This Week In Waste – October 17, 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.
CAGW Names Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer October Porker of the Month
CAGW named Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) its October 2025 Porker of the Month for terrorizing taxpayers with massive wasteful spending just before Halloween. On October 1, 2025, “Chucky” Schumer caused the government shutdown by trying to conjure $1.5 trillion in hocus-pocus spending programs. He is playing a nasty trick on Americans by saying all is well and getting better by the day. “Chucky” should stop ghosting taxpayers, agree to open the government, and then sit down to discuss why he thinks super insurance premium subsidies for wealthy taxpayers should continue and profligate spending that was eliminated should be revived. Read more here.
CCAGW Leads Coalition Letter Urging Congress to Eliminate CMMI
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) and 10 organizations sent a letter on October 16, 2025, to the Senate and House of Representatives supporting the elimination of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Information (CMMI). The letter explains how CMMI was supposed to create new models to reduce costs and improve care but failed at both. Instead of saving $2.8 billion from 2011-2020, CMMI lost $5.4 billion and will lose another $1.3 billion through 2030. Read more here.
Senate Bill to Raise Deposit Insurance Limit is Risky and Costly
Following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, efforts to raise the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) deposit insurance limits include S. 2999 introduced by Sens. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md). But the banks’ failures were caused by internal mismanagement and were isolated events in an otherwise safe and sound banking system. Congress should not move ahead to raise the caps because it would increase risk and moral hazard and raise costs to taxpayers. Read more here.
Department of Defense Must Not Be Allowed to Veto Spectrum Availability
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act expands U.S. wireless capacity by requiring an auction of 800 MHz of spectrum, including spectrum held by federal agencies, especially the Department of Defense. A harmful provision in S. 2996, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026, would give the Pentagon a blanket veto over reallocating or sharing its spectrum, stalling telecommunications innovation and threatening U.S. global leadership in the industry. Congress must remove this overreaching provision in conference. Read more here.
Return the BEAD Bonus to Taxpayers
States have identified $13 billion in savings, which could reach up to $25 billion, under the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, thanks to CAGW-backed reforms that eliminated restrictive non-statutory mandates and the states’ use of other federal funding sources. However, some states are making plans to spend leftover funds to pay for pet projects not covered by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Instead of funding political wish lists, the states should return any funds not needed for connecting unserved and underserved Americans back to the U.S. Treasury in the form of a “BEAD Bonus.” Read more here.
How the Antitrust Laws Have Made Flying More Expensive
According to former Delta and Northwest CEO Richard Anderson, misguided antitrust enforcement, not the free market, reduced airline competition. In January 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) blocked the JetBlue-Spirit merger, pushing Spirit Airlines into bankruptcy. In the Airlines Confidential podcast last week, Anderson shared that past DOJ interference similarly blocked mergers that could have led to four major carriers instead of the current three. Read more here.
Communications Network Vandalism Is Increasing
Attacks on telecommunications infrastructure, mainly copper wire theft and sabotage, disrupted service to more than 9.5 million Americans between June 2024 and June 2025. Two reports released on October 7, 2025, provide more evidence that it is time to expedite the retirement of copper lines, which is fortunately being pursued by the Federal Communications Commission. Read more here.
Big Blue State Electric Power Costs Almost Double Rates in Red States
An October 1, 2025, SaveOnEnergy.com report shows electricity costs are nearly twice as high in blue states as in red states, creating an extra tax on residents and businesses. Burdensome preferential renewable energy mandates and general overregulation in blue states are two of the primary reasons for the drastic disparity in energy prices. Read more here.
