America Last: Taxpayer Money Spent on Vanity Projects and Political Slush Funds

In January 2025, Trump signed an executive order creating a DOJ program to compensate individuals the administration characterizes as victims of 'weaponized' prosecution — a fund explicitly designed to provide financial relief to political allies who faced legal action during the Biden administration. The program, funded through DOJ's existing budget authority, provides government money to individuals based on the administration's own determination of whether their prosecution was politically motivated. Critics note that this creates a direct financial pipeline from the public treasury to Trump allies, with no independent adjudication.

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where Trump assumed the chairmanship in 2025, undertook significant renovation work following the administration change. Reports from 2025 documented rising costs associated with ballroom and event space renovations. Separately, the White House itself has undergone renovation expenditures for entertainment and ceremonial spaces. Federal building renovation costs are subject to Congressional appropriation, but the specific direction of those funds — toward presidential-preference renovation projects — reflects discretionary choices about priorities.

Trump has publicly promoted the concept of a 'Trump Arch' — a triumphal arch monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. — inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The project, if pursued through federal channels, would involve significant public expenditure for a monument explicitly named for and associated with a sitting president — an unprecedented use of public monument space in the nation's capital.

The National Mall reflecting pool, between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, has been undergoing restoration work. While reflecting pool maintenance is a legitimate federal expense, the specific scope, timeline, and cost escalations of current restoration work have been subjects of reporting on federal infrastructure spending priorities.

Taken individually, some of these expenditures may be defensible. Taken together — and viewed alongside the simultaneous cuts to Medicaid ($900 billion over 10 years in the Big Beautiful Bill), SNAP ($187 billion over 10 years), and USAID programs that prevent deaths from preventable disease — they illustrate a set of priorities: spend on political imagery and allies, cut on programs that keep Americans and people globally alive and housed.