This Week In Waste – August 14, 2026
Welcome to This Week in Waste, a series by Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) that highlights how taxpayer dollars are being wasted in the federal, state, and local levels of government and efforts to fight back against this spendthrift behavior.
USPS Asks for a Taxpayer Handout
The U.S. Postal Service, which has a broken business model and lost money every year since 2007, should not be asking for financial relief without a commitment to reduce costs, improve service and efficiency, and take greater advantage of private sector expertise instead of wasting money on duplicative and wasteful non-core assets. Yet during a June 24, 2026, hearing, Postmaster General David Steiner asked the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to double the agency’s borrowing authority from $15 billion to $30 billion and failed to provide any commitment to reduce expenses. Read more here.
New Legislation Would Modernize Prescribing Information
Due to an outdated and unnecessary rule, pharmacies and healthcare providers still receive prescription drug information on paper, which is wasteful, harmful to the environment, and nonsensical. On August 4, 2026, Sens. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Cory Booker introduced S. 5242, the Prescription Information Modernization Act of 2026. This bill would allow drug manufacturers to transmit prescribing information to healthcare providers and pharmacies electronically, instead of on paper. Read more here.
GAO Finds State and Federal Agencies Need to Do More to Prevent Fraud
GAO found substantial fraud risks in the 20 largest federal programs administered by state and local governments, costing $1.1 trillion, or 92 percent of the $1.2 trillion spent on those programs in fiscal year 2025. Only five of those programs had documented evidence of addressing fraud risks. With fraud costing taxpayers between $233 to $521 billion annually, Congress and federal and state agencies must strengthen program integrity among other actions to prevent fraud. Read more here.
Mamdani’s Groceries Will Have Him Competing Against Himself
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s (D) taxpayer-funded grocery stores would compete directly with the city’s existing Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) program, which has already helped bring private supermarkets into underserved neighborhoods through tax breaks and zoning relief. Read more here.
Missouri Voters Reject Income Tax Phaseout
On August 4, 2026, Missouri voters rejected Amendment 5, which would have eliminated the state’s income tax. On January 28, 2026, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste Director of Health and Science Eric Maus before the Missouri legislature in support of including the amendment referendum on the ballot. Despite efforts by Missouri Republicans to make their state more competitive by allowing taxpayers to keep more of their earnings, opponents, including the Missouri Association of Realtors, which spent $2.8 million against the measure, successfully blocked the tax reform. Read more here.
