This Week In Waste – September 19, 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.
CCAGW Launches New Initiative to Expose CMMI Failures and Protect Patients
On September 16, 2025, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) launched a national multi-faceted initiative to hold the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) responsible for its lack of transparency, unchecked spending, and failed experimentation with Americans’ healthcare. Created as part of the Affordable Care Act, CMMI was tasked with developing new service and payment delivery models that would reduce patient costs and improve quality of care. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that CMMI would save $2.8 billion from 2011-2020 but instead it cost $5.4 billion and CBO estimates that it will cost another $1.3 billion between 2021-2030. It is clear that CMMI has failed on both fronts and is ripe for elimination. Read more here.
FCC and Congress Work to Reduce Barriers to Broadband Deployment
The Federal Communications Commission and Congress are taking steps to streamline permitting requirements and reduce regulatory barriers to help speed up broadband deployment. These actions are critical as the $42.45 billion in funding for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program to help close the digital divide by connecting unserved and underserved communities is slated to be distributed by the end of 2025. Read more here.
Nonprofit hospitals’ spending faces lawmaker scrutiny
Nonprofit hospitals came under scrutiny at the September 16, 2025, House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee hearing, which focused on the level of community benefits and questionable spending. Read more here.
The VA Turned a $450 Million Hospital Project Into a $1.6 Billion Boondoggle
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) identified seismic deficiencies in six of its medical facilities located in Palo Alto, California and requested funding to remediate the buildings in its fiscal year (FY) 2009 budget. A September 10, 2025, Inspector General for Department of Veterans Affairs (VAOIG) report details how the cost increased from $450.3 million to about $1.6 billion, with completion delayed until no sooner than 2036, 21 years after the original date. The project bypassed major oversight protocols, and joins other costly VA boondoggles like the $1.73 billion 14-year long construction of the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center outside of Denver, Colorado, which was expected to cost only $328 million, and the failed $300 million CoreFLS financial system, which was never completed. Read more here.
DeLauro-Murray Continuing Resolution Increases Spending by $1.5 Trillion
The alternative fiscal year 2026 Continuing Resolution released by the ranking members of the House and Senate Budget Committees, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) would extend funding through October 31, 2025, but includes nearly $1.5 trillion in unrelated spending increases. The provisions of the bill include restrictions on the executive branch’s ability to manage funds and authorize waivers; and undermine the president’s rescission authority. Read more here.
