Washington, DC, has long been the stage for ghoulish fiscal horror, but a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows just how dire the unchecked spending situation has become. The report, titled “Expired and Expiring Authorizations of Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2024,” reveals a staggering $516 billion in appropriations tied to expired authorizations – programs legally dead but still consuming resources and dragging taxpayers along as unwilling victims.
Nearly two-thirds of this $516 billion – $320 billion, to be precise – funds programs whose authorizations expired more than a decade ago. According to the CBO, 49% of the acts tied to this funding have been expired for over ten years. These aren’t harmless oversights. As investigative journalist Jeremy Portnoy put it, they’re fiscal zombies – rotting relics of bad governance.
Where Do the Zombies Feast?
The real horror isn’t just the expired authorizations; it’s what happens to the money. Once appropriated, these funds vanish into the shadowy executive branch labyrinth, where often they’re repurposed – Washington’s favorite euphemism, meaning the money is redirected without oversight.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, were these funds quietly returned to the Treasury or did they go to padding bureaucratic budgets, bloated climate initiatives, or ideological experiments disguised as “equity” programs? It’s as if zombies were handed a blank check and invited to snack freely on taxpayer dollars, while Congress refused to ask what’s on the menu.
Let’s not let Congress off the hook, either. The undead appropriations shuffle along because lawmakers lack the courage to kill them. Sunsetting expired authorizations would require Congress to do something radical: read bills, conduct audits, and make tough decisions. But in Washington, punting the problem down the road is always easier than risking political fallout by cutting even the most absurd programs. […]
— Read More: www.libertynation.com
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
But even as it seems nearly impossible to make a living, there are blessings that should not be disregarded. By highlighting strong sponsors who share our America First worldview, we have been able to make lifelong connections and even a bit of revenue to help us along. This is why we enjoy symbiotic relationships with companies like MyPillow, Jase Medical, and Promised Grounds. We help them with our recommendations and they reward us with money when our audience buys from them.
The same can be said about our preparedness sponsor, Prepper All-Naturals. Their long-term storage beef has a 25-year shelf life and is made with one ingredient: All-American Beef.
Even our faith-driven precious metals sponsor helps us tremendously while also helping Americans protect their life’s savings. We are blessed to work with them.
Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
