More Recent Flagrant Spending: Climate, Broadband, and Indian Health Services
While the pandemic was known to have caused the federal government to spend wildly through programs like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—with over $4.6 trillion in COVID-19 obligations to date—that frivolous spending spree has masked a simultaneous spending spree on sundry other non-COVID programs.
Previously, Investigative Economics covered the recent billions going to healthcare programs—the Veterans’ Administration, LGBT causes, refugees, and research on HIV/AIDS, cancer, and Alzheimers’ syndrome. But there’s much more where that came from.
In general, total grants by the federal government have increased by over $444 billion per year since 2019—or $304 billion in 2024 dollars. Adjusting for inflation in this situation is complicated by the fact that the government’s wild spending is the main source of inflation.
Broadband
For the Department of Commerce, $34.5 billion in grant spending is related to broadband access—helping underserved communities without reliable internet cross the digital divide by subsidizing backbone infrastructure.
Much of that spending is likely through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which targeted $42.5 billion for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding.
While ostensibly a good idea, as of September of this year zero homes have been connected according to the Washington Policy Center.
Federal broadband funding has also been criticized for the decision to prevent Elon Musk’s satellite-based internet provider, Starlink, from bidding in the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.
Satellite internet takes much less infrastructure for rural locations, whereas wired connections require miles of cable to be laid, yet the FCC originally denied Starlink’s application because they “determined that Starlink failed to demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service.”
Climate Slush Fund
Unsurprisingly, most climate-related funding is through the EPA through what is dubbed the climate “Green Bank.” That is the $28.8 to $38.3 billion pool of money. Of that $14 billion is dedicated to run the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) as part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), which funds investments in clean energy.
Some of that—$7 billion worth—is the Solar For All program that subsidizes residential solar installations. Six billion will go to the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator, which funds net-zero buildings and zero-emission transit projects around the country.
Indian Health Service’s Varying Accounting
Another sharp spike in funding went to the Indian Health Services (IHS)—the medical payee for native American reservations—whose budget has doubled since 2019.
Those numbers are from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), usually a reliable source, but actual fiscal spending for that agency may vary as budget totals reported in other locations appears to swing wildly.
For example, HHS’s 2024 budget report lists total 2022 outlays for IHS—total money actual spent rather than appropriated—at $6.507 billion. But the HHS 2022 report lists total outlays at $10.951 billion. An IHS budget report lists the 2024 total as $9.7 billion.
Year to year accounting reports can sometimes differ based on corrections and spending that gets associated with one fiscal year over another, but a 68 percent discrepancy is hard to fathom.
