Begich cheered DOGE on X and told Alaskans in February 2025 that he wanted to make sure 'Alaska's interests are protected.' Alaska's own Labor Department now reports the state ended 2025 with 1,607 fewer federal jobs than a year earlier, a 10.5% drop, including 755 at the Defense Department and 180 in the Forest Service.
Congress's own watchdog found paid leave for federal workers hit an estimated $9.5 billion in 2025, about $6.7 billion of it from DOGE's 'Fork in the Road' buyout. The personnel office expects the cuts to save $20 billion a year — but GAO says it doesn't even know what the buyouts cost.
A federal judge ruled that the Department of Homeland Security acted arbitrarily and broke a post-Katrina law when it blocked FEMA from keeping its on-call disaster teams — about 40% of the agency's staff — as part of a plan to cut FEMA roughly in half.
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In 2024 Elon Musk spent an estimated $288 million to buy himself a president and a Republican Congress.
H.R. 8646 passed 213-210 on June 4. It comes in $380 million below last year and, in the Appropriations Committee's own words, reduces salaries and expenses "to account for staffing reductions" — the nearly 4,300 FDA and roughly 900 meat-inspection jobs already gone. 188 members with a page on this site voted yes. Four voted no.
The FDA has lost nearly 4,300 employees and USDA's meat inspection service about 900 since the start of 2025. On June 4, both Wisconsin Republicans voted for a bill cutting the agriculture and FDA budget another 1.4% — one that, in the Appropriations Committee's own words, reduces salaries and expenses 'to account for staffing reductions.'
The debt hit $40 trillion on Wednesday. Trump's second term added $3.8 trillion of it in 19 months. Republicans still call themselves the party of fiscal responsibility.
A third of central Appalachian coal miners with 25 years underground now have black lung. The rule that would have cut their dust exposure in half is frozen in court because the Trump administration declined to defend it. Southwest Virginia's congressman chairs the House health subcommittee.
Winter Storm Fern did $7.2 million in damage to Habersham County alone. Clyde told FEMA the counties can't recover without federal help — while sponsoring H.R. 1180, a one-page bill to repeal the law that stops a president from simply refusing to spend money Congress approved.
