In a recent <a href="https://x.com/GavinNewsom/status/2055103483913879882">post</a> on X, California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom declared victory over Trump and Republicans after unveiling what he described as a &#8220;balanced budget.&#8221; 
 
&#8220;California just released a balanced budget that wipes out the deficit this year AND next — while protecting health care and safety nets,&#8221; Newsom crowed. &#8220;Meanwhile, Trump ADDED $2.4 TRILLION to the federal deficit with his &#8216;Big Beautiful Betrayal.&#8217; Republicans ruin budgets. Democrats balance them.&#8221;
However, fellow liberals have quickly pointed out that in trying to balance the budget, Newsom has backpedaled on his previous promises and suggested many Trump-like proposals.
Newsom <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/05/14/may-revise/">promised</a> that the budget plan, dubbed the “May Revision,” would bless California “with transformative investments in child care, schools, higher education, public safety, healthcare, housing, clean energy, new businesses, and the protection of our state’s natural resources.”
However, leftists have pushed back on the governor, pointing out that the plan relies on many key spending cuts.
The California School Boards Association and various teachers&#8217; unions staged a protest at the Capitol in response to proposed education cuts in the bill. 
Debra Schade, president of the California School Boards Association, <a href="https://calmatters.org/commentary/2026/05/unbalanced-budget-cuts-newsom-california/">said</a> that the school funding that Newsom plans to cut is mandated by law and is not “a suggestion that can be discarded when it becomes inconvenient for policymakers.”
This draws some ironic parallels to the time Newsom&#8217;s administration <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/02/18/california-files-lawsuit-against-trump-for-illegally-terminating-1-2-billion-in-energy-and-infrastructure-programs/">filed</a> a lawsuit against Trump for his &#8220;unlawful decision to terminate $1.2 billion in funding for congressionally mandated energy and infrastructure programs.&#8221;
Meanwhile, Newsom has also faced blowback from the Left after scaling back parts of his earlier promise to expand Medi-Cal benefits for illegal immigrants. This has led leftists to protest and some Democrats to <a href="https://www.union-bulletin.com/news/national/immigrant-rights-advocates-rally-for-more-state-healthcare-funding-criticize-california-gov-gavin-newsom/article_18f05e08-ef12-5281-bfe9-164cec3e1325.html">compare</a> Newsom to Trump and ICE.
&#8220;These are the kinds of actions we would expect from a federal government that scapegoats immigrants and sends violent ICE forces to terrorize our community,&#8221; Kiran Savage-Sangwan, executive director of California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, said. &#8220;Instead, these proposals were made by our own governor in a state that claims to value immigrant communities. We know California is better than this.&#8221;
Newsom has had a track record of fiscal mismanagement, turning California’s <a href="https://calmatters.org/commentary/2024/05/california-budget-surplus-became-deficit/">$97.5 billion surplus</a> in 2022 to a $44.9 billion deficit by 2024.
The Legislative Analyst&#8217;s Office <a href="https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5187" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a> that the balanced budget proposal not only requires spending cuts but also draws from emergency funds, internal funding changes, and accounting maneuvers. 
Because of this, the office warned that the &#8220;underlying budget condition is not sound,&#8221; even after Newsom’s balanced budget plan.
The California State Assembly must vote on and pass a budget proposal by June 15, per the state constitution.

Donald Trump And Joe Biden Participate In First Presidential Debate

Newsom’s Ironic Budget Spin Angers Leftists And Worries Analysts

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On May 20, New York City experienced a summer storm, causing Brooklyn and Queens to flood, with streets turning into knee-deep rivers, cars submerged, and subway stations flooded. This happens whenever there is heavy rain; subway service has been disrupted due to flooded stations more than 75 times since 2020.
This happens with some frequency because New York City’s infrastructure is ancient, poorly maintained, and falling apart. The city relies on catch basins — the grates in the street — to capture rainwater runoff, and this decades-old network floods any time rainfall exceeds 1.75 inches per hour — a not-uncommon event. Even when rainfall is within the sewer system&#8217;s capacity, the catch basins often back up because they are clogged with trash and other debris, and city crews don’t keep them all clear.
In most areas of the city, stormwater drains into the same sewer that carries toilet waste to treatment plants, so when those grates back up, they flood the street with urine and feces.
New York’s socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, says that this is happening because the city doesn’t have enough money and city agencies are “underfunded.” His solution is to “tax the rich,” with a new tax on incomes over $1 million, as well as increases in corporate tax rates. He believes these proposals would raise about $10 billion per year in new revenues. New York City residents already pay the highest tax rates in the country.
But New York City’s municipal government is not “underfunded.” The city’s municipal spending is dramatically higher than that of other large cities, spending about $125 billion per year. Los Angeles, by comparison, has an annual budget of $14 billion, and Chicago’s budget is $18 billion. New York is spending about $23,000 per year per resident, while Chicago spends $9,100 and LA spends $5,400.
New Yorkers might be forgiven for wondering where all that money is going as they watch rats fighting over garbage while they wait for delayed subway trains in dilapidated stations.
For starters, New York pays about 10 times as much to build, update, and maintain things like sewers and subways as other global cities like Paris and Tokyo do for similar projects. Some of that cost is attributable to the complexity and age of New York’s underground infrastructure, but most of the expense comes from corrupt contracting, ridiculous labor rules that require excessive staffing at ridiculous wages, and complex and arcane environmental and regulatory requirements that employ armies of highly paid bureaucrats and consultants who fulfill the important task of producing reports that nobody reads at great public expense.
New York also has to pay high salaries; NYC has about twice the population of Los Angeles, but has seven times as many public workers. The city’s department of social services has 12,000 employees, doing outreach and providing resources to drug addicts and the mentally ill. But despite the best efforts of so many city workers, it is routine to see homeless people sprawled unconscious on the sidewalk in Manhattan’s trendiest neighborhoods.
Further, New York spends more per student than any other school system in the world, yet New York’s public school students lag behind those in other U.S. cities. Despite spending $35,000 per student per year, only 23% of NYC eighth graders achieved a score of proficient on the National Assessment of Education Progress test for math; 29% were proficient in reading. The school system is hiring more teachers and administrators even though it serves fewer and fewer students each year. Families are skipping vacations, wearing old clothes, and stretching their budgets to the limits to send their kids to private schools because Mamdani’s lavishly-funded public schools are so catastrophically inadequate.
And, of course, New York taxpayers fund lavish benefits for illegal aliens. New York City has spent about $9 billion on this since 2023. The city allocates $350 per day to each migrant household to cover food, shelter, and security. The city is paying for over 21,000 hotel rooms each night to host these important guests.
Zohran Mamdani thinks government is great and New York needs more of it. More city workers paid six-figure salaries to prompt ChatGPT to write emails that other city workers will then prompt ChatGPT to read. More money for NGOs. More money for more teachers and school administrators for fewer students. More money for migrants. And maybe, if New Yorkers can just dig a little deeper and pay just a little more, Mamdani’s underfunded government just might send somebody to clear out the storm drain.
***
Daniel Friedman is the Edgar Award-nominated author of “Don’t Ever Get Old.”

Bill Tompkins NYC sewers Archive

Mamdani’s Sewer Budget Blowout Gives New Yorkers The Flush

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A security camera captured video of the alleged would-be assassin charging through a magnetometer at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday night. Some saw the ease with which he breached the security perimeter as a failure. It wasn’t. The perimeter allowed Secret Service and other security officers to immediately identify and take down a deadly threat. That’s a successful exercise in prevention and protection, and it required careful preparation.
The partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) didn’t have any direct impact on the effectiveness of the response on Saturday. But with the shutdown now in its 11th week, Congress is playing with fire. The vital government function of prevention — the department’s most important mission — is challenging enough when DHS is running at full capacity. Congress should restore funding to end the shutdown now, before its cumulative effect leads to a catastrophic failure.
The establishment of DHS in 2003 was a massive effort to improve the federal government’s ability to prevent harm to Americans. The immediate context was the 9/11 attack and the lack of coordination among government agencies that allowed the al-Qaeda plot to go forward undetected. By the broadest measure — the non-recurrence of a 9/11-scale attack or anything close — the DHS consolidation of agencies, breakdown of silos, and the addition of preventive legal authorities have been a success.
Beyond examples like the Secret Service, whose importance in protecting the president and other VIPs is obvious, government preventive activities have always been a tough sell. One problem is that it’s not easy to prove you have successfully prevented something. Some will always argue that the bad thing in question would never have happened anyway. Foiled plots to kill the president end up in federal court, and a conviction requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, so there’s some possibility of vindication there. But provable cases of prevention are relatively rare, not least because much of the preventive activity is necessarily secret.
The failure of prevention, however, is easy to spot. The United States does not lack foreign enemies or domestic threats, and the expenditure of public resources to anticipate and identify them with the goal of disrupting them is money well spent. Much of the activity of prevention consists of informed speculation about what might happen. The idea is to map out plausible sequences of events leading to a bad outcome, then to derail the sequence. A lot of planning and war-gaming is essential to getting ahead of potential threats.
Yet the partial shutdown at DHS has forced much of this activity to close shop as “non-essential.” The ability to respond, which DHS can mostly still do, is indeed “essential.” But a shutdown that shuts down anything but reactive activity is doing serious damage. The active-duty Coast Guard kept patrolling, but its civilian employees mostly faced furloughs. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is likewise operating mostly in a reactive mode. The government has managed to find other resources it can legally divert to meet payroll for some employees — mainly from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which also funded Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But the ability to work around the absence of congressional funding is limited and won’t last forever.
The threat profile the United States faces is diverse. The most recent DHS unclassified Homeland Threat Assessment identified terrorism and illegal drugs as threats to “public safety and security,” as well as migration and transnational crime in the area of border and immigration security. It warned of disruptive cyber and physical attacks on critical infrastructure. And it pointed to threats in the form of “economic manipulation and coercion” as well as espionage.
Any catalog of potential dangers would have to note that the war in Iran has increased risks — but has also raised awareness of them. There can be little doubt that if hostile actors have the means to do so, they will direct drone attacks on the United States. It’s a preventive challenge of the first magnitude for DHS and U.S. intelligence agencies.
The United States (along with Mexico and Canada) will host the World Cup this year. In addition to the 16 stadium venues, each of the 48 national teams has its own hotel and training center, and the 16 main venues have dedicated facilities for teams before they play there. The world will indeed be watching — as it was in Munich in 1972 when the Palestinian “Black September” organization took Israeli athletes hostage, ultimately murdering 12. In contrast, the world was simply enjoying the Paris Olympics in 2024 because French officials foiled several planned terror attacks before they could take place.
Our situation is hardly hopeless. We have competent people working hard to meet these and other threats. Now we need to get them the resources they need to do so.
The Secret Service and the Transportation Security Administration were both on the scene Saturday to perform essential functions, and they did their jobs. Because Democrats loathe the Trump administration’s immigration policies, it falls to the GOP to find a way to fund DHS. Never has “non-essential” been so essential.
***
Tod Lindberg is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

DHS Secretary Noem Holds Press Conference In Bradenton, Florida

Fund DHS — America Can’t Afford The High Cost Of A Reactive Defense

Congressional Funding

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Saturday night’s attempted assassination of elected officials was a vile attack on our democracy and a chilling reminder that reckless rhetoric and political violence can have deadly consequences. Every leader, regardless of party, should condemn it clearly and without hesitation. It is also a reminder that we are living through a dangerous moment — one that demands seriousness, responsibility, and leadership.
America faces serious threats abroad, rising instability at home, and a political climate that has become dangerously overheated. We are in an active conflict with Iran. Terror threats remain elevated. Border security is critical. Yet instead of coming together to address these challenges, Democrat leadership continues to play political games with funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
That needs to end now.
The Department of Homeland Security is not an abstract Washington agency. It protects our borders, secures our airports and ports, combats cyberattacks, prevents terrorism, and supports the men and women who stand between American families and those who wish to do us harm. At a time of heightened threats, delaying or weakening DHS funding is not a strategy; it is negligence.
And yet House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and other Democrat leaders continue to prioritize partisan warfare over public safety.
Last week, Jeffries stood before cameras and called for “maximum warfare” against Republicans. Words matter. When national leaders use the language of war to describe fellow Americans and political opponents, they pour fuel on an already volatile environment. In a time when passions are high and violence has now spilled into a third assassination attempt of President Donald Trump, that kind of rhetoric is reckless and irresponsible.
This did not happen in a vacuum.
For years, too many voices on the left have normalized intimidation and hostility when directed at conservatives. Americans have watched as elected officials have encouraged activists to confront their opponents in public. We have seen mobs harass administration officials at restaurants and airports. We saw protests outside the private homes of Supreme Court justices. We have seen repeated efforts to demonize and attack Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents who risk their lives enforcing the law.
Too often, Democrat leaders are silent when the rhetoric comes from their own side.
At the same time, many of these same leaders continue to oppose meaningful border enforcement, resist interior immigration enforcement, and attack the very agencies charged with protecting the homeland. That sends a dangerous message to both our adversaries overseas and criminals exploiting weakness at home.
The American people deserve better than performative outrage and partisan obstruction. They deserve leaders who recognize reality: we live in a dangerous world, and national security cannot be treated as leverage.
This should not be difficult. If you claim to care about democracy, fund the agency that protects it. If you claim to care about working families, fund the agency that secures the communities they depend on. If you claim to oppose violence, condemn reckless rhetoric no matter which party it comes from.
Love America more than you hate this president. Love America more than you hate Republicans. Love America enough to put security ahead of spite and country ahead of politics.
Congress must fully fund DHS now. No delays. No excuses. No more games while the country faces real danger.
***
Congresswoman Beth Van Duyne represents the 24th Congressional District of Texas, which includes portions of Dallas and Tarrant counties.

DHS Flag painted on a wall

Fund DHS Now: Stop The Political Games And Protect America

Congress

President Donald Trump made the largest military spending request in history on Friday, with a proposed budget for the 2027 fiscal year of $1.5 trillion in defense spending, of which $1.1 trillion would be allocated for the Department of War and $350 billion specifically for critical munitions.
The record request was announced in January after former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s capture, but before the United States launched attacks on Iran. To pay for the uptick in defense spending, the White House proposes to reduce non-defense spending by 10%.
The White House says the spending request reflects the current global threat environment and restores the readiness and lethality of the United States military. The money would also include a salary increase for all military personnel, with junior enlisted members receiving the largest salary bump at 7%. Mid-level service members, E-6 to O-3, would receive a 6% pay raise, and higher-ranking officers would receive a 5% raise. The White House predicts the increase will help with service member retention and recruiting efforts.
Funds would also be directed to the construction of the United States’ “Golden Dome,” which would be similar to Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. The Golden Dome would track missiles through launch, in midcourse, and on their descent, potentially using space-based technology to intercept missiles. Unlike Israel’s Iron Dome, America’s Golden Dome would aim to stop long-range missiles and potentially hypersonic weapons, which are a growing concern posed by adversaries like China, Russia, and North Korea. 
The budget would also focus on “making shipbuilding great again,” adding 18 battle force ships and 16 non-battle force ships to the United States naval fleet. By ship count, <a href="https://www.usamm.com/blogs/news/ships-us-navy">China</a> currently has the largest navy, with the United States in second place.
Another large category of investment will be in critical mineral stockpiles. Currently, the United States Department of the Interior lists 60 minerals as critical, of which 15 are rare earth elements. The list ranges from aluminum to zinc, and the push reflects a broader strategy Trump employed in global negotiations. The president pushed to bring steel and aluminum production back to the United States while also taking a stake in MP Materials, which is the only fully integrated rare earth producer in America. Rare earth minerals are used in magnets and batteries, as well as defense applications and AI chips, making them a national security priority.
One of the Senate’s most prominent fiscal hawks, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), told The Daily Wire: “With total debt approaching $39 trillion, reduced spending in other areas will be required,” and &#8220;aggressively eliminating the $700 billion to $1 trillion in annual fraud would be the primary target.”
Johnson sees the road to getting the president’s request passed before the fiscal year begins on October 1 as challenging.
“Even though defense of our nation is the top priority of the government, Democrats will not support the president’s request,” said Johnson. The senator sees two paths ahead: Republicans voting to end the filibuster or pursuing a reconciliation appropriation process to get Republican votes.
If Republicans take the nuclear option, they would be able to pass bills with a simple majority of 51 votes instead of 60. The reconciliation appropriation process would also be challenging due to the Byrd Rule, which allows senators to block or remove parts of a reconciliation deal. A provision can be stripped out unless 60 senators vote to keep it, and with Republicans holding 53 seats, the road to 60 would be challenging.
President Trump signaled on Wednesday that defense spending is a top priority. “We’re fighting wars. It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare—all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal.”
The federal government currently runs a deficit of $2 trillion. 
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the initial plan was for him to raise the United States&#8217; revenue by $1 trillion and for Elon Musk to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse by spending $1 trillion to balance the budget. Lutnick and Trump launched tariffs to increase revenue and created the gold card, which charges foreigners <a href="https://www.trumpcard.gov/">$1 million</a> for United States residency on the condition of background check approval. Revenues and spending cuts have fallen short of these expectations, creating tensions around increased military spending amid a runaway budget.

USS Nimitz, USS Gridley arrive in Panama on Southern Seas 2026 tour

Why Trump Just Requested The Largest Military Spending Budget In U.S. History

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It’s hard to comprehend the true scale of the fiscal disaster in Washington D.C. While most Americans feel the impact when gas or milk prices increase by even a nickel, Washington borrows almost $5 billion a day without batting an eye.
The difference between the ridiculous $18.1 trillion in debt from back in 2015 and the ludicrous $39 trillion debt of today seems inconceivable. Numbers this big just don’t seem real.
But if we think of our federal government finances in terms of a family budget, the problem becomes much clearer. So let’s talk about a hypothetical family – The Havernots. The Havernot family earns just under $66,000 a year, which is the same as the average American worker. That equates to a weekly paycheck of $1,266 or monthly earnings of $5,486, before taxes and other deductions.
Most families budget their income and expenses in a responsible manner – carefully allocating their money to basic necessities like housing, utilities, and groceries, while saving what they can for other purposes like retirement, unexpected expenses, and the occasional vacation. That’s the responsible way to manage your finances.
But that’s not how the Havernots live. They spend money in the same manner as the federal government. So for the purposes of this example, we have scaled down the federal government’s income (primarily tax collections) and expenditures (outlays for government programs and, increasingly, interest on the national debt), to match the Havernots&#8217; financial situation.
Once again, the Havernots earn nearly $66,000 and, like the federal government, spend far more than they bring in. In proportion to the federal government, they spend just over $86,500 a year, meaning they have to borrow more than $20,500 annually to cover their expenses. On a monthly basis, the Havernots bring in almost $5,500 while spending a little more than $7,200 a month, a recipe for financial disaster.
Of course, like the federal government, they’re already saddled with a hefty amount of debt due to many prior years of fiscal irresponsibility. The federal government is approaching $39 trillion in debt. That equates to a current debt burden of over $373,000 for the Havernots.
If, like the Havernots, you are currently $373,000 in debt and are adding $20,500 to that debt load each year, you had better have a good plan in place to get your finances in order, with Dave Ramsey on speed dial.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case for the federal government. Looking at projected finances for the federal government, things are going to get much, much worse. On a positive note, government revenue collections are projected to increase by 49.7% over the next ten years, and expenditures are expected to grow by 53.6% over that same period. The total federal debt will grow by 76%.
That means the outlook for the Havernots is equally depressing. Looking down the road 10 years, their income would increase from $66,000 to just over $98,500, which is great news. Until you realize that their annual expenditures grow from about $86,500 to about $132,950 over that same period, forcing them to borrow more than $46,000 annually. And their total debt burden has grown from $373,000 to more than $656,500. This is an unsustainable trajectory for the Havernots.
The silver lining for the Havernots is that some of their spending is being used to improve their financial standing. For instance, by steadily paying off their auto loan and mortgage, the Havernots will, in time, fully own their car and home. But the debt our nation is racking up isn’t putting us on a path to homeownership; it’s careening us toward homelessness.
The Havernot family’s disastrous situation should make it clear: President Trump and Congress need to work quickly to turn our nation’s finances around. There is no magic wand or silver bullet to reverse decades of fiscal irresponsibility, but there is hope.
The best option is a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as it would guard against the gimmicks and end-arounds that Congress regularly employs to skirt budgetary restraints.
A second-best option is creating a bipartisan debt reduction commission with the ability to push an aggressive plan directly to the floor of the House and Senate for a vote.
No matter the approach, it’s imperative for everyday Americans to make their voices heard in Washington if things are ever going to change.
And policymakers – just like the Havernots – need to gather around the kitchen table for an honest conversation about our current predicament and a sincere attempt at doing the right thing.
* * *
Brandon Arnold is Executive Vice President of National Taxpayers Union.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Month revenue of young couple

What America’s $39 Trillion Debt Looks Like On A Family Budget

Congressional Budget Office (CBO)

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Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro debated retirement and Social Security on CNN on Tuesday night, explaining to his fellow panelists how Social Security is on a path to bankruptcy.
During a roundtable discussion on CNN&#8217;s &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWUNpmUU7a8&amp;list=PL6XRrncXkMaWWFyjMtzWWSeOocFr-N_3s&amp;index=1">News Night with Abby Phillip</a>,&#8221; Shapiro defended his stance that the government should not hand out Social Security checks for people to retire at 65 years old. The Daily Wire host warned that if the government does not raise the retirement age, &#8220;We will go bankrupt.&#8221;
&#8220;Women are living to 85 if they make it to 65, men are living to 83 if they make it to 65 — that&#8217;s 20 years on the public dime,&#8221; Shapiro added.
Phillip argued that Social Security is a system in which Americans &#8220;pay into&#8221; to receive that money back at retirement.
&#8220;Well no,&#8221; Shapiro replied, adding, &#8220;I promise you the amount that people are taking out is not the amount that is going in, which is why we are going bankrupt.&#8221;
&#8220;Okay, but it&#8217;s not the government just handing out a blank check,&#8221; Phillip said. &#8220;People pay into the Social Security system.&#8221;
&#8220;No, it&#8217;s the government borrowing money &#8230; you pay in X dollars and then you get multiple times X dollars when you retire,&#8221; Shapiro replied. &#8220;That is how the system works. It is not a <a href="https://www.cato.org/commentary/al-gores-social-security-confusion">lockbox</a>. This is what Al Gore was arguing about in 2000.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@benshapiro</a> teaching <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CNN</a> panelists how Social Security works is the video you didn&#8217;t know you needed😂 <a href="https://t.co/W54BsyPYKp">pic.twitter.com/W54BsyPYKp</a>
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1963081890799264170?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Ana Kasparian, host of the leftist show, &#8220;The Young Turks,&#8221; shot back at Shapiro, saying, &#8220;I completely reject what you just said about how we&#8217;re going bankrupt through Social Security. Really? You don&#8217;t think the trillions of dollars we&#8217;ve spent on wars in the Middle East might have something to do with that?&#8221;
&#8220;That is not even remotely a percentage of what we spend on Social Security,&#8221; Shapiro replied.
&#8220;We&#8217;re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Israel, on Ukraine. I mean, honestly, these foreign conflicts have a lot more to do with our national debt as opposed to us paying into [Social Security],&#8221; Kasparian added.
&#8220;That is just untrue,&#8221; Shapiro fired back.
In 2024, Social Security <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go#:~:text=Social%20Security:%20In%202024%2C%2021,workers%20and%20their%20eligible%20dependents." target="_blank" rel="noopener">accounted for 21%</a> of the federal budget, totaling $1.5 trillion. Defense spending, meanwhile, made up 13% of the budget, or $872 billion. Less than 1% of the budget was allocated to international programs, including humanitarian aid. By far, the most significant portion of the federal budget in 2024 was allocated to health insurance (24%) and Social Security.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/AnaKasparian?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AnaKasparian</a> suggests military spending drives debt more than Social Security:<a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@benshapiro</a>: That&#8217;s not even REMOTELY a percentage of what we spend on Social Security.<a href="https://twitter.com/ScottJenningsKY?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ScottJenningsKY</a>: You think Israel is a bigger portion of our budget than Social Security? <a href="https://t.co/FbD18tnGnP">pic.twitter.com/FbD18tnGnP</a>
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1963087926188740635?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Ben Shapiro/Abby Phillip

Ben Shapiro Educates CNN Panelists On Social Security: ‘We Will Go Bankrupt’

Ben Shapiro

Media

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The Daily Wire

President Donald Trump moved to cut another $4.9 billion in foreign aid spending through an executive maneuver last used nearly 50 years ago. 
In a Thursday letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), which was posted on social media on Friday, Trump stated that he is clawing back funding from programs run by the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development, and International Assistance Programs. Much of the funding is related to programs pushing climate and gender activism. 
The cuts will be carried out through a pocket rescission—a process allowing the president to revoke previously approved spending just before the fiscal year ends, leaving Congress no time to reauthorize the funds under federal law. Any future funding would require separate congressional approval.
On a background call with The Daily Wire, a White House official said a pocket rescission was a tool that the Trump administration had “dusted off.”
“Last night, President Trump CANCELLED $4.9 billion in America Last foreign aid using a pocket rescission,” the Office of Management and Budget posted on X on Friday. “[President Trump] will always put AMERICA FIRST!”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 Last night, President Trump CANCELLED $4.9 billion in America Last foreign aid using a pocket rescission.<a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a> will always put AMERICA FIRST! <a href="https://t.co/1DvXYGdy3B">pic.twitter.com/1DvXYGdy3B</a>
— Office of Management and Budget (@WHOMB) <a href="https://twitter.com/WHOMB/status/1961410044907458780?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 29, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio applauded the move from Trump. 
“Since assuming office, President Trump has been committed to rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse from the U.S. government, saving American workers billions of dollars,” Rubio said. “Now, for the first time in 50 years, the President is using his authority under the Impoundment Control Act to deploy a pocket rescission, cancelling $5 billion in foreign aid and international organization funding that violates the President’s America First priorities.”
Rubio said that some of the programs that were cancelled included $2.7 million for “inclusive democracy” in South Africa and $4 million for “global LGBTQI+ awareness” 
“None of these programs are in America’s interest, which is why the President is taking decisive action to put America and Americans first,” Rubio said. 
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A White House official added that the cuts also included hundreds of millions of dollars in climate projects, such as building a greenhouse gas calculator, promoting vegan food in Zambia, developing insect powder for children in Madagascar, and purchasing electric buses in Rwanda.
There is an ongoing legal battle over the use of “pocket recissions,” and some lawmakers have argued that the move is unconstitutional. 
“Given that this package was sent to Congress very close to the end of the fiscal year when the funds are scheduled to expire, this is an apparent attempt to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval,” Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said, joining Senate Democrats who spoke out against the move. &#8220;Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.&#8221;
A White House official said Friday afternoon that they believed it had &#8220;a very firm legal footing&#8221; to make the cuts, and that “we will be making that case.”

President Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting

Trump Slashes $5 Billion In Foreign Spending Using Rare Executive Maneuver

Donald Trump

Executive

Marco Rubio

spending

State Department

USAID

The following is a portion of an edited transcript from a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-250824-member-exclusive?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel">Weekend Edition of Morning Wire</a> where Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley sat down with Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget.
* * *
JOHN: Joining us now is Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget. Maya, thanks so much for coming on. First, tell us, what exactly is the <a href="https://www.crfb.org/">Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget</a>?
MAYA: Thanks for having me. Other than a mouthful of a name, it&#8217;s a bipartisan nonprofit watchdog group. Basically, we&#8217;re very concerned about fiscal policy, meaning how big our debt and deficits are and we don&#8217;t have a political agenda at all. I&#8217;m a political independent. Our board and our staff are from across the political spectrum. But we are deeply concerned that our political environment now focuses on borrowing when we shouldn&#8217;t be because of the political benefits of not actually dealing with trade-offs. And that concern has been growing over time.
JOHN: I wanted to ask you exactly about that. You&#8217;ve been warning about borrowing. Why is the growing debt so dangerous for the U.S. economy? What specific ways will it actually impact Americans?
MAYA: I think that&#8217;s one of the biggest challenges about this whole issue. It&#8217;s really not something that feels directly related to us as individuals, but it&#8217;s directly related to everything we care about. The fiscal health of the country is really the underpinning of both our economic and our national security strength. So, if your debt is too high — and ours without question is — every warning sign that there is is blinking bright, bright red right now. But if your debt is too high, it actually means that the government borrows so much money, it squeezes out the investment possibility and the private sector. It slows growth and slows productivity, it pushes up inflation, pushes up interest rates, all sorts of things that slow economic growth, which translates into lower wages, lower standard of living, and less job security. Nothing good on the economic front. That&#8217;s one. 
Two, it means that our budget has huge pressure because interest payments start to absorb more and more of our resources. Whether you want huge tax cuts or huge growth in spending, we can fight about those things, but interest payments get the first claim on the dollar in the budget. Right now it&#8217;s our second largest item in the budget and the single fastest growing item. It also means that when we have national emergencies where you should be borrowing, it&#8217;s more difficult to do so. And it means that, if you&#8217;re trying to fight a recession or a pandemic or a national emergency, you may have high pressure on upward interest rates when you&#8217;re trying to borrow. Whereas, if your debt&#8217;s lower, that doesn&#8217;t happen. 
But it&#8217;s also expanded now where it&#8217;s not just an economic issue, it is a national security issue. We are borrowing from countries with whom we are not aligned. We are not able to make our own national security decisions just from a strategic and security perspective, we have to think about budget resources and you don&#8217;t want to be in that position. So it weakens our ability to respond to emergencies, take advantage of opportunities. But bottom line, we can do fewer things and we become poor as a nation.
And finally, for those people who worry about the next generation, it&#8217;s really, really [hosing] a generation that&#8217;s already facing so many challenges. They are facing a much more difficult, fast-paced, changing world and we have tied up their budget with interest payments and promises to seniors. They don&#8217;t have the fiscal flexibility to respond and they owe a whole lot of debt because of the borrowing we took on.
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JOHN: Like you said, it&#8217;s insidious because you don&#8217;t feel a lot of the effects. There are a lot of things that we can&#8217;t do now, things that we could have done if we had more money available. And then, kicking the can down the road. We&#8217;re not feeling it now – but our kids will feel it, and their kids will feel it. Is there any progress on this in Washington? Anyone paying attention to this?
MAYA: Yes, it&#8217;s so discouraging, honestly, because the situation is getting worse. Our debt to GDP is getting worse. Our annual deficits are getting worse, and this is outside of emergencies. And, frankly, our political environment and willingness to talk about this is much, much worse. We&#8217;re so polarized. You have both parties basically fighting with each other by giving away more things. &#8220;I&#8217;ll give you tax cuts, no taxes on this.&#8221; &#8220;Well, I&#8217;ll give you bigger tax cuts, and I&#8217;ll increase the spending.&#8221; &#8220;I&#8217;ll also increase the spending.&#8221; It used to be that you thought of Republicans as wanting tax cuts and Democrats as wanting spending increases. It&#8217;s literally both now. So, they fight for these huge giveaways. 
So, no, the situation is frankly very troubling both from an economic, national security, but also a political perspective. And internally, because it&#8217;s frustrating to work on an issue where you know we&#8217;re not going to have the big debt deal that we really need to have this year, for instance, a lot of times the best we can do and sort of why we&#8217;re able to pat ourselves on the back for some work is when things would have been worse without the kind of fiscal pressure we put on. But it&#8217;s really frustrating to say, &#8220;Well, we borrowed a trillion dollars, but we might have borrowed a trillion and a half if it weren&#8217;t for our pushing against this issue.&#8221; We&#8217;ve got to do better than that. We&#8217;ve got to start actually turning the ship around and bringing the debt as a share of GDP trajectory down instead of continuing to grow it&#8230;
* * *
<h3><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/debt-deficits-disaster-can-washington-change-course/id1576594336?i=1000723297012">Catch the full interview with Maya MacGuineas on Morning Wire.</a></h3>

‘Blinking Bright, Bright Red’: Maya MacGuineas On America’s Debt, Deficits, And Disaster

'Blinking Bright, Bright Red': Maya MacGuineas On America’s Debt, Deficits, And Disaster

Morning Wire

Spending Bill

U.S. House of Representatives

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent testified Wednesday to a congressional committee in favor of President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” saying it would be &#8220;cataclysmic&#8221; for lawmakers to let the package die.
Bessent&#8217;s remarks came in response to a question from House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax Chairman Mike Kelly (R-PA).
“Let’s go to what actually is going to happen if this bill doesn’t get passed,&#8221; Kelly asked Bessent. &#8220;How is it going to affect hardworking American taxpayers?”
&#8220;It would be cataclysmic,&#8221; Bessent <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1932868781040136656">responded</a>. &#8220;It would be the largest tax hike in history. It would be a disaster for businesses, for working Americans, and for our status in the world.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/SecScottBessent?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SecScottBessent</a>: If the One Big Beautiful Bill doesn&#39;t pass, &quot;it would be cataclysmic. It would be the largest tax hike in history. It would be a disaster for businesses, for working Americans, and for our status in the world.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/Aaihs72JyP">pic.twitter.com/Aaihs72JyP</a>
&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1932868781040136656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Bessent&#8217;s warning comes as the Senate considers whether or not it will pass the bill, which passed the House by just one vote. Two House Republicans <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-holdouts-sound-alarm-36t-debt-crisis-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-passes-house-vote" target="_blank" rel="noopener">voted against</a> it. <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5341080-republicans-debate-fiscal-deficit-cuts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Senate Republicans</a> seem divided on the bill, with  Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky notably <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5314189-rand-paul-house-gop-budget-bill/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">expressing</a> his dissatisfaction with the bill’s debt ceiling.
Replying to Kelly, Bessent warned that if the bill does not pass, “We would see increases in taxes of thousands of dollars on working Americans. We would see business contract, and we would see a substantial increase in the unemployment rate.”
Proponents of the bill, which <a href="https://taxpolicycenter.org/features/2025-tax-cuts-tracker#:~:text=TAX%20CUTS-,Expiring%20TCJA%20Provisions,set%20to%20expire%20after%202025.&amp;text=Near%20doubling%20of%20the%20standard,State%20and%20local%20taxes%20(SALT)" target="_blank" rel="noopener">extends</a> the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, argue that killing it threatens the national economy, while opponents claim that the bill only adds trillions to the national debt while reducing healthcare and nutrition benefits.
Kelly also asked Bessent to comment about what more can be done to move the economy in the right direction.
“The combination of small business and manufacturing, along with the President’s tax agenda for no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, a tax cut for seniors, and the ability to buy a new, American-made car and deduct the interest will solve this horrendous affordability crisis,&#8221; Bessent replied.
“The way to think about it, Congressman — we are dealing with two things here: we are dealing with affordability and we are dealing with inflation,” Bessent said.
“We are working to pull [affordability] down. That can be pulled down two ways: through price levels or [increasing] real wages. I think we can do both but the real fill-up here would be [to] increase real wages for working Americans.”
Later in the hearing, Representative David Kustoff of Tennessee reiterated Kelly’s concerns about the danger of killing the bill.
Bessent agreed, saying that, “I think it could set off a financial crisis the likes of which we have not seen since ‘08, ‘09.”

Senate Finance Committee Holds Confirmation Hearing For Scott Bessent

Not Passing ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Would Be ‘Cataclysmic,’ Treasury Secretary Warns

Rand Paul

Scott Bessent

Senate

President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration submitted its first rescissions package of the year to Congress, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced on Tuesday, accompanied by a list of instances of &#8220;waste, fraud, and abuse&#8221; singled out for the chopping block.
In a thread <a href="https://x.com/WHOMB/status/1929991228449312979" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> on X, OMB said lawmakers in the House and Senate &#8220;must act&#8221; on the request to claw back billions of dollars in &#8220;wasteful foreign aid and federal funding for NPR and PBS&#8221; previously appropriated by Congress, with &#8220;45 days to codify these massive cuts to woke, wasteful, and weaponized spending via a simple majority vote&#8221; using the Impoundment Control Act.
OMB specifically highlighted $67,000 for testing insect powder nutrition on children in Madagascar, $33,000 for “Being LGBTI in the Caribbean,&#8221; $643,000 for &#8220;LGBTQI+&#8221; programs in the Western Balkans, and $567,000 for &#8220;LBGTQI+&#8221; programs in Uganda.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
$67,000 for testing insect powder nutrition on children in Madagascar. <a href="https://t.co/ehLzMuIkkr">pic.twitter.com/ehLzMuIkkr</a>
— Office of Management and Budget (@WHOMB) <a href="https://twitter.com/WHOMB/status/1929991230567457260?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 3, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Scores of DEI and Global Green New Deal funding&#8221; projects were also mentioned, including: $5 million for the &#8220;Minority Serving Institute Fellowship Cooperative Agreement,&#8221; $595,400 for training women in gender equity, $500,000 for electric buses in Rwanda, $6 million for “net zero cities” in Mexico, $2.1 million for climate resilience in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and East Africa, as well as $5 million for “green transportation and logistics” in Eurasia.
OMB&#8217;s list went on to mention $4 million for “legume systems research&#8221; and $3 million for Iraqi Sesame Street.
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In addition, OMB noted millions under the PEPFAR account for so-called LGBTQIA+ programs, condoms, and vasectomies: $833,000 for &#8220;transgender people, sex workers and their clients and sexual networks&#8221; in Nepal, $5.1 million for &#8220;resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender, intersex, and queer global movements,&#8221; $3 million for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia, $1 billion in contributions to &#8220;wasteful, corrupt, and anti-American international organizations,&#8221; including $135 million to the World Health Organization, and $1.1 billion for the &#8220;left-wing&#8221; Corporation for Public Broadcasting, &#8220;which uses your taxpayer dollars to fund PBS and NPR.&#8221;
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed receipt of the rescissions package, which his office said focuses on $9.4 billion in &#8220;wasteful spending&#8221; identified by the Trump administration&#8217;s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative. He also gave a shoutout to Elon Musk, who earlier had <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-cant-stand-it-anymore-goes-nuclear-on-big-beautiful-bill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">assailed</a> the lawmakers who voted to pass the &#8220;One Big, Beautiful Bill&#8221; last month, citing the &#8220;unsustainable&#8221; debt.
&#8220;The House will act quickly on this request,&#8221; Johnson said in a statement. &#8220;Under President Trump, every federal taxpayer dollar is actually being used to serve the American people, not to fund a bloated bureaucracy or purely partisan pet projects. We thank Elon Musk and his DOGE team for identifying a wide range of wasteful, duplicative, and outdated programs, and House Republicans are eager to eliminate them.&#8221;
He added: &#8220;This rescissions package reflects many of DOGE’s findings and is one of the many legislative tools Republicans are using to restore fiscal sanity. Congress will continue working closely with the White House to codify these recommendations, and the House will bring the package to the floor as quickly as possible.&#8221;
Johnson also took a shot at Democrats, who have largely opposed anything Trump supports, including DOGE.
“Democrats continue to wail and complain — NOT at the fraud, waste, and abuse — but at the Trump Administration simply for exposing it,&#8221; the speaker declared. &#8220;In fact, Democrats are the only ones in Washington who do not want to stop the egregious misspending of the people’s tax dollars. Democrats continue to defend corruption, while Republicans are delivering real accountability and real savings the American people demanded in November.&#8221;
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) criticized the spending cuts request.
&#8220;The reckless rescissions package introduced today is only the latest attempt by the Trump administration to attack the free press, decimate lifesaving humanitarian aid and hurt our national security,&#8221; Jeffries said in a statement. &#8220;House Democrats will continue to aggressively push back on the continued chaos, cruelty and corruption of this administration and on the far-right extremism being unleashed on the American people.&#8221;

President Trump

DEI, Insect Powder, And Trans ‘Resilience’: Trump Unveils ‘Woke’ Spending Cuts Request

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Mike Johnson

National Public Radio (NPR)

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

Trump Administration

U.S. Senate

The budget bill moves to the Senate, Trump confronts the President of South Africa, and two staffers at the Israeli Embassy are gunned down in a targeted attack. Plus, Colorado passes a bill that makes misgendering a discriminatory act.
It’s Friday, May 23, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
Morning Wire is available on video! You can watch today’s episode here: 
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<h2>Washington Roundup</h2>
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Topline: It’s been a busy few days in Washington, with big news on Trump&#8217;s budget bill, South Africa, and even the Supreme Court.
Early Thursday morning, the House of Representatives passed a comprehensive tax and budget package — what the president has been calling the “big, beautiful bill.” This was a huge win for President Trump, who pushed congressional Republicans to pass a single bill rather than several smaller pieces of legislation. It’s perhaps an even bigger win for House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who not only rallied his caucus to this seemingly impossible task, but did so by his self-imposed Memorial Day deadline, which many people thought was impractical. The bill passed the House 215-214, with every Democrat voting “no” and a handful of Republicans dissenting as well. The legislation now goes to the Republican-controlled Senate, which Trump hopes will wrap things up by July 4.
The bill contained many key priorities for the Trump administration. Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, joked that there was so much good stuff in the bill, it was impossible for him to single out the most important part: “You’re asking me to choose amongst my children! They are all very important … we have ended fiscal irresponsibility and futility by not being able to pass big reductions and mandatory savings that make total sense.”
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Among other things, the bill, which is more than 1,000 pages long, raises the debt limit by $4 trillion and funds Trump’s priorities on border security, energy, and national defense. It extends the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year. It also defunds Planned Parenthood and blocks federal dollars from funding transgender procedures.
Meanwhile… This week, President Trump hosted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in an Oval Office meeting &#8212; they wanted to talk tariffs and foreign aid. Remember, this came on the heels of the White House welcoming 59 white South African farmers to the United States. Those farmers claim they’re fleeing an anti-white genocide in their home country, something the South African government strongly denies. But Trump came prepared to have that conversation with Ramaphosa, at one point dimming the lights in the Oval Office to play videos of anti-white rhetoric in South Africa.
And… On Thursday, the Supreme Court handed down a 4-4 decision on whether Oklahoma could open the nation’s first religious charter school. Justice Amy Coney Barrett abstained from voting, which caused the tie. Because there was no majority, the court did not issue an opinion, and we don’t know how the other justices voted. But that also means this case does not become federal precedent, and the court will likely have to take up the issue again.
<h2>Embassy Staff Gunned Down In Antisemitic Terror Attack In D.C.</h2>
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Topline: Two Israeli Embassy staffers were gunned down in Washington, D.C. this week in what FBI officials are calling an act of terrorism.
On Wednesday night, the American Jewish Committee was hosting a celebration at the Capital Jewish Museum, just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. As the event ended, a lone gunman opened fire, killing 26-year-old Sarah Milgrim and 30-year-old Yaron Lischinsky, both of whom worked at the Israeli Embassy and were in a relationship. According to family members, Yaron had purchased an engagement ring and planned to propose to Sarah next week during a trip to Jerusalem.
Shortly after opening fire, the gunman, 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, entered the museum and told attendees to call the police. Footage from the scene shows him holding up a red kaffiyeh while chanting two words while being handcuffed: “Free Palestine.”
Days before the attack, the museum where the shooting took place applied for a security grant from the D.C. Government, citing “concern[s] about security due to some very scary incidents that some institutions have faced and because of a climate of antisemitism.” FBI Director Kash Patel said the incident was an act of terrorism, and officials say Rodriquez appeared to have acted alone.
Shortly before the attack, Rodriquez published a manifesto titled “Escalate for Gaza, Bring The War Home.” There, he wrote that anyone supporting Israel had “forfeited their humanity,” adding that his attack was “in some funny way, the only sane thing to do.” In recent years, Rodriguez was heavily involved in far-Left political activism — taking part in numerous anti-Israel demonstrations and working with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL).
Jewish leaders have been warning that growing anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses and in the media would inevitably lead to attacks like this one. Jonathan Epstein, a recent graduate of Columbia University who was a witness to the shooting, told <a href="https://x.com/RedWave_Press/status/1925526438666498127">CNN</a>, “I saw the same thing in his eyes that I saw in the eyes of all the protesters at Columbia. Nothing different between him and them. … They gave the permission. And they have called for this.”
<h2>Colorado Makes &#8220;Misgendering&#8221; Illegal</h2>
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Topline: &#8220;Misgendering&#8221; is now officially an illegal, discriminatory act under Colorado law.
Colorado Democratic Governor Jared Polis signed <a href="https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb25-1312">House Bill 1312</a> into law last week. This applies to places like workplaces and schools, and violations of the statute could lead to fines or other civil penalties under Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws.
The law is drastically pared down from its original version, which said parents in custody battles who misgender or “deadname” their child were guilty of “coercive control” and could lose custody. Under Colorado law, &#8220;coercive control&#8221; is a serious category that <a href="https://frascona.com/sweeping-new-domestic-abuse-laws-for-divorcing-couples-unmarried-couples-and-children/">includes</a> things like threatening to kill someone.
“This bill was an attack on parental rights,” Colorado House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese (R-14) told The Daily Wire. “This is an issue that transcends party lines. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican, a Democrat, or unaffiliated. Nobody wants the government to be raising our children, or telling us how to raise our children.”
More than 700 Coloradans signed up to testify against the bill, and tens of thousands more signed petitions against it. Ultimately, Democrats were forced to strike the radical custody battle language, and some Democratic lawmakers even backed down and refused to vote for it unless the custody provision was removed.
The new law bars Colorado courts from enforcing statutes from other states that could remove children from parents who support their children taking transgender hormones or undergoing surgeries. It also requires schools that have dress codes to allow students to wear the uniform of the opposite gender and mandates that schools have policies affirming chosen names. The bill also allows people who identify as transgender to change the gender marker on their driver&#8217;s license up to three times without a court order.
Colorado has other controversial bills on transgender ideology coming down the pike, including one that would <a href="https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb25-1309">ban</a> health insurers from limiting so-called “necessary” transgender procedures.

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