(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) released its 27th annual compilation of hair-raising, harrowing, and horrifying Taxpayer Tricks and happy Treats.
Trick: The Specter of Socialism Is Haunting America
The specter of socialism is creeping across America, luring voters with promises of “free” buses, diapers, and housing. But these giveaways come with a terrifying price. An August 2026 Cato Institute analysis found that the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) agenda could cost $212 trillion over the next decade, or an estimated $730,000 per family. DSA-endorsed candidates are calling for the new Congress to abolish the Senate and Electoral College; defund the Department of Defense (DOD); approve Medicare for All; resurrect the Green New Deal; provide free education; takeover major corporations; and eliminate capitalism. The trick behind the “free treats” is the creation of a monstrous government with an insatiable appetite for higher taxes and excessive spending that will cause misery, poverty, hyperinflation and economic disaster.
Treat: The Tax Cuts that Did Not Die
This Halloween, the Working Families Tax Cuts (WFTC) are putting more treats in taxpayers’ pockets and fewer dollars in the government’s wasteful candy bucket. The WFTC was part of H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and not only extended provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act but also included new deductions for tips and overtime and Social Security. Nearly 6 million tipped workers could save an average of $1,300 per year, while eligible overtime workers could keep $1,400 to $1,750 per year. Seniors 65 and older can claim an additional deduction of $6,000 to $12,000, which is now protected from disappearing into the government’s haunted coffers.
The WFTC delivers more sweet treats, including a permanent increase in the estate tax exemption to $15 million for individuals and $30 million for couples, the end of the Internal Revenue Service Direct File program, and an increase in the Qualified Business Income deduction from 20 percent to 23 percent. These are types of candy that do not leave a sour taste. Thanks to the WFTC, the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) July 2026 estimate of non-tariff revenues for fiscal year (FY) 2026 increased by $50 billion, compared to its original February 2026 estimate. Taxpayers now have more money to buy candy and other treats without fearing that the government will snatch it away.
Trick: Earmarks Continue to Suck the Blood of Taxpayers
The 2026 Congressional Pig Book exposed 8,595 earmarks, 4.5 percent more than the 8,222 in FY 2024, costing a monstrous $24 billion, 5.7 percent more than the $22.7 billion in FY 2024, and the fourth highest total since CAGW released the first Pig Book in 1991. Since FY 1991, CAGW has identified 141,029 earmarks costing $484.3 billion.
The five greediest members of Congress who overfilled their candy bags with pork were Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who claimed 96 earmarks costing $484,654,000; Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who received 44 earmarks costing $483,718,000; Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who received 66 earmarks costing $450,633,993; Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who received 159 earmarks costing $431,571,000; and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who received 50 earmarks costing $399,380,000.
Treat: NTIA Handing Out BEAD Funding Like Bags of Candy
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has been issuing Broadband Equity Access and Deployment funding to states after the final state applications were approved on August 25, 2026. By removing the stitches and smoothing the lines, the Trump administration’s NTIA gave the Biden administration’s hobgoblin a facelift by returning the bones of the program back to Congress’s original intent, making it technology neutral, and removing administrative barriers to deployment, plus saving bags full of cash by cutting the cost from $42.45 billion to $20.15 billion.
Trick: Congress Continues to Fund Frankenstein’s Tank
As warfighting rapidly evolves, members of Congress continue to push funding for a tank that needs an electric charge of earmarks to keep rolling. Over the objections of senior DOD officials, members of Congress earmarked $58.8 million funds to the M1 Abrams Upgrade Program, which converts tanks into the mutant M1A2SEPv3, bringing the total to 48 earmarks costing $3 billion since 1994. The DOD announced it was ready to bury the M1A2 on September 6, 2023, and start building the M1E3, which integrates technologies designed to increase survivability and maneuverability and used a modular design allowing for maximal flexibility. Remarkably, the Army fielded the first new M1E3 in 2026, with full rollout occurring by 2029 instead of the initial timeline of service entry by 2035 to 2040. Despite this success story, members of Congress continue to recharge the Frankenstein tank instead of fully committing to the M1E3.
Treat: Maryland Tax Court Nails Down the Coffin Lid on Taxing Electronic Commerce
The Maryland Digital Advertising Gross Revenues Tax lifted the lid on the coffin of internet advertising taxes, which were supposedly killed in the 2021 Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act (PIFTA). On August 14, 2026, the Maryland Tax Court decided that the state-wide digital ad tax violated PITFA’s prohibition against discriminatory internet taxes. The decision should help this zombie tax from being allowed to spread across states like Illinois and Utah, which passed similar laws in 2026.
Trick: Minnesota’s Fraud House of Horrors
Minnesota taxpayers spent years trapped in a fiscal house of horrors as fraudsters siphoned billions of dollars from the state’s federally funded safety-net programs including meals for children in need, housing services for Medicaid recipients, childhood autism treatments, and daycare for working families. Despite warning signs beginning in 2013 and concerns raised in Congress in 2018, lax oversight and accountability allowed Minnesota fraudsters to steal as much as $9 billion from these programs between 2018 and 2023.
The nightmare kept growing in 2026, when Congress held multiple hearings examining Minnesota’s failure to prevent fraud and the Justice Department charged 15 defendants in May in schemes involving more than $90 million in Medicaid funds. CAGW named Gov. Tim Walz (D) its January 2026 Porker of the Month for his administration’s pattern of lax controls and slow responses to the warning signs of widespread fraud in the state’s critical social service programs.
Fraudsters should not be allowed to reach out their grubby hands and snatch money from taxpayers and people in need. Minnesota’s frightening experience shows why government programs need firm guardrails, stronger oversight, and safeguards that stop tax dollars from disappearing into the darkness.
Treat: A National Fraud Crackdown Gives Thieves a Fright
Fraudsters treat federal funding programs like an unlocked and unguarded haunted house with unlimited opportunities for them to make off with billions of tax dollars and disappear in the shadows. In 2026, the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud and the Department of Justice launched the National Fraud Detection Center to help federal agencies connect data, detect suspicious activity, and expose schemes that might otherwise go unnoticed. It should make taxpayers happier but also wondering why such a commonsense approach to stopping fraud took so long.
The House of Representatives joined the fight by advancing legislation to strengthen fraud detection, prevent improper payments, and hold perpetrators accountable. By coordinating investigations and closing loopholes, federal officials are turning up the lights on taxpayer-funded schemes and making it harder for fraudsters to hide behind the fog of bureaucratic dysfunction. For those treating the Department of the Treasury like a bottomless candy bowl, their trick-or-treating days are numbered.
Trick: CMMI Is a Case Study in Horrifying Waste and Inefficiency
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) was created in 2010 as part of the Affordable Care Act and was tasked with creating and testing new payment and service models that would improve healthcare quality and lower costs in Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. However, since its creation, CMMI bureaucrats have cooked up Dracula-like models that suck the blood out of taxpayers and interfere with personal healthcare decisions instead of achieving its objectives. Only six of 50 models, a batting average lower than the Mendoza line, passed the necessary tests to be expanded nationwide. CBO estimated that CMMI would save $2.8 billion between 2011 and 2020, but instead it cost $5.4 billion. CBO also projected that CMMI will cost another $1.3 billion from 2021-2030. A program with such an abysmal return on investment and high failure rate does not deserve to survive.
Treat: Legislation Introduced to Put a Stake Through the Heart of CMMI
On April 15, 2026, Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) introduced H.R. 8293, the Abolish the CMMI Act. The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste led a coalition of 42 organizations that signed a letter on February 23, 2026, calling for the abolition of CMMI and a coalition of 40 organizations that signed a letter to the House on May 26, 2026, calling for the enactment of H.R. 8293, showing strong support to end this ghastly waste of taxpayers’ money.
Trick: Abuse Continues to Haunt 340B
The mismanaged and wasteful 340B drug discount program, which was created in 1992 to help federally funded clinics and public hospitals that serve a large uninsured population cover the cost of drugs and provide discounts to patients, continues to be haunted by waste, fraud, and abuse.
Hospitals and contract pharmacies have horribly abused this program and pocketed 340B revenue as profit instead of passing the savings on to the patients the program was intended to help. An October 1, 2026, Berkley Research Group report found that 340B hospitals received a bloodcurdling $244.3 billion in total payments from payers and patients in 2025, 125 percent greater than the $108.4 billion in 2021. They spent $102.1 billion to acquire drugs at the 340B discounted price, giving them a monstrous margin of $142.2 billion, 114 percent greater than the $66.3 billion in 2021. Instead of passing savings on to patients, they can use the money to increase net revenue or pay contract pharmacies. It is time for Congress to put an end to this appalling abuse and enact reforms to the 340B program including a clear definition of an eligible patient, a relationship between the patient and the covered entity, verification that services were provided within the past 12 months, and increased transparency.
Treat: The Federal Communications Commission Unwinds the Mummy’s Bindings
The Federal Communications (FCC) voted on March 26, 2026, to remove the mummy’s wrappings of red tape from outdated rules and regulations. The report and order eliminated 18 rules covering more than 6,400 words and 10 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations and will remove outdated licensing procedures, including ancient filing systems. The FCC noted that the report and order is the seventh Direct Final Rule, bringing the total to “approximately 1,274 rule provisions, 149,566 words, and more than 338 pages from the Code of Federal Regulations.” This effort began with the agency’s August 26, 2025, “Delete, Delete, Delete” rule that promoted the elimination of inhuman and torturous regulations to enable more innovation and network modernization.
Trick: Most Favored Nation is Frightening
President Trump has made lowering drug prices a cornerstone of his second term in office. But the president should not keep pushing for a spooky Most Favored Nation (MFN) policy that imports putrid price controls from other countries with socialized medicine. An August 11, 2020, letter signed by 83 organizations expressed “grave concerns” with President Trump’s MFN executive order during his first term, noting “adopting these price controls will slow medical innovation, threaten American jobs, and undermine criticism of single-payer systems.” Instead of pursuing this petrifying policy, President Trump should reject MFN and instead reduce regulations, encourage free-market solutions and American innovation, negotiate better trade deals, and make foreign countries pay their fair share for drugs developed in the United States.
Treat: EPA Buries Repugnant Regulations
Taxpayers searching for something sweet found a welcome treat as the Trump administration buried costly Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations. In February, the EPA rescinded the ghastly 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and Greenhouse Gas vehicle standards, saving taxpayers more than $1.3 trillion. The agency also revised refrigerant requirements enacted under former President Biden and repealed most of the 2024 greenhouse gas requirements for power plants, which EPA estimates will save $310 billion. After years of frightening regulatory growth, taxpayers received a king-size treat in 2026 with fewer mandates, lower compliance costs, greater consumer choice, and a regulatory graveyard that is finally getting more crowded.
Trick: The Debt Blob Will Destroy America
Oozing out from the swamp of Washington, D.C., the national debt blob topped $40 trillion for the first time on August 18, 2026, an increase of 100.8 percent from the $19.95 trillion owed when President Trump’s first term began in January 2017. Monstrous interest payments on the debt in FY 2026 are projected to be $1.143 trillion, making them the second highest expenditure after Social Security. Congress can stop the debt blob from destroying the country by cutting waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, including enactment of the recommendations in CAGW’s 2026 Prime Cuts, which would save $639 billion in one year and $5.6 trillion over five years.
CAGW is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
#####