Topline: The federal government is unable to verify that $5.8 billion in rental assistance paid to more than 204,000 recipients in 2024 was not fraudulent, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s latest annual report.
Key facts: HUD spent $15.2 billion on project-based rental assistance in 2024, which pays local housing authorities or private businesses and nonprofits to build affordable housing. That included $4.3 billion in “questionable payments” to nearly 113,000 groups that may have been ineligible for funding, according to the financial report — a mistake rate of over 26%.
HUD also gave $33.9 billion directly to families to help with rent payments, but the financial report claims $1.5 billion sent to almost 92,000 people was “questionable.” The estimates include $77 million paid to 29,715 dead people and $150.3 million paid to 9,472 people with invalid Social Security numbers.
But most of the flagged payments — $5.2 billion — were sent to people or businesses with inactive registrations in the System for Award Management. The federal government is generally not supposed to pay money to anyone not registered on SAM.gov. The online platform allows officials to ensure that a business is legitimate, not a fictional company trying to steal money from the government.
Most of the recipients that did not register on SAM.gov were likely legitimate businesses that mistakenly did not follow federal procedure, not organized criminals intentionally breaking the law. Contrary to viral claims on social media, the payments are not all known to be fraudulent.
Still, HUD would have been able to better screen applicants if it was using the Treasury’s Do Not Pay list, which tracks entities with missing paperwork, debt to the government, a history of fraud and more.
The software agreement that gave HUD access to the list expired in 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term. It remained inactive throughout Joe Biden’s time as president and was not renewed until May 2025, according to HUD’s inspector general, who blamed both presidents for “weak governance around Do Not Pay implementation” in a May 2025 report.
In 2024, HUD sent $212 million to 11 entities on the Do Not Pay list, the inspector general found.
Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.
Background: In its latest financial report, HUD relied on what it called “innovative methods and advanced analytics” to analyze millions of payment records, unlike past audits that use a sample of a few hundred records.
HUD also announced it will publish full estimates of improper payments from its two largest rental assistance programs, as required by the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019. The estimates have never been completed because of “a lack of necessary data, no effective technology platform for collecting supporting documentation, and unsuccessful attempts to manually review information,” according to the financial report.
Limited estimates released in 2024 identified just $45 million in unknown payments from HUD’s rental assistance programs.
Summary: Every oversight gap in safety net programs makes it more difficult to ensure public funds are reaching the people who are legally entitled to them.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
Egypt’s armed forces in December rejected government pleas to help ease the debt crisis despite holding more than Egypt’s total foreign debt in secret reserves, senior banking and government officials told Middle East Eye. The claims underscore mounting concerns over the opaque role of Egypt’s military in the economy at a moment of acute fiscal stress, as the government struggles to meet debt obligations amid shrinking foreign currency reserves and tightening domestic liquidity.
Egypt was expected to pay about $750m in loan repayments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by the end of December but failed to meet the deadline. As a last resort, it was agreed “in principle” for the instalment to be deducted from Egypt’s upcoming IMF tranche, with interest added, official banking sources told MEE.
However, the precise terms of the arrangement remain unclear, with both the Egyptian government and the IMF keeping the details out of the public domain. “The government sought to borrow three trillion Egyptian pounds ($63.7bn) by December, but domestic banks refused, citing limited liquidity,” a senior banking official said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security concerns. “With no other borrowing options available, the government turned to the armed forces.”
The official added that the head of the military’s Financial and Administrative Authority rejected the request, even after the issue was raised with the defense minister.
“Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly in December called Minister of Defence Abdel-Megeed Saqr, urging him to help cover the latest IMF loan instalment, but the plea was firmly refused,” the official, who spoke to MEE in late December, added.
It was not clear why Madbouly did not extend the same request to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who is the supreme commander of the armed forces and who is presumed to have direct control over the reserves. Egypt’s debt obligations to the IMF include SDR 264 million ($377.8m) in December and SDR 194 million ($277.6m) in January.* Broader external debt obligations for the year 2025 exceeded $60bn.
The banking official also claimed that the country’s military holds a sizable amount of dollar reserves, which are inaccessible to civilian authorities. The official provided an estimate that exceeds Egypt’s total external debt of $161bn. MEE is not citing the exact amount because it could not independently corroborate the banker’s information.
The senior banker, who has direct oversight of government accounts, claimed that the military funds are “real and physically held” inside the country’s two main state-run banks, the National Bank of Egypt and Banque Misr, yet “remain entirely beyond the reach of civilian authorities”.
“These funds are physically held in Egyptian banks and it is impossible to dispose of them or use them to repay debts,” the official told MEE.
The official argued that the military apparatus could “theoretically” cover Egypt’s external and domestic debts and resolve the ongoing hard-currency crisis, but would not relinquish control of the economy. According to the official, the exact volume of military projects and details about the funds remain off limits and are subject to no oversight, known only to President Sisi and the army’s top brass.
An Egyptian presidential source also cited a similar number, and confirmed the presence of army deposits in the two banks, without elaborating further. This is a significant allegation that shines a light on the opaque nature of the Egyptian army’s financial resources.
Egyptian banks do not provide details of clients to the press. The Egyptian army does not disclose the military’s financial records, which remain beyond civilian oversight.
In November, local banks extended 1.5 trillion Egyptian pounds to the government to cover more than $350m in loan instalments, leaving little room for further lending. Madbouly in late December told reporters at a press conference that his government was due to “reduce debts to unprecedented levels” by the end of the year.
State-affiliated media meanwhile floated the idea that a “surprise” and “bombshell” announcement would be made by the prime minister “within days” with respect to the reduction of debts. But no major announcements in this regard were made by the end of the year.
Previous interventions
The banking official told MEE that the armed forces intervened financially during a severe dollar shortage in 2022 that left imported goods stuck offshore because importers could not access the hard currency needed to pay port fees.
“At the time, the military injected $10 billion to resolve the crisis, a move the prime minister publicly framed as an emergency measure, though he only hinted at the army’s intervention without direct mention,” the senior official recalled. “Repeated proposals for the military to contribute to repaying Egypt’s mounting external debt, or even a small portion, were firmly rejected. Officials were instructed not to raise the issue again under any circumstances,” the official added.
“This stance persists even though a significant portion of Egypt’s debt burden is linked to arms purchases or investments from which the military has financially benefited,” the official explained. “Even suggestions that the armed forces should repay loans taken out in their own name were dismissed,” they explained.
A troubling chart from Egypt. The graph shows Egypt’s savings-to-GDP ratio, decimated by inflation, pound devaluation, and falling real wages. pic.twitter.com/1YbjY6YFgQ
A second senior official at a state bank, familiar with discussions around the debt crisis, told MEE that “the military had rejected repeated proposals to contribute, even partially, to Egypt’s external debt repayments, including offers for the armed forces to pay down loans taken in their own name.”
“Every time the idea was floated that the military could help with debt, even by covering its own obligations, it was shut down,” the second official added.
Gold revenues
The military’s grip on the Egyptian economy dates back to the mid-20th century, following the July 1952 revolution, when army officers overthrew the monarchy. Its economic role expanded significantly after the 2011 uprising, when the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) assumed control following the ouster of long-time autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
The situation intensified under President Sisi, who assumed power in 2014 after leading a coup that removed Egypt’s first democratically elected civilian president, Mohamed Morsi. Since then, the military has steadily expanded its presence in construction, agriculture, and other civilian sectors, justifying its reach as a means to deliver major national projects and secure economic stability.
The military’s revenues, which are not subject to civilian oversight, have been driven by a vast network of companies and investments operating across nearly every sector of the economy, with military-owned firms dominating much of Egypt’s import and export activity and generating substantial profits.
Additional income comes from land sales, real estate projects, and large-scale infrastructure schemes, including toll gates on major highways, whose daily revenues, amounting to millions of pounds, are channeled directly into military accounts. “Almost all aspects of the country’s economy are now controlled by the military,” the first senior banking official said.
“The military carries out multi-billion-dollar imports of strategic and essential goods, which are then supplied to the government at a profit,” the official added. “The proceeds flow directly into military-controlled bank accounts that civilian authorities cannot access.”
Even when the state faces acute cash shortages, the official said, government borrowing remains entirely separate from military holdings. The armed forces are the only entity permitted to export certain goods, including rice, despite a government ban on its export. The Egyptian army is also believed to control about 50 percent of the gold industry, the official said.
A 2014 law grants the Ministry of Defense authority to approve mineral exploitation and levy fees on all mining operations, with the overwhelming majority of extraction sites in military-controlled zones.
Together, these exports generate hundreds of millions of dollars each month, the official said, all deposited directly into military accounts. Military-owned and state-run firms benefit from tax exemptions, access to prime land, and army conscripts as cheap labour, all while operating with very limited financial transparency.
“Keep in mind that the military receives 50 percent of the output from Egyptian gold mines, with the proceeds going directly to it,” said the source. “This is important because it represents a significant contributor to the military’s dollar-denominated income.
“The value of gold revenues accruing to the armed forces is approximately $500 million annually. This is in addition to the importation of raw gold, its reprocessing, and re-export, which generates revenues amounting to billions of dollars annually. “The military is, of course, the entity responsible for deciding on or directly importing gold, whether directly or through intermediaries. In both cases, it is the beneficiary.”
In July, the IMF warned in a damning report that Egypt’s military-controlled economic model is crippling private sector growth, deterring investors, and keeping the country in a cycle of debt and underperformance.
The international lender also noted that military-owned firms continue to enjoy “preferential treatment,” including tax breaks, cheap land, and privileged access to credit and public contracts.
On December 23, the IMF said it had reached the staff-level agreement with Egypt on the fifth and sixth reviews of its Extended Fund Facility, a move that could unlock around $2.5bn in new financing, alongside a further $1.3bn under the fund’s Resilience and Sustainability Facility, pending approval by the IMF’s executive board.
The reviews were combined to give Egyptian authorities more time to meet key programme targets under the expanded $8bn loan agreed in March 2024, which was designed to stabilise an economy hit by high inflation and foreign-currency shortages. While the IMF said recent stabilization efforts had delivered gains, it reiterated that structural reforms, particularly the divestment of state-owned assets and a reduction in the state’s role in the economy, must be accelerated.
*Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) are IMF reserve units that act like a common “value measure” countries use and can be swapped into real currency when needed (SDR = $1.43 on 13 January).
Newsom Scrambles To Keep Billionaires In California, Vows To Kill Wealth Tax
After a swath of billionaires publicly announced they are leaving the state of California over a proposed wealth tax, Governor Gavin Newsom went into a full blown panic – vowing to stop the proposed tax and “do what I have to do to protect the state.”
In an interview with the NY Times, Newsom said that he has been working ‘relentlessly’ behind the scenes to kill the proposal.
“This will be defeated — there’s no question in my mind,” he said of the measure he has long opposed over concerns that it would stifle innovation in the state – as a growing list of tech CEOs have thrown their hands in the air and rage-quit the state over mounting plans to separate them from their wealth.
The plan in question – being driven by the SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West union – would require Californians with a net worth north of $1 billion to pay a one-time tax equal to 5% of their assets, and would apply retroactively to anyone who was living in the state as of Jan 1. Affected taxpayers could spread their payments across five years beginning in 2027.
According to the union, the tax is necessary to make up for deep cuts to health care signed into law last year by President Trump – which include reductions in Medicaid, ACA subsidies, and food subsidies. The union is demanding that California spend 90% of the new tax money on health care, with the rest devoted to food assistance and education.
The union’s Chief-of-Staff, Suzanne Jimenez told the Times; “The governor is focused on the wrong problem here,” adding “The problem is not just about the preferences of 200 ultrawealthy individuals. The problem is millions will lose health care, and that’s really the problem we’re trying to solve.”
California is on a path to self-destruction. Hollywood is already toast and now the most productive entrepreneurs will leave taking their tax revenues and job creation elsewhere.
The state’s nonpartisan Department of Finance warned in a joint review that the tax would likely deliver tens of billions of dollars in one-time funds for the state, but it could lead to hundreds of millions or more in annual losses from billionaires leaving to avoid the tax.
Notable billionaires who have left California or announced plans to leave include:
“This is what I feared, and it’s come true,” Newsom told the Times.
Even Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and a Democratic mega-donor who funds questionable left-wing causes, called out S.E.I.U.-U.H.W’s proposed billionaire tax. He wrote on X that this is a “horrendous idea” that might force tech founders and executives to flee the state.
“The proposed CA wealth tax is badly designed in so many ways that a simple social post cannot cover all of the massive flaws. One well-documented example is the horrendous idea to tax illiquid stock in the proposal. Poorly designed taxes incentivize avoidance, capital flight, and distortions that ultimately raise less revenue,” Hoffman wrote on X earlier this week.
Meanwhile, business leaders across the state are raising money to oppose the wealth tax – setting the stage for a serious showdown if it reaches the ballot.
According to Ron Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, the proposal “would undermine our economy, decimate the state budget, drive investment out of the state and ultimately make everyday life more expensive for working families.”
Supporters of the tax, on the other hand, have begun collecting the nearly 900,000 signatures they’ll need to place the measure on the ballot.
Recent turmoil in Venezuela and Iran has again put the spotlight on the duality of stablecoins, with the US dollar-backed assets such as Tether acting as both a savior for embattled citizens and a tool for blacklisted entities to evade sanctions.
Both Venezuela and Iran have been catching headlines at the beginning of 2026 amid political uncertainty and civil unrest. With both facing a host of sanctions, inflation, political instability, and a cost-of-living crisis, crypto and stablecoins have become an important part of the ecosystem.
Iran’s stablecoin entanglement
Iran has seen protests erupt across the country over the past two weeks in response to worsening economic conditions and the Iranian rial tanking to record lows against the US dollar.
The situation has escalated from local demonstrations to widespread protests across Iran, with thousands arrested and hundreds reportedly killed. Amid this backdrop, the Iranian government also moved to cut off domestic internet access on Thursday.
Crypto and stablecoins have become an important tool for citizens in Iran, given that the Iranian rial has been plummeting in value against the US dollar for decades.
Tron-based Tether (USDT) is reportedly the most utilized asset in the country, with citizens using the asset to hedge inflation and systemic risk.
Broader adoption took a hit in 2025, however, with a hack on the country’s biggest exchange and a significant number of Tether blacklistings. Meanwhile, the government also set an annual limit on stablecoins in late September, allowing citizens max holdings of $10,000 and max purchases of per person $5,000.
But stablecoins have also been used by sanctioned entities. A report from blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs on Friday indicates that since 2023, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has allegedly moved over a $1 billion worth of stablecoins via two “UK-based front companies” called Zedcex and Zedxion.
The report claimed that despite the two firms publicly presenting themselves as individual firms, they have been quietly functioning together “as financial infrastructure for the IRGC.”
“In practice, they operate as a single enterprise embedded within a broader Iranian sanctions evasion ecosystem, moving value across borders, currencies, and jurisdictions on behalf of one of the world’s most heavily sanctioned military organizations,” TRM Labs said.
“A key figure in this network is Babak Zanjani, a longtime Iranian sanctions-evasion financier previously sanctioned for laundering billions in oil revenue on behalf of regime entities, including the IRGC,” TRM Labs added.
Venezuela is closely entwined with USDT
Similar to Iranians, Venezuelans have also adopted USDT to protect themselves against economic uncertainty, as the Venezuelan bolivar has plummeted over the past decade.
A severe lack of trust in banks has reportedly seen USDT so widely adopted that everyday people use the asset to pay for all kinds of everyday services, opting to set up crypto wallets instead of using bank accounts.
“It’s how you pay your landscaper and how you pay for your haircut. You can use tether basically for anything,” 71-year-old Venezuelan crypto entrepreneur Mauricio Di Bartolomeo told the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, adding:
“Stablecoin adoption has gone so far into Venezuela that even without having regulated venues where you can buy and sell them, people still choose to go for stablecoins as opposed to using the local banks.”
The WSJ also highlighted that USDT is highly utilized by Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela. The firm reportedly started demanding payments directly in the stablecoin to avoid sanctions that were first imposed back in 2020.
The company is estimated to accept 80% of all its oil revenue via Tether and frequently uses the asset to settle incoming and outgoing payments.
Tether uses blacklists to fight sanction evaders
The WSJ report adds that Tether has been fighting this by cooperating with the US government to blacklist “dozens of wallets” tied to the domestic oil trade.
According to data compiled in a Dec. 5 report from AMLBot, Tether blacklisted around $3.3 billion worth of funds between 2023 and late 2025, with $1.75 billion of that sum being frozen Tron-based USDT.
Over the weekend, the firm reportedly added to the figure by freezing $182 million worth of Tron-based USDT across five wallets; however, this has not been confirmed to be related to Venezuela or Iran.
South Korea Seeks Death Penalty For Ex-President Yoon’s Botched Martial Law Attempt
South Korea’s special prosecutor has called for the death sentence for former President Yoon Suk-yeol in his rebellion trial, according to Yonhap. Closing arguments have been made in his trial in a Seoul court as he stands accused of being the “ringleader of an insurrection”.
Yoon’s botched attempt in December 2024 to impose martial law in South Korea lasted a mere hours but plunged the country into political turmoil and chaos. He was soon after impeached from office by parliament and was arrested pending trial.
Seeking the death penalty seems ultra-harsh, but it’s actually in keeping with South Korean criminal code, under which leading a rebellion carries three possible penalties: capital punishment, life imprisonment with hard labor, or life imprisonment without compulsory labor.
Prosecutors allege that he ordered military and police forces to seal off the National Assembly in an effort to prevent lawmakers from entering the building where they would overturn the martial law decree.
Importantly, South Korea has not carried out an execution since 1997 – so if Yoon is eventually executed (though would likely be some kind of drawn out appeals process), it would send a chilling and strong message to current and future leaders.
In 1996, ex-President Chun Doo-hwan, who ruled from 1980 to 1988, was sentenced to death for rebellion, high treason, and corruption stemming from his role in the 1979 military coup and the violent suppression of the Gwangju uprising in 1980.
His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment by appellate courts, including the Supreme Court. He was ultimately pardoned in 1997 by then-President Kim Young-sam as part of a ‘national reconciliation’ initiative.
And in the years running into the 2010s there was this litany:
Chun’s successor, Roh Tae-woo, was also tried in 1996 on charges of rebellion and corruption. He initially received a 22-year prison sentence, which was later reduced to 17 and a half years. Like Chun, Roh was pardoned in 1997.
Former President Lee Myung-bak, who served from 2008 to 2013, was convicted of corruption and abuse of power and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was later pardoned in 2022 by President Yoon Suk-yeol.
President Park Geun-hye, who held office from 2013 to 2017, was impeached, as was Yoon Suk-yeol. In 2018, she received a 24-year prison sentence on corruption charges, before being pardoned in 2021 by President Moon Jae-in.
This is why, after the South Korean political system had somewhat stabilized in the last several years compared to over two decades ago, Yoon’s declaration of martial law was such a shock to Koreans, and to the West.
Amnesty International condemns it…
No one is above the law, but seeking the death penalty for former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is a step backward.https://t.co/x9flcVi10x
Prosecutors in their arguments have alleged the former president had been motivated by a “lust for power aimed at dictatorship and long-term rule”. They told the court: “The greatest victims of the insurrection in this case are the people of this country,” they told the court.
“There are no mitigating circumstances to be considered in sentencing, and instead a severe punishment must be imposed,” the prosecutors said.
Macomb County Clerk Anthony G. Forlini announced Monday that noncitizens have been appearing in the Michigan county’s jury pool “at an alarming rate” and many of them are registered to vote. The data indicates that many noncitizens have potentially sat on juries and/or illegally voted in elections.
During a press conference in the courthouse jury room in Mount Clemens, MI, Forlini stated that an internal review of the county identified 239 noncitizens selected for jury duty over a four-month period from September 5, 2025, to January 8, 2026.
The jury pool is drawn from the Michigan Secretary of State’s driver’s license database, which does not consistently flag citizenship status, allowing noncitizens—such as lawful permanent residents with green cards—to be included.
Forlini, who is running for Secretary of State, emphasized that noncitizens are ineligible for jury duty under Michigan law.
Upon cross-checking the 239 noncitizens against the state’s Qualified Voter File (QVF), Forlini’s office found that 14 had been registered to vote at some point, with three individuals appearing to have cast ballots, including one who voted multiple times.
This was just one county in Michigan over a four month period.
“We need to bring these issues to light, we need to be able to show a light on this and say, ‘Hey, there’s a problem,’” Forlini said. “Secretary of State offices need to verify all applications against federal databases. I think this is critically important.”
He said the three noncitizens who voted have been referred to county Corporation Counsel for consideration of felony charges.
The clerk expressed concern that the current system relies on self-reporting, meaning noncitizens could serve on juries without being identified, potentially compromising the integrity of the judicial process.
He also highlighted that Michigan’s automatic voter registration process, which registers individuals when they apply for a driver’s license unless they opt out, may contribute to the issue, particularly if applicants do not understand the citizenship checkbox on the form.
“Non-citizens are coming through at an alarming rate. Our jury service summons are based on random draws from the driver’s license bank. Frequently non-citizens slip through because citizenship was not flagged in the Secretary of State database,” Forlini stated.
He called for improved data sharing between state and federal databases to enable more reliable citizenship verification.
“We must find a way for the Driver’s License database to confirm citizenship. Many times there may be a language barrier, and applicants do not understand what they are signing. If this is not addressed, we risk compromising our jury trials and our elections,” Forlini said.
“One possibility is to take advantage of new breakthroughs in linking several databases, where one database is able flag another database for actual citizenship verification.,” he added.
The issue has drawn bipartisan attention, with former Secretary of State Candice Miller and state Representative Joe Aragona supporting calls for legislative review.
A member of the Macomb County Clerk’s office, however, stated during the press conference that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s (D) office said “we’re not gonna touch this” when presented with evidence of non-citizens on jury pool and voter rolls.
Benson, who is running for governor of Michigan, has refused to turn over unredacted voter data to the Department of Justice (DOJ), arguing that “nobody—not the president, the DOJ or any other federal agency has the right to your sensitive, private voter information.”
Critics have pointed out that Benson has had no problem with sharing complete voter roll data with non-governmental organizations like the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) and Rock the Vote, suggesting inconsistencies in her privacy claims.
The Justice Department has sued 23 states and Washington, D.C., for failing to comply with its requests for voter roll data.
Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, asserts that access to full voter registration data is essential for ensuring election integrity, preventing vote dilution, and verifying that only eligible citizens are on voter rolls.
“Why won’t they cooperate and let us help them clean up the rolls?! What else are they hiding?!” Dhillon posted on X, Monday evening.
In several states and hundreds of local school districts, traditional teacher salary structures based on years of service are being replaced by merit and pay-for-performance models.
The success of the Dallas Independent School District’s ACE (Accelerating Campus Excellence) program, implemented in 2016 and credited with improvements in math and reading scores, prompted many districts and state education departments to revise teacher pay due to stagnant or declining academic achievement and high teacher turnover, according to state officials.
The Houston Independent School District, which the state took over due to poor student performance, will begin rating and paying teachers based on their effectiveness, not years of service, in the 2026-2027 academic year, district officials told The Epoch Times. It will be the largest school district in the nation to do this.
Houston teacher salaries will range from $64,000 to $101,000, and those with unsatisfactory ratings can be fired. The annual evaluation process also authorizes the district to reduce pay if a teacher’s performance diminishes from year to year, according to guidelines released last year.
The purpose of this change is aimed not only at improving student outcomes but also at recruiting and retaining good teachers, leveraging state grants, and driving equity across campuses, according to the guidelines.
“It’s a very strong strategy,” Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, told The Epoch Times, adding that her research determined that bonuses above $5,000 are usually effective.
Texas-Sized Idea Catches On
The Dallas school district’s teacher and principal evaluation and compensation system is based on student achievement metrics, such as test scores, as well as student survey responses.
A 2025 analysis of the program by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University noted that, in addition to improved academic performance compared to other large urban school districts in Texas, teacher turnover decreased and was concentrated mainly among those who received low ratings.
“While such sweeping changes may appear blunt from a distance, a close look at the Dallas reforms shows they were carefully planned to guard against evaluation inflation, the arbitrary treatment of teachers, and strategic responses such as teaching to the test,” the report said.
The Lone Star State followed Dallas’s lead and created the Teacher Incentive Allotment program in 2019. So far, 809 school districts have participated in the program to pay high-performing teachers bonuses, and an additional 190 have submitted letters of intent to sign on in 2026, the Texas Education Agency said in an emailed response to The Epoch Times. Higher amounts are provided to those working in low-income and rural schools, and additional education reform measures passed by the legislature last year provide billions of dollars more for teacher salaries, with bonuses of up to $36,000 annually.
Arkansas launched its Merit Teacher Incentive program ahead of the 2024-2025 academic year. Teachers are eligible for up to $10,000 in annual bonuses, according to the state’s Division of Elementary and Secondary Education website.
Utah’s five-year pilot program, Excellence in Education and Leadership Supplement, launched last year. Participating districts provide $2,000 performance bonuses to teachers rated in the top 11 percent to 25 percent, $5,000 to those in the top 6 percent to 10 percent, and $10,000 to the top 5 percent, according to the legislation.
Tennessee lawmakers passed bipartisan legislation last year that allows school districts to differentiate annual teacher salaries by merit and value for certain specialties, such as chemistry or special education. Adam Lowe, the Republican state senator who sponsored the bill, said the goal is to reward and retain excellent teachers who would otherwise move to neighboring states.
“We crafted the plan intentionally to be flexible at the local level,” Lowe told The Epoch Times. “But it’ll require some bravery from school boards.”
Washington, D.C., public schools initiated a teacher evaluation process in 2009 and more recently introduced a bonus structure. Under that IMPACT program, evaluations are based on student achievement, observations of instruction, student survey responses, and teacher contributions to schools beyond their core duties.
Highly rated teachers in the nation’s capital can earn up to $25,000 in annual bonuses and $3.7 million over the course of their careers, according to the D.C. district website, which notes that through this initiative, the district has retained 93 percent of highly effective teachers and incentivizes the best to teach in high-poverty schools.
State legislators considered but declined to pass similar teacher pay-for-performance measures in Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, South Dakota, and Oregon, according to the National Council of State Legislatures.
Collective Bargaining Complications
In a typical school district that has a contract with a teachers’ union, a new teacher must perform well enough to pass a probationary period, but beyond that—if they adhere to their district’s minimum work expectations and behavior requirements—their job doesn’t hinge on student achievement, said Maxford Nelsen, research and government affairs director of the Freedom Foundation, a conservative policy center that also helps teachers and other workers opt out of union membership.
“A merit-based system where you can measure performance is the way most of the world operates,” Nelsen told The Epoch Times. “But it’s so unusual in public education that everyone views it as a crazy phenomenon.”
Texas and other states that don’t require collective bargaining agreements with public school teachers have an easier time implementing merit-based pay, Nelsen said. South Carolina prohibits collective bargaining in taxpayer-funded entities. Public sector collective bargaining requirements are more common in blue states, including California and New York, but Ohio is an exception.
Colorado, by contrast, doesn’t have a state law but allows school districts to decide on collective bargaining mandates, Nelsen said, adding that teachers’ unions still exist in states without the mandate, acting as advocacy groups instead of labor organizers.
He said union contract salary schedules are typically centered on preserving equity and rewarding seniority.
“The union interest is in the maximum number of employees and pay, and minimizing accountability on the job,” he said. “They consistently oppose any kind of pay-for-performance or merit systems. Ordinarily, a union is going to object to any unilateral change, even a positive one.”
Union Stance on Merit Pay
The American Federation of Teachers did not reply to a request for comment, but its website lists dozens of resolutions opposing merit-based pay dating back decades.
“Most public employees have insufficient control over their work and output to hold them responsible for less than superior performance when, in reality, they are working with systemic factors that are beyond their control,” a 2000 resolution reads.
The National Education Association’s (NEA) 2025 handbook states that “any system of compensation based on an evaluation of an education employee’s performance” is inappropriate.
The NEA’s most current nationwide salary listing notes that average teacher pay ranges from $55,086 a year in Mississippi to $103,379 in California.
Prioritizing Performance Over Credentials
The National Council on Teacher Quality found that 90 percent of large U.S. K–12 districts pay teachers more for having a master’s degree, and nearly one-third of the states mandate that credential for a permanent position even though there’s no proof of its effectiveness in classrooms.
American education would be better served by dropping master’s requirements or incentives and spending that money to retain good teachers, Peske said.
“Too many states and districts rely on a salary structure that rewards seniority and degrees instead of effectiveness and outcomes for kids,” she said.
Fentanyl Deaths Fall As Evidence Points To China Crackdown Trump Long Advocated
A sharp decline in U.S. overdose deaths appears increasingly tied to a disruption in the global fentanyl supply chain – an outcome that new research suggests may stem in part from intensified pressure on Chinese chemical suppliers.
The findings, published Thursday in Science, enter a long-running debate over what finally reversed a drug crisis that pushed annual overdose deaths above 100,000 during the Biden administration. Fatalities began falling in mid-2023 and dropped more sharply thereafter, a trend that has continued under Donald Trump, who has long-framed fentanyl trafficking as a national-security threat and used tariffs, border enforcement and overseas interdictions as leverage.
While public-health officials have pointed to billions spent on addiction treatment, naloxone distribution and domestic law enforcement, the research places renewed emphasis on a crackdown by Beijing – specifically, efforts to prevent fentanyl from being manufactured at all.
The paper concludes that the illicit fentanyl market experienced a significant supply contraction, “possibly tied to Chinese government actions,” citing falling purity in seized drugs, reduced seizure volumes and online reports of shortages. The findings align with arguments long advanced by Trump and his advisers: that pressuring China’s chemical sector was central to choking off supply.
“This demonstrates how influential China can be and how much they can help us – or hurt us,” said Keith Humphreys, a co-author of the study and a former White House drug policy adviser under President Barack Obama.
U.S. law-enforcement agencies have for years scrutinized China’s role as a key supplier of precursor chemicals used by Mexican criminal organizations to synthesize fentanyl. During Trump’s first term, Beijing agreed to classify fentanyl-related substances, though traffickers adapted by shifting to precursor chemicals instead.
Since 2023, however, Chinese authorities have shut down some chemical suppliers and tightened oversight. The Drug Enforcement Administration, in its latest annual drug intelligence report, said China-based suppliers are increasingly wary of selling internationally – evidence, the agency said, that enforcement pressure is having an effect.
According to the CDC, estimated U.S. drug deaths fell in 2024 to about 81,700, with roughly 49,200 involving synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. While 2025 data are not yet available, researchers believe the downward trend is continuing.
The timing remains contested. Formal U.S. – China cooperation was announced ahead of a November 2023 summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, months after overdose deaths had already begun to fall. Researchers acknowledge the mismatch but suggest Chinese enforcement may have begun quietly before the agreement was made public.
Some analysts remain skeptical. Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution noted that U.S.–China relations were strained at the time, making unpublicized cooperation less likely.
Still, multiple indicators point in the same direction. The study found fentanyl purity in DEA seizures declined alongside falling deaths, while online forums such as Reddit showed a surge in reports of fentanyl shortages beginning in mid-2023. Canada, which relies on similar precursor supply chains but employs very different domestic drug policies, saw a parallel decline in deaths.
“What’s really striking is that parallel across the two countries, even though the two countries have very different domestic policies,” said Jonathan P. Caulkins of Carnegie Mellon University.
China’s government says its enforcement campaign has produced “remarkable results,” citing hundreds of company closures and the removal of large volumes of chemical advertisements. The White House has credited Trump’s border enforcement, trade pressure and overseas interdictions with reducing the flow of fentanyl precursors.
Taken together, the evidence suggests that pressure on upstream chemical suppliers – an approach Trump emphasized long before it gained broader acceptance – played a larger role in the fentanyl decline than many policymakers once assumed.
The headline of this article is not a misprint. The reason why “affordability” has become the number one issue for U.S. voters is because most of the population is being absolutely crushed by the rising cost of living.
Just look at how much you are paying for electricity compared to five years ago. And just look at how much you are paying for food compared to five years ago. Housing costs have risen to absurd heights, property taxes have become absolutely insane in many areas of the country, and health insurance premiums have more than doubled for millions of Americans. It isn’t just a coincidence that so many people are bitterly complaining about the cost of living these days. The truth is that most of the country is experiencing very real pain.
Of course it isn’t an accident that this has happened. Our politicians have borrowed and spent 28 trillion dollars that we did not have since Barack Obama first entered the White House in January 2009, and I warned that all of this money would create rampant inflation.
On top of that, the Federal Reserve has pumped trillions of dollars that were created out of thin air into the financial system since 2008. That has helped the stock market hit record highs, but it has been one of the factors that has made the cost of living unbearable for the rest of us.
The very foolish decisions that our leaders have been making have had dramatic consequences.
Our standard of living is crumbling right in front of our eyes, and now a brand new report is telling us that 92 percent of employed Americans have been forced to cut back on spending…
For millions of Americans, staying financially afloat now means difficult trade-offs. As the price of everyday necessities continues to rise faster than wages, new data shows workers are cutting back wherever they can – often at the expense of savings, overall financial security and even essential needs.
That is the picture emerging from Resume Now’s 2026 Cost-of-Living Crunch Report, a national survey of 1,011 employed Americans, which has found that only 17 percent of Americans feel financially secure enough to cover essentials and save money. Nearly two-thirds of respondents cited everyday essentials as their biggest financial burden. What’s more, a remarkable 92 percent said they have cut back on spending, including on items many would previously have considered non-negotiable.
Please notice that only “employed Americans” were asked about the cost of living.
More than 100 million U.S. adults are not working at all.
For those that do not regularly follow my work, yes that is an accurate number. The vast majority of U.S. adults that are not working are considered to be “not in the labor force” by the federal government.
Another survey that was conducted at the end of December found that 70 percent of Americans consider the cost of living where they live to be “not very affordable” or “not affordable at all”…
American consumers aren’t feeling great about the economy or their own financial situation, with the phrase “affordability crisis” dominating headlines and political campaigns over the last few months.
The majority — 70% — of Americans surveyed in a Marist poll of over 1,400 adults taken in December, say that the cost of living in their area is not very affordable, or not affordable at all, for the average family.
This is the result of decades of incredibly bad economic policy.
The purchasing power of our money has been steadily declining, and now 65 percent of employed Americans are struggling to even afford everyday essentials…
Sixty-five percent of the survey respondents said that affording everyday essentials was a top contributor to their financial strain.
Jared Kessler, founder of Forex Broker, said the concentration of stress around essentials is a key indicator that the problem runs deeper than any short-term financial shocks. “It is clear, based on this data, that we are experiencing a real cost-of-living crisis as opposed to an immediate inflationary response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” he told Newsweek.
Read that last sentence again, because it is so true.
We are in the midst of a nightmarish cost of living crisis that never seems to end.
At this stage, 60 percent of employed Americans “could only cover three months or less of expenses if they were to lose their job”…
Sixty percent of respondents said they could only cover three months or less of expenses if they were to lose their job, leaving little room for error in the event of layoffs, illness or other events that could impact their financial standing. For many, even routine expenses are being trimmed.
Most of the country is living right on the edge.
Nobody can deny this.
And consumer sentiment rapidly moved in the wrong direction in 2025…
Between January and November last year, consumer sentiment among the lowest and middle terciles of American household income fell 29.8% and 27.6%, respectively, while the country’s highest third of earners suffered a steeper 32.1% decline.
Our politicians in Washington shouldn’t have been borrowing and spending so much money all these years.
Many of us ranted about the bad decisions that were being made for years.
But most of the population didn’t listen.
Sadly, as I pointed out in a previous article, we have now reached a point where “affordability” has become the number one issue for U.S. voters…
A University of Michigan poll published in December shows that high prices remain a pain point for consumers. About 46% blame high prices for poor personal finances — among the highest shares since the series started in the late 1970s.
Consumers’ views of their current financial situation in December “collapsed” into negative territory for the first time since July 2022, the month after pandemic-era inflation had peaked, according to a poll published Tuesday by the Conference Board.
Overall, 65% of U.S. households say the cost of living has gotten worse or much worse in the past year, according to a recent Politico poll.
Previous generations handed us the keys to the greatest economic machine that the world had never seen.
And we went out and wrecked it.
50 years ago, the U.S. economy was so dominant that it would have taken stupidity on an epic scale to cause it to fail.
But somehow we managed to do it.
Even though our standard of living is in the process of collapsing all around us, most Americans are still working hard and are “effectively trying to muscle through this”…
“What we’re seeing is there is still inflation pressure across the system, particularly in the retail environment, and consumers, through our research tell us that they are effectively trying to muscle through this,” Will Auchincloss, Americas retail sector leader at EY-Parthenon, says. “They’re trying to buy what they’ve always bought or want to buy, but in the face of higher prices.”
Most of us want to continue to live the way we did before, but we simply do not have enough money to do it.
So U.S. households are piling up tremendous amounts of debt.
In fact, U.S. household debt recently hit an all-time record high of 18.59 trillion dollars…
Americans’ household debt levels – including mortgages, car loans, credit cards and student loans – are now at a new record high, according to data released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Total household debt reached $18.59 trillion from July through September of this year, up by $197 billion from the previous quarter.
Of course the federal government is an even bigger offender.
The U.S. government is now 38.4 trillion dollars in debt, and it is being projected that number will be well above 40 trillion dollars before the end of this year.
For more than a decade I warned about what would happen if we kept going down this road, and now it has happened.
We are literally committing societal suicide.
The next time you feel like screaming while you are paying your bills, you might want to remember who got us into this mess in the first place.
Now amid a days-long internet blackout which stretches to last week, Iranians are being offered free Starlink satellite service by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
“SpaceX has waived the Starlink subscription fee in Iran, so people with receivers in the country can access service without paying, according to Ahmad Ahmadian, executive director of the US group Holistic Resilience, which works with Iranians to secure Internet access,” Bloomberg reports Tuesday.”A person familiar with Starlink’s operations confirmed the free ser vice, while asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public,” the report says further.
Word of this comes after earlier the same day President Trump encouraged Iranians to mount a coup and attack government buildings and institutions. In a serious escalation of his Iran rhetoric, Trump posted to Truth Social earlier, “To all Iranian patriots: keep protesting. Take over your institutions if possible. And save the names of the killers and the abusers that are abusing you.”
What started as economically-driven protests in Tehran marketplaces last month threatens to become a full-blown insurgency targeting police and government buildings, amid some reports that over 100 security personnel have died.
Western press accounts have focused on the allegedly hundreds of protesters killed, with some highly dubious sources on Tuesday going so far as to claim 12,000 demonstrators have been killed.
But what hasn’t been a focus is that semi-official Tasnim News Agency is claiming that at least 109 security personnel have lost their lives.
“The servicemen were martyred after swarms of violent rioters attacked them by firing bullets and hitting the law enforcement forces with various weapons,” said the commander of the special forces General Masoud Mosaddeq, as quoted in the outlet.
Various external forces have tried to hijack the protests, amid Israel’s Mossad also boasting its agents have infiltrated and are influencing events on the ground. So obviously, there’s a raging info war of competing narratives – just like with the Syria and Libyan regime change wars before.
Starlink will supposedly help video from on the ground get out of the country, but such info could also be driven by foreign NGOs (or else foreign governments). The Wall Street Journal freshly reports:
With the government shutting down the internet and throttling phone services, Iranians are leaning heavily on Elon Musk’s Starlink service to share videos of growing protests and the regime’s escalating crackdown with the world.
But Iran has intensified efforts to jam the service, which is banned in the country, and users are being hunted.
Over the weekend, authorities began searching for and confiscating Starlink dishes in western Tehran, said Amir Rashidi, director of digital rights and security at Miaan Group, a U.S. nonprofit opposed to internet censorship.
“It’s electronic warfare,” Rashidi said. He said disruptions are worst in parts of Tehran where protests are taking place and in the evening, when the demonstrators gather.
The battle over information—while secondary to the confrontations taking place nightly in dozens of cities across Iran—has potentially serious consequences. President Trump has threatened to intervene in response to a crackdown by the regime.
But this can go the other way as well. Plenty of videos have surfaced which purport to show Iranian security officers being assassinated, beaten or stabbed by anti-government crowds.
Potomac, Maryland-based Clown Prince Reza Pahlavi has explicitly called for violent attacks on IRIB media facilities and its staff
He’s also called for targeting (read: killing) any government worker who does not quit their job and join the regime change riots https://t.co/5W9t4zP9WP
According to Iranian state news outlet Press TV, President Masoud Pezeshkian accused US and Israeli intelligence agencies of training armed units, with that training happening both inside and outside the country. If outside governments are directly aiding the agitators, it wouldn’t be the first time that technique was used in an attempt to impose regime change on Iran. In 1953, US and British intelligence engineered a coup d’etat that ousted Iran’s democratically-elected prime minister,Mohammad Mosaddegh. “Operation Ajax” involved the use of CIA-funded Iranian agents and “rented” crowds of anti-government demonstrators.
Tehran is likely to seize on these reports of SpaceX offering free Starlink access and assistance, in order to further accuse the West of waging a covert campaign aimed at destabilizing the Iranian government. Well and this covert foreign-backed campaign is probably already in full swing.
