Governance Gone Sideways: A Time of Cuts, Chaos, and Media Shakeups
From DOGE’s fiscal watchdogs to the LA Times’ rethink, the rules of the game are changing — fast
When I first launched Good Government Files, my goal was to be the Ted Lasso of government newsletters — fun, conversational, and packed with practical insights. A place where optimism meets real-world know-how. But lately, given the unusual and chaotic state of play in national politics and governance, things are getting a little … off-kilter.
Not full “Beard After Hours” weird — I’m not wandering through the back alleys of governance in a post-loss existential spiral — but we’re definitely in that part of the season where everything feels uneasy.
So today’s TL;dr reflects that mix of unpredictability: more on DOGE (because it continues to dominate governance news), some sobering realities about education, and a couple of perspectives on the news media reset that’s unfolding before our eyes. Buckle up — when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro1.
DOGE Unleashed: Cutting Waste, Chasing Debt
We’ll start our DOGE walk by sniffing out some of the high-profile cuts and controversial spending that make most taxpayers wag their tails. But before we get too excited and start chasing our own fiscal tails, we share a closer look at the GOP’s 10-year budget blueprint. Jessica Riedl breaks it down: real tax cuts, gimmicky savings, and a federal debt projection that could balloon from $29 trillion to $50 trillion. In other words, while some waste is finally getting neutered (yay!), the overall fiscal hound is still running wild. (Woof.)
The DOGE boys dug up this nugget and shared it on their X account: “Federal employee retirements are processed using paper, by hand, in an old limestone mine in Pennsylvania. 700+ mine workers operate 230 feet underground to process ~10,000 applications per month, which are stored in manila envelopes and cardboard boxes. The retirement process takes multiple months.” A commenter noted the Washington Post reported on this a decade ago. Here’s what it looks like:
Administrator Lee Zeldin shared how EPA quietly funds activist nonprofits. From The Free Press: “It’s pretty simple: The EPA gave $20 billion of taxpayer money to different community development banks and nonprofit orgs … Like, did you know that Climate Justice Alliance, which argues that ‘climate justice travels through a free Palestine,’ is funded by taxpayers? Zeldin just blocked their usual $50 million taxpayer infusion.”
The Washington Free Beacon reports USAID funneled taxpayer money to anti-Israel groups and entities linked to terrorism. Examples include a $900,000 grant to a Gaza charity tied to Hamas leadership and $100,000 to a Palestinian group with links to Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — a designated terror group. Watchdog reports show millions flowing to Hamas-controlled groups in Gaza, and internal investigations confirm USAID lacks oversight of its sub-awardees. Despite these controversies, USAID continues to fund critical humanitarian aid worldwide.
We’ll wrap this shaggy DOGE section with more from Riedl, the federal budget expert we quoted last week. She breaks down the House GOP’s 10-year budget blueprint, announced last week, which claims $1.2 trillion in savings but is projected to add $3.3 trillion in debt. While lawmakers promise spending cuts, history suggests many won’t materialize. Here’s the money quote:
No Republican Congress in modern times has produced mandatory savings anywhere close to the $1.2 trillion targeted in this budget resolution. In fact, the last unified GOP Congress reduced its 10-year mandatory savings promises from several trillion dollars down to $320 billion and then down to just $1 billion—and then defeated that bill ...
Here’s the real bottom line:
Three-quarters of all federal spending goes to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, veterans, and interest—nearly all of which have been taken off the table for savings by President Trump. House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Jodey Arrington has heroically tried to maximize the fiscal savings. He has been limited by a White House and GOP Congress that have not shown any real commitment to addressing spending, while watching DOGE focus more on symbolic culture-war savings than serious deficit reduction.
We’ll continue to follow DOGE, both the good (boy!) and bad (dog!) — because it clearly is part of the current administration’s gut-level mission. And, let’s be honest, the dog puns write themselves.
Education Report Card: All A’s, No Learning
A Tennessee high school graduate is suing his school district after earning a 3.4 GPA despite being functionally illiterate. William A., diagnosed with dyslexia only after his junior year, was repeatedly promoted through grades even as his reading skills declined to below the first percentile. His lawsuit claims the district violated federal education laws by failing to provide necessary interventions, instead inflating grades to boost graduation rates. A federal appeals court ruled in his favor, exposing a broader trend of grade inflation nationwide, where test standards are lowered while student proficiency in reading and math hits a 30-year low.
If you think more money will help, think again. Here’s a chart showing what’s been going on in Oregon over the past decade.
Fast, Furious, and Fractured: The News Media Reset
The news media landscape isn’t just shifting — it’s getting turned on its head. The old rules are crumbling, and the new ones? Still being written, sometimes on the fly. It’s clear the media zeitgeist isn’t just changing — it’s having its own Beard After Dark moment. Here are the latest examples:
The Changing Press Corps. The Trump administration is reshaping the media landscape, bringing podcasters, influencers, and independent media into the White House briefing room. The new “media seat” has drawn over 11,500 applicants, with priority going to those who can quickly make it to Washington. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has rotated out legacy outlets like The New York Times and CNN, replacing them with Newsmax, Breitbart, and The Washington Examiner. Critics call it an effort to sideline mainstream media, while supporters say it broadens access and decentralizes control of information.
The LA Times’ Rethink: Back to the Basics. Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong has distanced himself from the progressive dogma that has shaped his paper in recent years. In a stunning reversal, he admitted the paper’s 2022 endorsement of Karen Bass for mayor was a mistake, criticized her handling of LA’s wildfire crisis, and fired the paper’s executive editor. Soon-Shiong is now pushing for a return to objectivity and transparency, even exploring AI-driven bias detection tools. Whether this shift is a genuine transformation or a reaction to declining readership remains to be seen.
The Politico Pay-to-Play Scandal: Government Subscriptions or Influence Buying? A White House directive is ending federal agency contracts with Politico after it was revealed taxpayers spent $8 million on subscriptions over the past year. Critics, including journalist Matt Taibbi, argue this isn’t routine procurement but a form of influence-buying. OTH, Journalist Isaac Saul argues federal agencies subscribing to Politico Pro was nothing more than government employees paying for a specialized policy resource — just like they do for Bloomberg Terminals. While there’s a fair debate to be had about whether this spending is wasteful, Saul argues that calling it a “government-funded media payoff” is simply misinformation.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for hanging in there. Despite the windfall of weirdness, GGF remains optimistic we’ll get through it by sticking to good government basics: vision, strategic focus and transparency. We’ll be focusing on that last basic this Friday with a celebration of Government Communicators Day. Until then …
Onward and Upward.
Credit to the late, great Hunter S. Thompson for that line.
Good reading today, Will!