could undermine confidence in government economic data.

President Trump unleashed his fury about weakness in the labor market on Friday, saying without evidence that the data were “rigged” and that he was firing the Senate-confirmed Department of Labor official responsible for pulling together the numbers each month.

The president fired Dr. McEntarfer after the bureau released monthly jobs data showing surprisingly weak hiring in July and large downward revisions to job growth in the previous two months. Economists widely interpreted the report as evidence that Mr. Trump’s policies were beginning to take a toll on the economy, though the president insisted in a subsequent post that the country was “doing GREAT!”

The firing prompted swift criticism from economists, former government officials and others, who said the removal would further erode trust in government statistics and make it more difficult for policymakers, investors and businesses, who rely on having dependable data about the economy to make decisions. In addition to the monthly jobs numbers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is responsible for producing data on inflation, wages and other aspects of the economy.

“It’s unfortunate,” he said. “This could set a precedent where bad news on many different fronts is a reason for dismissing a person.”

Until now, however, most experts on the statistical system said they remained confident in the data produced by the agencies and had seen no evidence of political interference in their operations. Current and former agency staff members consistently echoed that message — in part, they said, because they trusted Dr. McEntarfer and her counterparts at the other major statistical agencies to protect their independence.

Economists across the ideological spectrum said Mr. Trump’s move to oust Dr. McEntarfer was likely to erode public confidence in the data published by the administration.
(nytimes.com)

One of the most surprising details in the latest CPI: an increasing share of price data was estimated, not observed.

In June, over 1/3 of #CPI imputations came from other items or locations likely due to budget cuts and staffing shortages at BLS.

We can’t fight #inflation without reliable data.

Abandoning local public radio and TV would accelerate a dangerous trend straining civic health.

When the private sector doesn’t provide an important service, the government often steps in. That is why the framers established the U.S. Postal Service; they believed no one else would deliver the mail to the entire country. Many places in America, especially in rural communities, would not have a library without public funding. Police departments, the military, Medicare, Social Security and public education offer other examples.

The cut would also hasten the decline of America’s once robust media ecosystem. The number of local journalists has declined by 75 percent since 2002, and a third of American counties don’t have a single full-time local journalist, a study last week found. The United States spends less per person on public media than other wealthy countries, but even that limited funding has helped make public radio a resilient part of local news. To abandon it would be to accelerate a dangerous trend straining civic health.
(nytimes.com)

NEW from me: A deep dive into OMB Director Russell Vought — specifically, how his plan to reshape the government is rooted in a specific ideology: Christian nationalism.

Also, his favorite religious quote from an early president may be, uh…not true. religionnews.com/2025/06/23/r...
(religionnews.com)

In all, the department’s U.S.-based work force of about 18,000 people will shrink by about 15 percent.

Democrats in Congress and veteran diplomats have decried Mr. Rubio’s plan, saying it will drain the government of diplomatic expertise at a time of global crises, including conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, and as the United States competes with China for influence abroad. (nytimes.com)

Trump and Elon Musk decimated the National Weather Service with budget cuts. The Texas office near the flash flood was missing key personnel and there was no early warning system in the county. Instead of flying there to help the families, Trump decided his golf game was more important. (economictimes.indiatimes.com)

At least 2,145 senior-ranking NASA employees are set to leave under a push to shed staff, according to documents obtained by POLITICO — potentially spelling trouble for White House space policy and depriving the agency of decades of experience. The 2,145 employees are those in GS-13 to GS-15 positions — senior-level government ranks that are typically reserved for those with specialized skills or management responsibilities.

Many of those leaving also serve in NASA’s core mission sets, according to the documents. Those leaving include 1,818 staff serving in mission areas like science or human space flight, with the rest performing mission support roles like IT, facilities management or finance.

The rate of departures at other centers, however, suggests that the White House may end up losing staff who are key to their plans to send astronauts to the moon by mid-2027 and later to Mars. Both missions are technically complex and logistically complicated, with much work still yet to be done. (politico.com)

Pilots flying into Denver International Airport on Monday couldn’t communicate with air traffic controllers for about six minutes after multiple radio transmitters failed, according to reporting from Denver7. (denverpost.com)

Labor Department says staffing shortages reduced its ability to conduct its massive monthly survey

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the office that publishes the inflation rate, told outside economists this week that a hiring freeze at the agency was forcing the survey to cut back on the number of businesses where it checks prices. In last month’s inflation report, which examined prices in April, government statisticians had to use a less precise method for guessing price changes more extensively than they did in the past. (wsj.com)

The president’s top aides have signaled they may seize on a timing quirk in law to cancel enacted funds, setting up a clash over the power of the purse.
Under the emerging plan, the Trump administration would wait until closer to Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, to formally ask lawmakers to claw back a set of funds it has targeted for cuts. Even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the president’s timing would trigger a law that freezes the money until it ultimately expires.

The idea is known as a pocket rescission, and it has been invoked only in limited circumstances over the past half-century. The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan oversight body that reports to Capitol Hill, ruled during the first Trump administration that pocket rescission is illegal, citing Supreme Court precedent as it reversed its previous stance that the law may permit the power’s use. (nytimes.com)

Early this spring, the Food and Drug Administration fired nearly 50 workers in the Office of Regulatory Policy — only to turn around and order them back to the office with one day’s notice.
(washingtonpost.com)

An estimated 500 National Weather Service employees have taken early retirements or been fired this year as part of DOGE cuts in the federal government workforce.
Now the agency is short-staffed heading into hurricane season (washingtonpost.com)

Cuts have consequences, illustrated. As seen on TV

Nearly all of the remaining staff at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health were laid off Friday, multiple officials and laid-off employees told CBS News, gutting programs ranging from approvals of new safety equipment to firefighter health.

New requests for investigations of firefighter injuries and workplace health hazards had already stopped being accepted. A CDC plan to help Texas schools curb the spread of measles infections was also scrapped due to the layoffs. (cbsnews.com)

Unhappy to confirm that the entire Historical Advisory Committee at the State Department received termination notices this afternoon (myself included). The HAC, set up by Congress, oversees the office that produces the FRUS series.

It was a true honor to serve on the HAC which was chaired by @jimgoldgeier.bsky.social. I was an at-large member; several others were official representatives of scholarly orgs like @apsa.bsky.social, AHA, OAH, SHAFR, ASIL.

The office is a true jewel and the historians that produce FRUS are phenomenal. This is a resource everyone who studies foreign policy and national security should care about protecting, and anyone who believes in government transparency should care too. (history.state.gov)

Sahil Lavingia detailed in a personal blog how the reality of hunting inefficiencies at the Department of Veterans Affairs was not what he had expected.

Sahil Lavingia — an engineer, tech startup founder and CEO of Gumroad, an e-commerce platform for content creators — wrote in a recent personal blog that he “got the boot” from DOGE without warning the day after Fast Company published an interview in which he spoke about finding less inefficiencies than he expected in the government during his DOGE assignment as senior advisor to the chief of staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

There's an entire chapter in Project 2025 discussing this but Trump said he'd never heard of it, the media shrugged and here we are

The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic): An executive order will convert 50,000 government employees into de facto political appointees who serve only at the president’s pleasure, Robert P. Beschel Jr. writes in theatlantic.com.

— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) 899 899

NEW REPORTING: Air traffic controllers at a facility responsible for Newark flights lost RADIO AND RADAR for an undisclosed time last Monday, causing *at least 5* ATCs to take trauma leave, a source familiar tells me.

It's the most clarity yet into 8 days of FAA delays at EWR.
(DOGE Layoffs at teh FAA)

Newark Liberty Airport continues to face massive disruptions, with over 800 flight cancellations and delays of up to five hours due to staffing issues and air traffic control system failures. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warns similar delays could spread nationwide and says he plans to announce a multi-year overhaul of the ATC system.

Hey @SecDuffy , you (along with 180 other republicans) literally voted AGAINST funding to fix the problems at the FAA back in 2019. The legislation back then would have provided funding for FAA operations, facilities and equipment, research, engineering and development, and grants-in-aid for airports. (House roll call vote)

Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy): A government watchdog warned Biden & Buttigieg about the failing air traffic control system. Look at this report. They knew the air traffic control system was strained AND STILL DID NOTHING! Working with @POTUS, we are going to do what no administration has done: deliver an all-new, envy of the world ATC system

The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic): An executive order will convert 50,000 government employees into de facto political appointees who serve only at the president’s pleasure, Robert P. Beschel Jr. writes: (theatlantic.com)

There's an entire chapter in Project 2025 discussing this but Trump said he'd never heard of it, the media shrugged and here we are

The Impact Map or Federal Cuts Tracker Map is finally live‼️

Check the 🗺️ out (theimpactproject.org)

Explore how federal cuts are affecting your state or community and share this WIDELY 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

The Impact Map remains a work in progress. It will continue to be updated and feedback is welcome via info@theimpactproject.org

Contribute your story here: (theimpactproject.org)

Commerce Department employees caught up in a legal battle over their mass firings are now learning that their health care coverage was cut off weeks ago, even though they were paying their premiums.

An attorney recruited to the Commerce Department's CHIPS for America program in 2023, Waterfield had felt she was part of something monumental, something that would move the country forward: rebuilding America's semiconductor industry.

Instead, nearly two months after being fired in the Trump administration's purge of newer — or "probationary" — federal employees, Waterfield is enmeshed in a bureaucratic mess over her health care coverage. It's a mess that's left her fearing her entire family may now be uninsured.

An expert on the federal work force estimates that the speed and chaos of Mr. Musk’s cuts to the bureaucracy will cost taxpayers $135 billion this fiscal year.

The errors and obfuscations underlying DOGE’s claims of savings are well documented. Less known are the costs Mr. Musk incurred by taking what Mr. Trump called a “hatchet” to government and the resulting firings, agency lockouts and building seizures that mostly wound up in court.

The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that studies the federal work force, has used budget figures to produce a rough estimate that firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers will cost upward of $135 billion this fiscal year. At the Internal Revenue Service, a DOGE-driven exodus of 22,000 employees would cost about $8.5 billion in revenue in 2026 alone, according to figures from the Budget Lab at Yale University. The total number of departures is expected to be as many as 32,000.

Neither of these estimates includes the cost to taxpayers of defending DOGE’s moves in court. Of about 200 lawsuits and appeals related to Mr. Trump’s agenda, at least 30 implicate the department.

Scoop: DOGE now controls how grant opportunities get posted across government.

DOGE engineer removed users’ permissions to post to Grants-dot-gov without telling them. Now requests flow thru DOGE-controlled mailbox.

(washingtonpost.com)

NEW Much of the IT and cybersecurity infrastructure underpinning the US health system is in danger of a possible collapse following a purge of IT staff and leadership at HHS, four current and former agency workers tell
@wired.com
.
@davidgilbert.bsky.social for wired
(wired.com)

It certainly looks like Elon Musk’s henchmen stole all the data from the agency which protects workers rights, tried to cover it up, and then threatened to kill the guy who blew the whistle on it.

(link)

There’s just so much shady shit in this story, but this really sticks out. Folks in NLRB’s IT unit were so freaked out by what they saw DOGE doing that they wanted to notify the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Then this happened:

All staff were put on leave at the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. Congress created the entity in 1987 and, among other things, it helped drive down veterans homelessness.

(npr.org)

Firings and buyouts hit the top-secret National Nuclear Security Administration amid a major effort to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal. Critics say it shows the consequences of heedlessly cutting the federal work force.

The nuclear agency, chronically understaffed but critically important, is the busiest it has been since the Cold War. It not only manages the nation’s 3,748 nuclear bombs and warheads, it is modernizing that arsenal — a $20-billion-a-year effort that will arm a new fleet of nuclear submarines, bomber jets and land-based missiles.

Elon Musk now says his group will produce only 15 percent of the savings it promised. But even that estimate is inflated with errors and guesswork.

He previously said his powerful budget-cutting team could reduce the next fiscal year’s federal budget by $1 trillion, and do it by Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year. Instead, in a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Mr. Musk said that he anticipated the group would save about $150 billion, 85 percent less than its objective.

“They’re just spinning their wheels, citing in many cases overstated or fake savings,” said Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute. “What’s most frustrating is that we agree with their goals. But we’re watching them flail at achieving them.”

I don’t know anyone who is against government efficiency. I know many people who rooted for DOGE. But to a person, they all now concede it was a f’d up effort that broke a lot of things they didn’t even bother to understand, put Americans personal data at risk, and took a sledgehammer to all that made America great: research, medical advances, soft power that China can only dream of.

Every Monday I check to see if all this insanity is even on balance reducing federal spending and so far ... no
(realtime federal expenditure tracker)

"It’s hard not to wonder if the damage is intentional, given that Project 2025 called for wiping out Head Start and the existing child-care subsidy system—and that trying to do that by passing legislation would be difficult."

@citizencohn.bsky.social on Trump's huge HHS job cuts hitting child care.
(link)

RFK Jr. casually mentions that “around 20% of the job cuts by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency will be wrong and need to be corrected.”.

They “mistakenly” fired a lot of people at HHS and now they want them back.

(cbsnews)

🤨 "Officials at the Department of the Interior (DOI) were placed on administrative leave late last week after DOGE requested levels of access to a payroll system that would in theory allow them to stop individual Supreme Court justices’ paychecks, & more." 🧵


(Wired)

“They want to hollow it out so there’s not much left, even if they can’t officially get rid of it without congressional action,”

A whittled-down part of the Education Department is its Office for Civil Rights or OCR. Congress created the office, which is charged with enforcing various federal laws, including bans on race, sex and age discrimination.

With massive job cuts, the National Weather Service is eliminating or reducing vital weather balloon launches in 8 northern locations, which meteorologists & former agency leaders said will degrade the accuracy of forecasts just as severe weather season kicks in.

(abcnews)

Here are four ways that DOGE, as a dark network, is amassing power while avoiding accountability
(link)

Thousands of federal government employees have been shown the door in the first month of President Donald Trump's administration as the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency fire both new and career workers, tell agency leaders to plan for "large-scale reductions in force" and freeze trillions of dollars in federal grant funds.

We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans' sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services."

DOGE fired technical experts, mishandled sensitive data and broke critical systems.

There is a high risk of the American people's data being exposed or being utilized for nefarious means.

On midnight last Friday, the federal government tech unit 18F was eliminated. Much of what it did centered on improving federal tech services and contracts to generate better outcomes at lower costs. It was also committed to openness and transparency, making their code and guides open access. In other words, 18F did not just work on products: they worked on frameworks for making tech work for government, frameworks that other parts of government and other governments could use. While all that knowledge has been erased from federal websites, former 18F officials have saved it
here.

All they've really got is "spending that Elon Musk doesn't like."

With nothing to show for its efforts to find actual fraud, it has become clear that DOGE is simply a way for Trump and Musk to arbitrarily cancel programs they don't like in lieu of having to negotiate with Congress on spending priorities and government policies. This is likely a violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. But it's more than that: DOGE is now the enforcement arm of a Trump administration that has no interest in working with Congress to implement its policy priorities.

I've been keeping a running list of the nice things we used to have.

It is VERY rough.

Please tell me what I'm missing. If you want to use this list to do the project better, please do!

(emptywheel.net)

Re: new EO ?? the Institute for Museum + Library Services to its "statutory functions": public libraries are mostly locally funded, but state libraries, tribal libraries, interlibrary loan, etc, rely heavily on IMLS


(What Does Federal Funding for Libraries Pay For?)

(EveryLibrary: "Statement on Trump's Attack on Federal Funding for Libraries")

NOW:
They waited until late to drop this little nugget.
Look what they're downsizing now:
(link)

This chart seems to suggest that something is going wrong in the United States, specifically. (FT.com)

Amazing letter from the 18F tech team, who actually had been making the federal government more efficient, that Musk just fired. They ended by saying they were focused on "making government work better" and they "weren't done yet." Can't wait to see what they have planned.

Wow: Jeff Grant, a top career official at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, retired today. On his way out, Grant sent this letter excoriating Jeffery Anoka, who carried out the DOGE firings, and said Anoka is "ethically and legally bound to restore" the jobs of the fired employees.
(link)

Trump gutted the National Labor Relations Board and things are already getting grim. The new board's first memo signal its intentions to hamstring organizing and worker mobility, allow captive audience meetings, and deny college athletes' right to unionize. (link)

I'm not exaggerating when I say this could collapse the government within a year.

Musk and Ramaswamy just dropped their first "DOGE" roadmap, and it's a disaster waiting to happen.

Here's how they plan to dismantle the federal government step by step:

1 Plant DOGE loyalists in every U.S. agency, then use "advanced technology" (probably AI) to identify "thousands" of regulations to slash across the board.
2 Hand Trump this hit list of regulations and let him rubber-stamp their elimination. No checks, no balances–just chaos.
3 Gut federal agencies by finding "the minimum number of employees" needed to function after gutting regulations.

Think Musk's 80% staff cuts at X but scaled up to the entire government.

4 Lay off federal workers en masse with vague promises of "severance packages" and "early retirement incentives" that have no actual details.
5 Axe programs Congress hasn't reauthorized, like VA health care, NASA, and anti-poverty initiatives–critical services millions rely on.
6 Pause federal payments for "large-scale audits," with zero clarity on what that even means.

Translation: destabilize everything from Social Security to defense spending.

7 Invoke presidential authority to block spending without Congressional approval, openly defying the 1974 budget law on impoundments.

This entire scheme bypasses Congress and counts on fighting challenges in court.

It's not governance; it's a hostile takeover.

This isn't about efficiency or reform–it's about destroying the federal government as we know it.

And if this goes through? We're talking about a full-blown constitutional crisis.
(link)

The share of Americans employed by the government steeply dropped in the decades leading up to 2000, and has remained essentially flat since. A bloating federal workforce is a myth.

I run a private weather company and can confirm what Josh is saying is true. If it's a weather forecast, an app, TV weather graphic, Doppler radar stream, or weather model map, the raw data is coming from NOAA.

The US experiences more severe weather than any other nation on Earth. NOAA has been up to the task (death tolls have been falling due to improving tech, timely warnings and collaboration with local meteorologists). Firing 800-1000 experts from NOAA is a giant step backwards.

The tornado, hurricane and flood warnings you receive at home aren't automated. They come from local NWS meteorologists with many years of experience. Best forecasts are man + machine. NOAA was already short-staffed.

These cuts will make it harder to keep your family safe when skies turn threatening. Hype? Wait for it.

This isn't efficiency. It's insanity. A potentially deadly edition of FAFO.

NEW:
@doge
deletes $4 billion more in savings from its "wall of receipts."

This is the second time in a week that Elon Musk's error-plagued group has removed huge cuts that it celebrated from cancelled contracts.

This time, 5 of 7 biggest savings vanished overnight.

https://nytimes.com/2025/03/03/us/politics/doge-musk-contracts-wall.html?searchResultPosition=1...
(link)

Who could possibly have seen this coming aside from anyone who read and/or tried to get other people to read the document in which they specifically said they were going to do this?

HuffPost (huffpost.com): Mass firings hit the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS) on Thursday afternoon.(link)

Alsupp issuing a PI from the bench. Finding that OPM engaged in sham terminations, claiming they were performance based in an attempt to avoid the procedural requirements of the Reduction in Force Act.

"I just want to say it is sad. A sad day. When our government would fire an employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that's a LIE

... that should not happen in our country. That was a sham to avoid statutory requirements."

BESPOKE: Most Beige Book mentions of "uncertainty" in, like, ever.

Literally the dumbest people in the world are in charge of decisions like this.
(link)

After several delays, @DOGE has finally posted its purported savings. Why did it take so long to create a simple webpage with a 1000-row table? Who knows! Let's dig in.

Headline number: $55B saved. They list the savings per nixed contract. This should be easy to verify then.

Again for those in the back.

Government workers paid by strict scale. GS-1 up to GS-15.

Doesn't matter if you have decades of experience or several degrees, scale tops out at GS-15.

And young DOGE employees are being paid GS-15 salaries.

Why isn't there bipartisan outrage?