Donald Trump

The Best Part of Trump's Speech Was the List of Spending Cuts

If only they were as big as the list of new spending.

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Donald Trump | in McNamee - Pool via CNP/Polaris/Newscom
(in McNamee - Pool via CNP/Polaris/Newscom)

In his speech to both chambers of Congress tonight, President Donald Trump rattled off a list of specious grants allegedly uncovered by his newfound Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

"Twenty-two billion dollars from [the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)] to provide free housing and cars to illegal aliens," said Trump from the podium tonight, apparently referencing multiple years of spending by HHS' Office of Refugee Resettlement, as detailed in a recent report from OpenTheBooks.

The president also listed a number of other dubious foreign aid grants, including $45 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarships in Burma, $8 million for LGBTQI programs in Lesotho ("which no one has ever heard of"), and $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants (a grant Trump has repeatedly referenced in past remarks).

In those brief, fleeting moments, Trump's speech amounted to the most libertarian (not) State of the Union address one could hope for: a president just rattling off wasteful spending to be cut in the service of a smaller, saner, more fiscally sustainable federal government.

It didn't last.

The president quickly transitioned to suggesting that more savings could be found by cutting off Social Security registrants who are improbably old. Yet, as Reason's Eric Boehm noted last week, none of these 130-year-olds are receiving benefits. The bad data are bad, but the savings to be found by cleaning them up are minimal.

As Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.) noted on X, the same House members who applauded Trump's list of wasteful spending also just passed a continuing resolution filled with deficit spending in the Republican-controlled House.

This was followed by his touting of increased military spending, his new extreme round of tariffs on Mexico and Canada, his administration's crackdown on immigration, and his plans for a "golden dome" missile defense shield.

As always, Trump's government-cutting zeal was focused squarely on comparatively small pots of money spent on ungrateful foreigners. Unworthy as these causes are of taxpayer support, they pale in comparison to the portions of government Trump either is happy to keep around or is eager to expand. (And as with all DOGE-identified grants to be cut, there's a chance they already have been cut or the actual spending is much smaller than claimed.)

It would be great if a president identified, with wry and populist humor, more substantial line items of federal spending to slash. For a few brief moments tonight, Trump seemed like he could deliver a call for such cuts.

No such luck. Oh well.