This Week in Waste – June 13, 2025
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.
House Republicans Approve Rescissions Package to Eliminate $9.4 Billion in Wasteful Spending
The House of Representatives passed President Trump’s $9.4 billion rescissions package on June 12, 2025. The bill, which includes recommendations from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), now heads to the Senate. The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) wrote a letter in support of the legislation, and CAGW suggests that future rescissions include recommendations from CAGW’s 2024 Prime Cuts report. Read more here.
Time is Ripe to End the Double Duty Drawback Tax Loophole
On June 10, 2025, CCAGW sent a letter to the Senate, urging lawmakers to close the double drawback loophole. This loophole allows U.S. companies to claim a drawback refund for products stored in their bonded warehouses, even if they never paid excise taxes on these products. According to a May 13, 2025, Joint Committee on Taxation report, repealing the double drawback loophole for just the tobacco products would raise $12.1 billion over the next 10 years. Read more here.
White House Budget Reduces NASA’s budget by $6.2 billion
The White House’s “skinny” budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 reduces the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) funding from $25 billion to $18.8 billion. Among the expenditures to be canceled is “the grossly expensive and delayed” Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which costs $4 billion per launch, is 140 percent over budget, and has experienced long-term struggles. CAGW exposed problems with the SLS beginning in 2020 and applauds the decision to spend money more responsibly on space exploration. Read more here.
Chairman Guthrie Applauds Repeal of California EV Mandates
On June 12, 2025, President Trump signed three congressional resolutions of disapproval, repealing California’s unfair and costly electric vehicle (EV) mandates to phase out all gas-powered vehicles by 2035. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) was correct when he noted that “the signing of these resolutions is a victory for American consumers who reject government mandates and one-size-fits-all policies.” Read more here.
Dead on arrival: Army pulls plug on M10 Booker light tank
The U.S. Army has officially canceled the M10 Booker light tank program after wasting more than $1 billion on its development. CAGW criticized the project, noting that it was supposed to be air-droppable, but it would not fit inside a C-130 and only one could fit in a C-17 cargo aircraft. Instead of canceling the M10 program right after discovering the problem, the Department of Defense continued funding its development for 10 more years. Read more here.
DOGE hails $263M savings from nixed contracts, including FM radio in Zambia and executive coaching
DOGE praised executive agencies for canceling 111 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $790 million and savings of $263 million, including $21,000 for an executive coaching program at the Department of Energy and $480,000 for the U.S. Agency for Global Media funding “FM operations and maintenance” in Lusaka, Zambia. Read more here.
