You have to love the absolute absurdity of Washington bureaucracy, where an agency that most Americans have never heard of is now actively resisting efforts to trim the fat—because, of course, no one in D.C. wants to lose their cushy, taxpayer-funded gigs. Enter the latest episode of Government Waste: The Resistance Edition, where Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) tried to get access to the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF), only to be met with locked doors and a bunch of bureaucrats pretending they suddenly care about rules and procedures.
🚨 SEN. KENNEDY: “I think Elon Musk is a rockstar. The tofu crowd is mad, but when you trim fat, pigs squeal.” pic.twitter.com/ESWNCUZ31K
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) March 6, 2025
Let’s break this down. Trump, after years of watching these wasteful foreign aid programs burn through billions with little to show for it, signed an executive order in February to start cutting the bloat. One of the targets? The USADF, a tiny, 50-person agency that doles out cash to African businesses under the noble-sounding—but vague—mission of “investing in African grassroots organizations.” Translation? Another black hole for U.S. taxpayer dollars with minimal oversight.
So, DOGE director Pete Marocco and his team show up to start the necessary downsizing, and what happens? The agency flat-out refuses to let them in. Security guards were literally blocking government officials from entering a government building because the bureaucrats inside didn’t like the idea of being held accountable. When the DOGE team tried again, the staff just sat at their desks, ignoring them like petulant children. You can’t make this stuff up.
And, of course, the Democrats are now rushing to defend the agency, claiming only Congress has the authority to shut it down. Their argument? If the U.S. stops throwing money at this agency, China and Russia might step in and take advantage of the vacuum. Because nothing says “U.S. leadership” like spending millions on a program so insignificant that even its own employees don’t want to answer the door.
But here’s where it gets even better. While Democrats are busy hyperventilating about foreign aid, DOGE is uncovering the real scandals buried in government spending.
Take the Department of Veterans Affairs, for example. The VA canceled a five-year, $56,000 contract that was paying $1,400 per plant per year to water eight plants. Let that sink in. While veterans were dealing with delayed medical care and bureaucratic nightmares, the VA was blowing tens of thousands of dollars to water office plants. Musk’s team has now taken over the plant-watering duties for free.
The VA cancelled a $56,000 contract to water ~8 plants for 5 years. This is ~$1400/plant/year. The contract has been canceled and DOGE will water the plants free of charge. pic.twitter.com/CAj8xINzJG
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) March 7, 2025
And then there’s the NIH, which just had to cancel seven grants for taxpayer-funded transgender experiments on animals. Yes, you read that right. The federal government was spending over half a million dollars to study how testosterone affects mice and feminizing hormones impact male rats. We’re barely keeping our economy afloat, and yet, somehow, there was money for rodent gender studies.
Yesterday, @NIH cancelled seven grants for transgender experiments on animals including:
– $532K to “use a mouse model to investigate the effects of cross-sex testosterone treatment”
– $33K to test “feminizing hormone therapy in the male rat”— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) March 5, 2025
And, in the grand finale of government incompetence, the Small Business Administration managed to hand out over $333 million in pandemic loans to people who were, according to Social Security records, at least 115 years old. In one case, a 157-year-old individual received a $36,000 loan. That’s right, the SBA was apparently giving out stimulus checks to ghosts.
In 2020-2021, @SBAgov issued 3,095 loans, including PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) and EIDL (Economic Injury Disaster Loan), for $333M to borrowers over 115 years old who were still marked as alive in the Social Security database.
In one case, a 157 years old individual… https://t.co/5NnCgin5Li
— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) March 4, 2025
So while some paper-pushing bureaucrats in Washington are busy barricading themselves in their offices to avoid the consequences of Musk’s efficiency reforms, the real story here is just how much waste has been going on for years. DOGE is pulling back the curtain on how much taxpayer money is being flushed down the drain—and the usual suspects in the D.C. swamp are panicking.
And if you thought the first attempt to access USADF was dramatic, just wait until DOGE rolls back up to the building with U.S. Marshals. Something tells me the “nobody’s home” routine isn’t going to work next time.