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I have battled a variety of federal agencies for over two decades, first as a private attorney working on behalf of the state of Wyoming and small businesses, and currently as Wyoming’s lone representative in the U.S. House. I am well-versed with agency structure, lingo, procedures and mentality, especially when it comes to congressional oversight and resource allocation.
Considering the discussion surrounding President Donald Trump’s creation of DOGE to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in the executive branch, I believe it is important to expose how federal agencies have historically avoided accountability, while diverting resources to pursue policies that Americans don’t want, Congress never approved, and are contrary to their purpose and mission.
I often refer to agency misallocation as the “Pink Bicycle Effect.” Using the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as an example, and when given the choice between spending $1 million on curing cancer or, say, buying pink bicycles (being a bit tongue-in-cheek), they will choose the pink bicycles. Why? Because the incentive structure for spending public funds is entirely different than what incentivizes the private sector.
Agencies are conditioned, after decades of deficit spending, to believe there is no limit to how much money will be available for their programs. (Fox News/Getty Images)
Agencies are conditioned, after decades of deficit spending, to believe there is no limit to how much money will be available for their programs, no matter how silly or unnecessary, as Congress has never forced them to justify their spending or held them accountable.
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More insidiously, agencies spend taxpayer dollars on ridiculous things because they are incentivized to do so by our appropriations process. These agencies presume they can direct their money to buying pink bicycles, and when called out for failing to cure cancer, they fall back on their tried-and-true answer of “Congress didn’t give us enough money!”
Under a functioning system, Congress would respond to these agency shenanigans by appropriating money with specific instructions to spend all money on curing cancer. But alas, no such incentive structure yet exists, with Congress year-after-year appropriating money for cancer, while watching as the agencies buy “pink bicycles,” or, as in the case of NIH, paying for gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, and torturing beagles.
One recent experience relating to an agency’s misdirection of assets involved Attorney General Merrick Garland. On June 4, 2024, I questioned Garland during a Judiciary Committee hearing about what the DOJ was doing to protect our Native American tribes from the Mexican drug cartels invading reservations because of Biden’s disastrous open-border policies.
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When confronted with human trafficking, drug smuggling, and community devastation, Garland trotted out the same tired excuse that “Congress has not given us the money….” Sadly, his excuse only serves to confirm the “Pink Bicycle Effect.”
The DOJ spent millions of dollars to prevent Trump’s 2016 election, undermine his ability to govern as president and turn our court system into a political arm of the Democrat Party. Yet, when asked a simple question of why the FBI isn’t protecting tribes from drug dealers and human traffickers, Garland reverted to the classic excuse, ignoring DOJ’s access to every resource necessary – including demanding President Joe Biden close the border – to protect Indian reservations.
Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on June 4, 2024, on Capitol Hill. (AP/Jacquelyn Martin)
Let’s now consider what DOGE has found in exposing corruption and waste: $250,000 to increase “Vegan Local Climate Action Innovation” in Zambia; $74 million for “inclusive justice” in Colombia; $52 million for the outright evil World Economic Forum; $40 million to “improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants,” and $40 million weekly to the Taliban, along with numerous other terrorist organizations.
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I expect that DOGE will ultimately expose hundreds of billions of dollars being spent around the world on programs that are downright un-American – and colossal misdirection of assets – that undermine the very foundation of who we are as a culture.
Congress never appropriated money for these specific programs. Congress instead appropriated money to agencies expecting them to manage those resources pursuant to the purpose for which the programs were created. Congress assumed that if these agencies identified their mission as “feeding the poor in the Congo,” that they were actually feeding the poor in the Congo.
No one wants our agencies to buy pink bicycles with our tax dollars. We want our Forest Service to effectively manage our forests, our Bureau of Reclamation to operate our federal water infrastructure and build dams, and our Department of Agriculture to protect our food producers from foreign threats.
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We must make clear that we will no longer tolerate the misdirection of assets and resources to pursue an agenda that the American people do not want and that does not further our American interests.
Congress now has the opportunity to reclaim its responsibility as appropriators, and with the assistance of DOGE, federal agencies will soon be out of the business of buying pink bicycles.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM REP. HARRIET HAGEMAN
