If Elon Musk’s efforts to make the nation’s government more efficient are successful, progressive federally funded projects and wasteful spending could be eliminated as well.

Center-right policy experts have previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that they expect Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to improve the federal government’s data collection practices and cut wasteful spending. spoke. Mr. Musk went to X on Thursday, express Be open to shaking up federal spending on transgender research and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

In July, the United States’ debt exceeded $35 trillion for the first time in history. expected It is expected to exceed $36 trillion in the near future. (Stream The Daily Caller’s documentary “Cleaning Up Kamila” here)

Over the past year, DCNF has collected dozens of examples of wasteful or bizarre programs in which the Biden-Harris administration has injected public funds to cover budget deficits. Here are five examples that could come under scrutiny from Musk’s Office of Efficiency.

1. Unauthorized payments

The Biden-Harris administration is expected to have made more than $1 trillion in improper payments by January 2025, when President-elect Donald Trump takes office and the Department of Government Efficiency begins operations. federal guidelines define Improper payments are expenditures “made by the government to the wrong person, in the wrong amount, or for the wrong reasons.”

Common examples of improper payments include incorrect payments made through the Medicaid and Medicare systems, misallocation of COVID-19 aid, benefits paid to deceased persons, and tax payments lost due to fraud. Examples include personal funds. Large amounts of fraudulent payments are not a problem unique to the Biden-Harris administration. During the Trump administration, the government disclosed $814 billion in improper payments, adjusted for inflation.

Not all improper payments are completely lost after submission. The Biden-Harris administration succeeded in recovering about $51 billion of the $235.7 billion it mistakenly spent in 2023.

Both parties have expressed concern about the scale of improper payments by the federal government. bipartisan group number of members of the House of Representatives promoting Fraudulent Payment Transparency Actthe bill, introduced in May, would require the president’s budget requests to identify common payment errors and develop ways to address them.

2. Taxes that fund LGBT activities abroad

A State Department spokesperson previously told DCNF that promoting LGBT inclusion in other countries is a “foreign policy priority” for the Biden-Harris administration. supported Based on materials published by the agency.

Under President Joe Biden, the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will fund transgender surgeries, fund LGBT activists, and engage transgender allies in social engineering overseas. We’ve spent millions of dollars.

For example, federal records show that USAID donated $2 million to the Guatemala-based group Association Lambda for its LGBT advocacy efforts and to provide people with “gender-affirming care.” shown. Asociacion Lambda tries to influence Guatemala’s elections meet Participate in advocacy efforts in collaboration with government officials.

Meanwhile, the State Department funds the production of a play in North Macedonia in which God is portrayed as a bisexual man who constantly has sex with an androgynous angel, and communists are portrayed in a positive light.

“Americans are far from agreeing on how race, sex, and ‘gender’ should be treated in schools and workplaces,” said Simon Hankinson, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. I wrote In the 2022 report. “Even if there is a national consensus in the United States, restraint is always needed when trying to persuade another country that its values ​​should be its own. The possibility of persuasion must be balanced against the possibility of a hostile reaction to interference or perceived “cultural colonialism”. ”

Other programs approved by the Biden-Harris administration to push homosexuality and transsexualism abroad include 2,500 people in India using tax dollars to “promote a united and egalitarian queer feminist discourse in Albanian society.” This included funding the creation of ‘LGBTQI+ allies’. staging A Portuguese film festival dedicated to incest and pedophilia, funds gay pride events around the world, and puts public money to support the work of “queer” Muslim writers living in India. .

3. “Indigenous Knowledge” Grant

In November 2022, the Biden-Harris administration will be inaugurated. released Indigenous knowledge is defined as “the body of observational, oral and written knowledge, innovations, practices, and beliefs developed by tribes and indigenous peoples through their interactions with and experiences with the environment,” and includes “the biological, physical, social It is a cultural, cultural and spiritual system.”

The Biden-Harris Administration has approved more than $831.8 million in grants from 2021 to 2023 to encourage the use of Indigenous knowledge to achieve the Biden Administration’s goals.

For example, the Department of Commerce allocated $575 million in June 2023 to ask third parties to use indigenous knowledge to reduce the impacts of weather events caused by climate change. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made available an estimated $18.75 million. August In 2023, grant recipients will apply ‘Indigenous ways of knowing’ alongside other approaches as part of a program aimed at testing experimental methods to reduce drug overdoses.

Native Americans dance during the grand entrance to the 103rd Annual Mashpee Wampanoag Powwow. (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

The 2022 Biden-Harris administration memorandum ordered government agencies to “recognize and, where appropriate, apply Indigenous knowledge in decision-making, investigations, and research.” [their] policy. ”Government agencies are also instructed to consult with India’s spiritual leaders and not assume that “Western” science is wrong when it contradicts Indigenous knowledge, and the memo also states that science should not be considered a subversive of oppression. I use it as a tool.

“When you start hearing about how there are other dimensions where animals interact with humans on different levels of reality, that’s not the case at all,” says City University professor and biologist Massimo Pigliucci. said The Washington Free Beacon mentions reporting on this subject. “You can believe that, and you have a right to believe that, but it’s not empirical evidence.”

4. DEI in VA and Beyond

With hundreds of thousands of veterans still on waiting lists for benefits, Biden’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has taken at least a dozen steps aimed at expanding DEI within the agency.

The Veterans Administration had 378,000 claims from veterans that had been pending for at least 125 days at the end of 2023. According to To the agency. In September 2021, shortly after Biden took office, the Veterans Administration just 210,854 complaints It was backlogged for the same period.

Army veteran Doug Cohen participates in a stand-down event designed to help homeless and housing-insecure veterans. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

While the number of disabled veterans waiting for assistance increases, the Biden-Harris Veterans Administration will establish an Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Council and increase racial diversity among its contractors. The company has focused on activities such as working on marketing campaigns aimed at reaching out to people. To the LGBTQ+ community and female veterans.

The Department of Veterans Affairs isn’t the only federal department to lean into DEI in recent years, as various branches of the federal government collectively spend millions of dollars annually on diversity training. Ministry of Health and Welfare alone spend Tens of millions of dollars are spent annually on DEI programs and staff. Approximately one-third of the funds disbursed by the National Science Foundation promoted DEI. According to In a recent Senate Commerce Committee report.

5. Inventing a gay landmark

America’s national parks face an estimated maintenance balance of $23.3 billion at the end of fiscal year 2023. According to In a July report from the Congressional Research Service. With public parks in decline, the National Park Service (NPS) diverted public funds to an “undervalued community grant program.” designed Diversifying America’s historic sites to better include racial and sexual minorities.

During Biden’s tenure, NPS paid a series of government agencies and nonprofits to find “historic” LGBT sites to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. When the NPS approves adding a landmark to the National Register of Historic Places, its owners receive special rights. tax reductionmany states and local governments offer special services. grant program to such a place.

A small group enjoying the view from Tunnel View in Yosemite National Park. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

For example, NPS paid Donate $75,000 to the Washington State Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation to identify “excellent representations of queer history” and recommend them for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The service includes spent $7.5 million has been paid to the Underrepresented Communities Grant Program since 2014, and Congress has allocated $1.25 million for the 2024 iteration of the program.

America’s national parks are billions of dollars behind in maintenance of roads, buildings, water systems, campgrounds and more, according to a Congressional report.

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