Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

The entire system has been designed to generate as much revenue from your activity as possible until someday you eventually drop dead.  

It is tax season, and that means that it is time to feed the largest and most bloated government in the history of the entire planet once again.  Of course the federal income tax is just one of the ways that they are systematically draining your wealth.  As you will see below, there are literally dozens of taxes that Americans must pay each year.

 Many of our politicians seem to revel in inventing ways to extract money out of us, and that needs to stop.

Most Americans are working extremely hard, and yet money seems to keep going out the other end faster than it is coming in.

The truth is that the entire system has been designed to take what you have away from you.

There are many ways that this is accomplished – taxation, inflation, debt, interest, fines, fees, tickets, government seizures and good old-fashioned corporate greed.

If you decided to just sit back and do nothing but hold on to the wealth that you already have, you would find out that it would disappear quite rapidly.

It is not an accident that most Americans are experiencing a declining standard of living.  The system is rigged, and the rigging has not been in our favor.

The following are 55 ways that everything that you think that you own is being systematically taken away from you…

#1 Do you think that you own your home?  You might want to think again.  Most Americans that “own a home” are paying a mortgage.  If you stop paying that mortgage you will lose that home.  The number of foreclosures in the United States last year was up 174 percent from 2021, and mortgage delinquencies have been rising in recent months.

When homeowners get booted out of their homes, they don’t get their down payments back.

They also don’t get all of the mortgage payments that they have made back.

The banks get to keep the money and the homes.

Perhaps you have paid off your mortgage.  Does that mean that you now “own your home”?

No, not really.  Just refuse to pay your property taxes and see what happens.  At best, you can say that you have the right to rent your home from the government.

In any event, the reality is that the banks now own more of “our homes” than we do.

Just check out your most recent mortgage statement and see how much “home equity” you actually have.

If you recently purchased your home, it probably isn’t much at all.

Things used to be far different in this country.  Once upon a time, ordinary Americans owned most of the homes and most of the land in this nation.

But now the banks own most of it.  Sadly, most American families that believe that they “own homes” are actually enslaved to 20 or 30 year debt contracts.

And if something happens and you are unable to keep making payments, you could lose everything.

#2 Do you think that you own your vehicle?  You don’t own it if you are still making payments on it.  Of course if you stop making payments you will rapidly lose that vehicle.

But even if it is paid off, you can only operate that vehicle if you do the following…

*You must pay the license fee.

*You must pay the car registration fee.

*You must pay the emissions inspection fee.

*You must pay the property taxes on that vehicle if that applies in your area.

*You must pay the tire taxes.

*You must pay the gas taxes.

If you have paid all of those taxes, then you are permitted to drive only where the government allows you to drive and only under the rules that the government sets for you.

But at least you “own” your vehicle, right?

#3 What about your possessions?  Do you own them?

Well, yes, you probably own some possessions.

But that doesn’t mean that they are not enslaving you.

After all, did you use a credit card to pay for any of them?

If so, you could end up paying far more for your possessions than you originally thought that they cost.

#4 Do you own your education?  Well, it is undeniable that nobody can ever take it away from you.  But if you took out student loans to get your education, that debt may end up enslaving you for decades.

The borrower is the servant of the lender and student loan debt is more of a financial drain on Americans than ever before.  Americans now owe more on their student loans than they do on their credit cards.

Today, Americans owe more than 1.7 trillion dollars on their student loans, which is a new all-time record.

#5 Will you protect your wealth if you put your money in the bank?

No, in fact your wealth will be systematically destroyed in the bank.

Inflation is a hidden tax on every single dollar that you own, because it destroys the value of all dollars in existence.

There are some Americans that have been saving money for decades, but those savings are being taxed into oblivion by inflation.

Just compare the price of a carton of 12 eggs five years ago to the price of a carton of eggs today.

When the cost of living goes up, the value of the money that we have put in the bank goes down.

#6 Insurance costs continue to soar.  After insuring virtually everything in our lives, many of us barely have any money left over to actually live our lives with.

#7 State and local governments all over the nation have turned to ticket writing as a primary revenue source.  They know that most people do not carefully follow the speed limit, and so they have turned that behavior into a revenue-generating tool.

#8 Some states have decided to simply confiscate wealth even if nothing has been done wrong.  For example, some states are now aggressively seizing “unclaimed” safe deposit boxes.  If you have a safe deposit box that you have not checked on in a while, you might want to make sure that it is still there.

#9 You might end up losing your valuables when you cross the border.  U.S. border agents regularly seize laptops and other electronic devices as people cross the border.  In many cases those items are never returned.

#10 If you don’t pay your property taxes, you will lose your home and it will likely be a big Wall Street bank that will end up owning it.  The big Wall Street banks have been buying up thousands of tax liens and are making a killing by socking distressed homeowners with predatory interest, outrageous penalties and almost unbelievable legal fees.

#11 Of course the federal income tax is one of the biggest ways that our wealth is being drained.  One of the primary reasons why the Federal Reserve and the IRS were established back in 1913 was to redistribute wealth.  Wealth is transferred from hard working Americans to the U.S. government, and then it is redistributed to those that aren’t working or spent on some of the most wasteful programs imaginable.

Needless to say, federal taxes are just one of the taxes that we pay.  The truth is that the average American pays dozens of different taxes each year.   The following are just a few examples of the insidious forms of taxation that drain our wealth…

#12 Building Permit Tax

#13 Capital Gains Tax

#14 CDL License Tax

#15 Cigarette Tax

#16 Corporate Income Tax

#17 Court Fines (an indirect tax)

#18 Dog License Tax

#19 Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)

#20 Fishing License Tax

#21 Food License Tax

#22 Fuel Permit Tax

#23 Gasoline Tax

#24 Gift Tax

#25 Hunting License Tax

#26 Inheritance Tax

#27 IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)

#28 Liquor Tax

#29 Local Income Tax

#30 Luxury Taxes

#31 Marriage License Tax

#32 Medicare Tax

#33 Payroll Taxes

#34 Phone Taxes

#35 Property Taxes

#36 Real Estate Tax

#37 Recreational Vehicle Tax

#38 Road Toll Booth Taxes

#39 Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)

#40 Sales Taxes

#41 School Tax

#42 Septic Permit Tax

#43 Social Security Tax

#44 State Income Tax

#45 State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)

#46 Toll Bridge Taxes

#47 Toll Tunnel Taxes

#48 Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)

#49 Trailer Registration Tax

#50 Utility Taxes

#51 Vehicle License Registration Tax

#52 Vehicle Sales Tax

#53 Watercraft Registration Tax

#54 Well Permit Tax

#55 Workers Compensation Tax

When you take all forms of taxation into account, there are some people that hand over more than 50 percent of their incomes to various levels of government each year.

Even the future is being taken away from us.  The future is literally being stolen from our children and our grandchildren.  They will be inheriting the 36 trillion dollar national debt that we have accumulated.

What we have done to future generations is unthinkable, and yet we continue to borrow colossal mountains of money.

When you base an entire economy on debt, eventually you end up with money problems that never seem to end.  As a nation, we are now enslaved to a vicious spiral of debt that threatens to destroy everything that our forefathers worked so hard to build.

As the debt loads of our federal, state and local governments become even more burdensome, they are going to want even more money from us.  For decades we gave in to new tax after new tax thinking that it would finally satisfy them.

But it never seems to be enough.  They always want more.

Unfortunately, most Americans are so caught up in the “rat race” that they never take much time to think about who designed the race or why they are running it.

It is time to wake up.

We are being systematically abused by the control freaks that are running things, and it is time to say that enough is enough.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

With an eye on offsetting the loss of illegal-immigrant labor, the Florida legislature is considering a bill that would ease the state’s child labor laws. A bill that advanced from a committee on Tuesday would make it legal for children as young as 14 to work graveyard shifts on school nights.  

The hours at issue are those between 11pm and 6:30 am. The controversial bill was given the blessing of the Florida Commerce and Tourism Committee by a narrow 5-4 vote, and now faces the scrutiny of two more committees before it can receive a vote of the Senate. Governor Ron DeSantis has backed the proposal, saying an easing of child labor laws can help fill employers’ needs as the state makes it increasingly difficult for illegal immigrants to work there. 

Last year, Florida started to allow 16- and 17-year-old home-schooled and virtually-schooled children to work anytime at all. The new bill would extend that freedom to 14- and 15-year-olds. However, it would also let 16- and 17-year-olds in traditional schools work any hour of the day. It would also allow them to work more than an 8-hour-day on a school night, and more than 30 hours a week while schools are in session.  

The move comes in the wake of a statewide crackdown on the use of illegal immigrants. A 2023 Florida law compels employers with 26 or more workers to confirm their immigration status by using the federal E-Verify system — under threat of $1,000 daily fines for non-compliance. That internet-based system cross-checks the information the employees put on “Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.” The loss of illegal labor has some people worried about the effect on the Sunshine State’s economy. 

DeSantis has argued that loosening restrictions on younger workers is a big part of solution. “Why do we say we need to import foreigners — even import them illegally — when teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be able to do this stuff,” DeSantis said during a panel discussion last week with Tom Homan, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “What’s wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? I mean, that’s how it used to be when I was growing up,” added DeSantis. 

Some have expressed concern that teenagers will be put in tougher situations at work, as they won’t be able to point to a state law as a reason for being available to labor into the wee hours. “The teens who will be most harmed by this bill are low-income young people or those without documented status who are compelled by their situation to work,” Nina Mast of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute told the Miami Herald. She argued that the legislature is “essentially trying to legalize violations that employers are already committing.”

In the committee hearing, the bill’s sponsor, Tampa Republican Jay Collins, argued that “This is a parental rights thing. Parents know their kids best.” Dismissing visions of teens slaving away in hazardous envionments, he said, “Ultimately, we’re not talking about ‘The Jungle’ by Upton Sinclair. We’re talking about them working at Publix, at Piggly Wiggly or jobs within the industry.”

There’s another dynamic to consider: If families are so hard-pressed that they need their children to work night jobs, lacking the opportunity for legal employment may help push desperate adults and children into illegal activity — from thievery to prostitution and drug sales.   

Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

For the sixth Congress in a row, bills to require states to honor out-of-state concealed weapons permits are in both chambers of Congress.

The House Judiciary Committee will mark up its version of the legislation on March 25. President Donald Trump has promised to sign it if it reaches his desk.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) introduced HR 38 in the House on Jan. 3. The Senate version, S 65, introduced by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Jan. 9, is before that chamber’s Judiciary Committee.

Proponents of the reciprocity bills say they require concealed weapons permit holders to comply with all other gun laws in whatever state they are in. For example, if the state prohibits guns in places of worship, he or she couldn’t concealed carry in those places even if their home state allows it.

Opponents of the legislation say that’s not true.

David LaBahn, president and CEO of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, said his organization opposed the legislation when it was introduced in 2017 and that it has not changed its position.

He said the bills, as they are currently written, would require police to know the gun laws in all 50 states and to take the word of out-of-state visitors that whatever state gun permit they present is valid.

The critics contend that states with strict gun laws, like California and New York, would be forced to recognize permits from states with fewer restrictions. According to LaBahn, that means that people from states with less gun control would not be subject to the stricter regulations.

“As long as you’re from an open-carry state, you can open carry any place in the country you choose,” LaBahn told The Epoch Times.

On its website, Giffords.org—the gun control group founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot during an event in Tucson, Arizona—criticized Republicans for introducing the legislation on Jan. 8, the anniversary of Giffords’s shooting.

Her webpage has links to objections it presented in 2017, when HR 38 was voted out of the Judiciary Committee. The bill did not get a floor vote at that time.

“A New York police officer is not trained to enforce Montana gun laws,” the website reads. “Under some versions of [concealed carry reciprocity], if an officer accidentally arrests someone they think is breaking the wrong state’s law, the police officer could be charged with a crime.”

LaBahn said that states currently arrange reciprocity compacts. Compacts ensure that officials understand the laws in each member state.

However, the reciprocity bills disregard state laws, he said.

“This is really an anti-10th Amendment Bill where the federal authorities are stepping in,” LaBahn said.

Proponents of the bills say that LaBahn’s interpretation is wrong.

Amy Swearer, an attorney and a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, carries a concealed firearm. She said reciprocity for concealed carry permits would make her life easier.

Swearer lives in Virginia but travels through other states regularly for work. She said the reciprocity would give her peace of mind, knowing that she is not breaking the law in a state she’s visiting by simply exercising her Second Amendment rights.

“The state in which [the concealed carry permit holder is] in can’t prosecute them for the offense of carrying without a license or unlawful carry. [But] that person would still have to abide by all the other carry laws in that state,” Swearer told The Epoch Times.

Currently, under the federal Firearm Owners Protection Act, nonresidents can legally transport unloaded firearms through a state if they are traveling to or from a place where they can legally possess the firearm.

Swearer said that with the bill, there may end up being some other local gun laws that won’t apply to out-of-state visitors, such as gun registration requirements. But importantly, reciprocity does not require the state of New York, with strict gun regulations, to allow Oklahoma residents act in accordance with only Oklahoma’s gun regulations when they are in the Empire State.

“So nothing in this bill would require states in any capacity to change their existing gun laws or restrictions on where people can or cannot carry,” Swearer said.

John Commerford, executive director of the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) Institute for Legislative Action, said national reciprocity for concealed carry is the NRA’s top goal for this Congress. He said Trump has promised to sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

Commerford said the law does have one requirement that gun owners in at least 29 states with permitless carry should be aware of.

“Under HR 38, you would need a permit from your state to carry in the other states,” Commerford told The Epoch Times.

According to Commerford, 29 states are “Constitutional Carry” states. These states do not require permits to carry a concealed firearm in public for individuals who can legally possess a firearm.

All but one of these states offer a permit even though it isn’t required. Vermont has never required a concealed carry permit.

Commerford said a permit provides evidence that the gun owner has met some legal requirements for carrying a firearm. He also said that the bill is part of a larger objective.

“The ultimate goal would be to have constitutional carry nationwide. However, HR 38 is politically viable in this Congress,” Commerford said.

Commerford admitted that politically viable isn’t the same as a done deal. However, with a majority of the states adopting Constitutional Carry and Republicans controlling both chambers and the White House, Commerford said the NRA will work to get the bill on the floor of the House and then on to the Senate.

LaBahn said his organization will monitor the bill and take any action they deem appropriate to prevent its progress. He said that if the bill’s supporters really believe they have the backing of the majority of states, perhaps they should change their strategy.

“If the desire is to have national right to carry, Congress can establish that, and [eliminate] state to state confusion. This act is … a very poor second best to their intent and will likely get people hurt,” LaBahn said.

Washington’s soft-touch jail policies have turned facilities into fentanyl hotspots, thanks to rules that make it harder to properly search inmates, according to Jason Rantz at 770 KTTH. 

Rantz writes this week that Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders recently sounded the alarm after two overdoses at his jail tied to drugs smuggled in body fat.

“Once the drugs made their way in, a different inmate consumed the drugs and overdosed,” Sanders said. “Life-saving efforts from jail staff prevented the overdose from being fatal.”

Days later, it happened again—this time, fentanyl was found under an inmate’s breast.

“A Corrections Sergeant observed an inmate acting oddly and immediately called for medical,” Sanders reported. “CPR was performed for 10 minutes… Narcan deployment… The inmate will be booked on new felony charges.”

In his piece, Rantz writes that that It shouldn’t be this easy for an obese inmate to sneak drugs into jail—but thanks to misguided policies, it is.

This stems from 2SSB 5695, a 2022 Democratic bill—ironically also backed by Republicans—that banned “dehumanizing” strip searches and mandated body scanners. But the Department of Health, tasked with setting scanner rules, imposed such weak radiation limits under WAC 246-230-040 that scanners can’t detect drugs hidden in body fat.

“The new rules under WAC 246-230-040, implemented in January 2025, force scanners to use laughably low radiation levels to appease activists screaming about ‘ALARA’ (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principles,” wrote Sheriff Sanders.

Lawmakers say the new rules protect inmates from radiation—but that claim doesn’t hold up.

The previous scan dose—2.00 µSv—was already safer than a dental X-ray. Sheriff Sanders pointed out it would take 1,000 scans to hit the annual limit. “Strip searches cannot be conducted on every inmate who is booked… but its [the scanner’s] effectiveness isn’t nearly what it was post-law change,” he wrote.

Strip searches were unpleasant but worked. Lawmakers scrapped them without ensuring the scanners could actually do the job. And the same Department of Health that insisted COVID vaccines stopped transmission isn’t exactly a reliable authority on radiation safety.

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Supreme Court voted 7–2 on March 26 to uphold the Biden administration’s rule regulating so-called ghost guns that can be assembled at home.

The majority opinion in Bondi v. VanDerStok was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Gorsuch was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor, Jackson, and Kavanaugh each filed concurring opinions.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito each filed dissenting opinions.

In October 2023, the Supreme Court reinstated the rule, which lower courts had blocked.

“Ghost gun” is a pejorative term used by gun control advocates to describe a homemade firearm that lacks a serial number and therefore can’t be tracked by law enforcement.

Although some states regulate homemade guns, gun control groups have been trying for years to ban or regulate homemade guns at the federal level but have failed to persuade the U.S. Congress to act.

Then-President Joe Biden defended the rule, claiming that privately made guns, which are often made with gun kits, are the “weapons of choice for many criminals.”

The government’s “frame or receiver” rule dates to April 2022. It requires individuals who assemble homemade firearms to add serial numbers to them. The rule also mandates background checks for consumers who buy gun-assembly kits from dealers.

Pieces of guns that are shipped are nonetheless guns subject to existing laws, the government argued.

In the majority opinion, Gorsuch wrote that the Gun Control Act of 1968 allows the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to regulate “some weapon parts kits and unfinished frames or receivers, including those we have discussed.”

After displaying a photograph of gun kit components supplied by seller Polymer80, Gorsuch wrote, “Plainly, the finished ‘Buy Build Shoot’ kit is an instrument of combat. No one would confuse the semiautomatic pistol pictured above with a tool or a toy.”

Several ultra-controversial issues have come to a head in Israel this week, sparking more huge protests outside the country’s Knesset and in various locations.

Israel’s Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz is warning alongside former Israeli army Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Israel is on the brink of civil war.

The mounting crisis was sparked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dismissing Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar. “It’s true that there are many security challenges from abroad, but Israel’s security is at risk because of the internal division,” Gantz said at the start of the week.

There are moves to also dismiss Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara by Netanyahu after a ‘no confidence’ vote by the cabinet. This has outraged opposition parties and much of the population.

Alongside this, the deeply divisive judicial appointments bill will soon be voted on:

National Unity chair Benny Gantz met earlier today with Justice Minister Yariv Levin in a last-ditch attempt to convince him to abandon a highly controversial piece of legislation that will greatly increase political control over the judicial appointments process.

The meeting was held ahead of the final two readings in the Knesset plenum needed for the legislation’s passage.

During the meeting, Gantz told Levin that he would be making a “mistake” by bringing the legislation for final votes, Channel 12 reports, while Ynet says he warned Levin that Israel is on “the brink of a civil war.”

Gantz is pleading for Netanyahu to halt the legislation from progressing. “I’m appealing to you as someone who bears the responsibility of acting on behalf of all citizens of this country,” he wrote to in a letter to the prime minister.

Thousands protest outside the Israeli Knesset ahead of a final voting on a law that would further politicize the selection of Supreme Court’ judges pic.twitter.com/Ip9WC6OtrF

— Guy Elster גיא אלסטר (@guyelster) March 26, 2025

“Our society is wounded and bleeding, divided in a way we have not seen since October 6 [2023],” Gantz said. “Fifty-nine of our brothers and sisters are still captive in Gaza, and our soldiers, from all political factions, are fighting on multiple fronts.”

As a reminder, Netanyahu and his allies say the plan will restore a balance between the judicial and executive branches and rein in what they see as an interventionist court with liberal sympathies. But critics say the constellation of laws will remove the checks and balances in Israel’s democratic system and concentrate power in the hands of the governing coalition.

Amid all of this, families of kidnap victims are still leading protests demanding that a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal with Hamas get back on track.

Protesters outside the Knesset set up a mock “Qatari embassy” featuring multiple people in white robes fanning themselves with money as Arabic music plays in the background. One demonstrator uses ropes to control the arms of a person wearing a Benjamin Netanyahu mask pic.twitter.com/qMhiGYfBsy

— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) March 26, 2025

But the Israeli military looks to escalate, with reports it is in the preparation stage for annexing parts of the Gaza Strip. The IDF is also staging war drills in the north, preparing for possibly more clashes with Hezbollah. If the judicial overhaul bill passes, demonstrations in the streets will likely explode to historic proportions. 

By Ted Dabrowski and John Klinger of Wirepoints

Illinois politicians’ latest attempt to impose their will on homeschooling began with a single tragic story of one child’s abuse. Lawmakers took that case of parental neglect and twisted it, expanded on it, and turned it into an indictment of homeschooling in general. Now they want new legislation to control it.

Homeschooling risks truancy, they say. And abuse, educational neglect and poor accountability. That’s how lawmakers are fear-mongering about Illinois’ long-standing, hands-off approach to homeschooling in an attempt to gain more power over parents and children.

But if you know anything about Illinois’ public education system, you’ll recognize the rank hypocrisy immediately. Illinois schools are full of truancy, abuse, educational neglect and poor accountability. Yet lawmakers do little to nothing about that. Instead, they’ve turned their attention towards the last form of education they don’t control.

The bill at hand, House Bill 2827, would force homeschooling parents – and private schools – to annually submit a declaration form to their local school district, with the potential penalty of fines and even jail time if parents don’t comply. Among other items, the bill also requires administrative and curriculum standards.

The bottom line is, the proposed law is an infringement of the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children (see the Supreme Court case Troxel v. Granville).

Yet Illinois State Rep. Terra Costa Howard, the lead sponsor of the legislation, justifies her bill by saying homeschooled children “lose daily contact with teachers and others who are mandated to report abuse and neglect.” That’s coming from someone who’s said and done nothing to address the source of the state’s biggest sexual abuse problem: Chicago Public Schools.

And State Rep. Michelle Mussman, another bill sponsor said, “We really are looking for a better way to capture the small, the very important subset of kids who are…missing an education or worse.” But Mussman and most Illinois legislators have done little to address the state’s own public school literacy collapse. Six out of every 10 children statewide are unable to read at grade level – that’s more than 1.1 million public school students.

Below we lay out the many hypocrisies of the homeschool bill supporters.

1. Rampant chronic absenteeism in public schools. Lawmakers’ concern about “truancy” in homeschooling falls flat considering they consistently allow up to a quarter of Illinois public school students to be “chronically absent” (10% or more missed school days in a year) each year. That’s based on data straight from the State Board of Education’s annual report card.

Chicago’s numbers are far worse – over 40% of CPS students were chronically absent in 2024. These kids are at risk of “academic and social problems” according to the State Board of Education.

Absenteeism skyrocketed during the covid years and has remained at elevated levels since. 

Many Illinois teachers also consistently fail to show up for class, again based on state education data. Over a third of all teachers statewide were considered “chronically absent” in 2024, meaning they missed 10 school days or more during the year. The National Bureau of Economic Research warns that student outcomes decrease significantly when teachers are absent for 10 days or more.

Who are lawmakers holding accountable for this? And why aren’t they holding themselves accountable?

2. Ongoing sexual abuse in schools. If legislators really cared about the abuse of children, they would shut down Chicago Public Schools immediately. The district has recorded nearly 1,000 allegations in the last couple of years, many of them severe cases of molestation and abuse.

Here are some examples from the CPS Inspector General in 2024:

Case No. 20-01345. “A security guard sexually abused a 16-year-old student for approximately five months. In his capacity as a security guard, he pulled the student out of class to have sex in various locations in the school, such as storage rooms and janitor closets. He also sexually assaulted the student in his car and his home.” 

Case No. 20-01530. “An intoxicated teacher groped an eleventh-grade student twice on the buttocks while at the school’s graduation. The student disclosed the teacher’s conduct to a staff member, who notified DCFS and the school’s then-principal. However, the principal failed to notify the Law Department of the allegations as required.”

Case No. 21-00326. “An employee of a vendor after-school program sexually assaulted an elementary school student at the student’s school on multiple occasions between 2014 and 2017, when the student was seven to ten years old. The student disclosed three separate incidents: one in which the vendor employee touched and rubbed the student’s genitals under their clothes, and two in which the vendor employee touched and rubbed the student’s buttocks under their clothes. The abuse took place in the school’s gym and cafeteria.”

Those are but a few of the 446 cases that range from misconduct and sexual harassment to nonsexual conduct that raises “the appearance of impropriety or possible grooming concerns.” 

Illinois lawmakers have known about the rampant cases of abuse since the Chicago Tribune first exposed the depth of CPS’ crisis in 2018. The district should be under the same extreme public and political pressure as the Catholic Church was when its own sex abuse scandals broke. Yet lawmakers have done little to nothing about it. 

3. Public school students are unable to read or do math. Lawmakers’ supposed concerns about homeschool parents failing to provide an education to their children is particularly laughable given the dismal state of public education in Illinois.

Illinois lawmakers haven’t made any serious attempt to restore literacy and numeracy – the long term data backs us up on that. Instead, all they’ve done is throw billions upon billions of dollars at the education system to no effect.

Overall, just 33% of all 8th-grade Illinois students scored proficient in reading on the 2024 Nation’s Report Card test. In math, it was just 32%.

The results for the state’s minority children were far worse. Just 16% reading and 9% math proficiency for blacks. For Hispanics, it was just 24% and 18%.

In many districts, kids are far, far away from proficiency. Take the Decatur Public Schools. There a full two-thirds of black third graders scored at the lowest possible level on the state IAR test in 2024. Most of those students are grade levels away from proficiency.

Then look at Decatur’s 11th graders. It’s the exact same thing: 69% were at the lowest level. These children have been abandoned by the system.

And not a single kid can read proficiently at all in some schools. Last year, Wirepoints analyzed report card data directly from the Illinois State Board of Education and found 67 schools across the state, enrolling over 11,500 students, where not a single child could do math at grade level. There were another 32 schools where zero children were proficient in reading.

4. Unhelpful teacher evaluations. And for those lawmakers so concerned about accountability, there’s the open question about why they’ve done nothing to fix the state board’s broken “accountability” metrics for teachers.

Despite all the failures we’ve tallied above, the system allows virtually every teacher in Illinois to be rated “excellent or proficient” year after year. It’s apparent that lawmakers don’t truly care about accountability. 

This homeschooling bill is an attempt by lawmakers to take over the last part of education that isn’t under their explicit control – and a way for the teachers unions to squash another form of competition. 

It’s hypocrisy, and government overreach, at its worst.

Nearly all of the 70 people charged in a massive $250 million fraud case targeting federal child nutrition programs in Minnesota are Somali immigrants, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Between March 2020 and January 2022, they allegedly stole funds meant for feeding children, funneled through a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future. So far, 37 have pleaded guilty, and 7 have been convicted; the rest await trial.

The scam involved fake meal counts, rosters, and invoices submitted to the Minnesota Department of Education. “Feeding Our Future” acted as a sponsor for daycares and other sites, making it easy to file false claims during the COVID-era program expansion.

Minnesota, home to about 100,000 Somali immigrants—mostly in the Twin Cities—has long attracted refugees with “some of America’s most generous welfare and charity programs,” according to journalist Kelly Riddell. She also quoted professor Ahamed Samatar, who said, “Minnesota is exceptional in so many ways but it’s the closest thing in the United States to a true social democratic state.”

The FBI’s Minneapolis office has also dealt with terror-related concerns in the community, which has seen recruitment by ISIS and al-Shabab.

Between 2020 and 2022, Aimee Bock and a group of mostly Somali immigrants stole $250 million in federal nutrition funds through a scheme centered on the nonprofit Feeding Our Future. The group submitted fake meal counts and rosters to the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), which had loosened oversight under COVID “waivers.” In 2021 alone, Feeding Our Future funneled nearly $200 million to sham sites and vendors.

The Washington Free Beacon says that despite red flags, MDE backed off after accusations of racism. But in April 2021, a whistleblower tipped off the FBI. Surveillance footage later revealed empty food sites that supposedly fed thousands daily. The scheme collapsed in January 2022 when federal agents conducted Minnesota’s largest-ever fraud raid.

Bock, Feeding Our Future’s founder, certified inflated claims from over 250 sites. Though she pocketed $1.9 million, many of her co-conspirators spent millions on luxury items and properties across the U.S., Turkey, and Kenya. “The fraud in this case is gross, disgusting, and despicable,” the report states.

Bock’s fake nonprofit included a board of unaware bartenders and a small-engine mechanic. “Yeah, big shoes,” one deadpanned in court when shown his name atop an organizational chart. The fraud ran so deep that 21 sites on a 1.8-mile stretch of Minneapolis’s Lake Street claimed to serve as many children as the city’s public schools.

Bock and accomplice Salim Said—whose restaurant, Safari, jumped from $600,000 annual revenue to “serving” 5,000 kids daily—were convicted on all 28 counts in just five hours. Said alone claimed over 3.9 million meals and took in $5.5 million.

Though most Somali defendants eagerly joined in, one voice stood out: Abdihakim Osman Nur, who once exposed Rep. Ilhan Omar’s fraudulent marriage, condemned the lavish corruption on Facebook. He posted a video describing gold trays gifted at a Feeding Our Future staffer’s wedding: “We cannot close our eyes to such corruption… when we only have a few bad apples.”

Yet state officials stayed silent. Gov. Tim Walz later claimed, “we caught it very early,” but ignored follow-up questions. Attorney General Keith Ellison, who once said, “I know a scam when I see one,” also declined to comment.

At the post-trial press conference, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson rightly called the case “the shame of Minnesota.” The prosecutors who brought it down, he added, are “the pride of Minnesota.

The Department of Education, much like USAID, is treated as if it’s a sacrosanct charity instead of a government institution subject to scrutiny and regulation.  The message surrounding government agencies and federal employees is generally unhinged these days; when did these people suddenly become saints and martyrs?  Most of them are, in fact, parasites feeding on taxpayer dollars and they serve no purpose.

To be sure, progressives often elevate bureaucracy in their minds to a sanctified level.  The Shadow Government is their god and the bureaucrats slithering through the dimly lit corridors of unaccountable power are treated like high priests.  The system is worshiped because it is at war with America’s foundations.  The left wants the west to die, and the bureaucracy is more than happy to accommodate while filling their pockets with easy cash. 

The Department of Education (ED) is particularly beloved by the political left because it is the mechanism by which public schooling is twisted into a propaganda machine.  The ED is the key to everything; in cooperation with teachers and teachers unions they are creating the next generation of woke adherents, and your kids are the target.  

But beyond the issue of political indoctrination there’s the obvious problem of obligation versus outcome – What does the ED actually do to fulfill its supposed duties?  In truth, it does absolutely nothing.  Lets examine five reasons why the Department of Education is a complete failure as an agency and why it deserves to be eliminated.

The More Money The ED Receives The Less Education American Students Get

In 2010 the ED’s budget was $94 billion, by 2024 it had ballooned to $268 billion (a 160% increase).  But what are US taxpayers getting for this massive chunk of change they are spending annually?  National testing averages in reading and math continue to decline dramatically in the past decade.  Scores barely eek out gains on testing results from the 1970s before the ED was founded.  

In other words, the more money Americans spend on the ED, the worse the results get.  Despite the agency enjoying a budget that surpasses the GDP of many countries, the US is 28th in the world for math, 24th in the world for science according to PISA results for high school age students.  It is also rated 36th in global literacy rankings. For the richest country in the world with the largest education budget in the world, this is abysmal.

The ED Has Even Failed To Help Minorities Despite DEI Programs

Some people argue that minority demographics (except Asians) consistently test lower and they are dragging US scores down compared to the rest of the developed world.  This is a fair point, however, with the amount of funding and fanfare paid to DEI by the Department of Education in recent years you would think those scores would be going up.  They haven’t.  More minorities than ever are getting college degrees but their testing scores continue to plummet. 

In inner city schools where minorities are the majority, the lack of effective education is stark.  In urban areas of Illinois, for example, at least 30 schools do not have a single student that can pass a reading proficiency exam. 

If the Department of Education’s real intention was to create “equity” for minorities in public schools, they have failed miserably.

Woke Propaganda And DEI Ideology In Schools

The ED had at least $600 million allotted for DEI and Critical Race theory programs for teachers, not to mention extensive programs for LGBT and gender studies.  Its not a coincidence that public schools across the nation started allowing gender ideology to invade the classroom all at the same time.  The Department of Education was a big part of the indoctrination push.  Incentivizing teachers and school districts with extra federal cash certainly helped things along.

Until the Supreme Court finally blocked “race conscious” admissions in colleges due to discrimination against Asians and Whites, the ED was highly active in promoting DEI based campuses.  The agency specifically encouraged equity based student admissions, allowing underqualified applicants access to top universities while rejecting high achieving applicants because of their race.

With the lowest common denominator getting easy access, it’s no surprise that American colleges are churning out far less desirable graduates and less workers with STEM degrees.  

The ED Has Driven Secondary Education Costs Into The Stratosphere

In 2024 the Department of Education spent around $160 billion on federal student aid grants and loans.  This might sound like a humanitarian effort that would expand America’s professional labor base, but that’s not the case.  In-demand career fields like those in STEM are desperate for qualified graduates.  Meanwhile, all that easy government cash has inflated college tuition costs beyond reckoning.

There is a direct correlation and causation between the ED’s increased grant programs and the rising costs of a college education.  

The ED Consistently Loses Money

For years, the ED vastly underestimated the true cost of the federal Direct Loan program. Between 1997 and 2021, ED expected these loans to generate more than $100 billion in government revenue.  Researchers and watchdogs have warned about the flaws in ED’s budget model for years – the agency did nothing to address these concerns. 

Federal student loans issued during this period cost taxpayers $200 billion, meaning ED’s faulty budgeting was off by more than $10 billion a year on average according to a GAO report in 2022. 

ED’s budget is consistently wrong due to incorrect assumptions about: 

The number of borrowers who would choose to enroll in Income-Driven Repayment (IDR).

The income growth for borrowers repaying loans through IDR.    

The probability that borrowers would default on their loans.    

The effects of new programs enacted by Congress and ED

Like most federal agencies the ED only serves to lose money while never actually accomplishing its supposed purpose.  It is a failure by every metric and should be shut down forever.  When an institution bombs this hard for this long, there’s no excuse.  The political left appeals to emotion by painting a picture of a dystopian future filled with uneducated American children without the guiding hand of the Department of Education, but the opposite is true.  They have already created an uneducated America, and now its time to remedy the problem.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said during a Cabinet meeting this week that she would eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

While providing a report on the border and Coast Guard operations, Noem said, “We’re going to eliminate FEMA.” 

She didn’t provide more details.

“That’s great. Great job,” President Donald Trump said in response to Noem’s remarks during the meeting.

Earlier this year, Trump suggested in public remarks that he may dissolve the emergency management agency—or at least overhaul it.

“I’ll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA. I think, frankly, FEMA’s not good,” Trump said in January.

He mentioned it again when he visited the aftermath of wildfires in Los Angeles in January, saying: 

“I say you don’t need FEMA, you need a good state government. FEMA is a very expensive, in my opinion, mostly failed situation.”

After Trump said he wanted to overhaul or scrap FEMA, the agency’s acting head, Cameron Hamilton, wrote to staff and assured them that “FEMA is a critical agency which performs an essential mission in support of our national security.” Hamilton is a former Navy SEAL whom Trump appointed to temporarily lead the agency.

On March 19, Trump signed an order that seeks to hand over responsibility to state and local governments to deal with natural disasters or cyberattacks.

“Federal policy must rightly recognize that preparedness is most effectively owned and managed at the state, local, and even individual levels, supported by a competent, accessible, and efficient federal government,” the order said. 

“Citizens are the immediate beneficiaries of sound local decisions and investments designed to address risks, including cyberattacks, wildfires, hurricanes, and space weather.”

This order is designed to provide more power to “state, local, and individual” preparation efforts and will bring “common sense into infrastructure prioritization and strategic investments through risk-informed decisions that make our infrastructure, communities, and economy resilient to global and dynamic threats and hazards.”

FEMA has a workforce of 20,000 staffers that can increase to more than 50,000 active members during disasters, according to the agency website. The agency was officially created in 1979 and was placed under DHS in 2004.

Aside from FEMA, federal agencies have fired nearly 25,000 newer workers, officials said in court filings last week.

Eighteen agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, started terminating workers after Trump took office, and the Office of Personnel Management directed officials to fire probationary workers who were not critical to agency missions. Many did not disclose the number of workers who were terminated.

The Epoch Times contacted DHS for comment on March 26.