The federal government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. In recent months, the Department of Government Efficiency has identified significant waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. This initiative is critical to addressing the massive waste of taxpayer dollars that has gone unchecked for decades.

Over the past century, bad federal government policies have driven a sharp rise in federal spending. From 1980 to 2024, annual inflation-adjusted federal spending grew from $2.31 trillion to $6.78 trillion. In that same span, the government ran deficits in 40 of the past 44 years. The consequence of decadeslong, excessive spending is a national debt that has skyrocketed from $3.41 trillion in 1980 to $36 trillion in 2025.