Secretary Doug Burgum walked into a House Appropriations Committee hearing this week with receipts, and what he found buried in the Interior Department’s grant books should make every taxpayer in America reach for a pitchfork. He told the committee — on camera, under oath, with the whole world watching — that his department discovered NGOs where 80 to 100 percent of their total revenue comes from federal grants. Not donations. Not fundraising galas. YOUR paycheck.
And what are these “nonprofits” doing with all that government cash? Oh, just paying their CEOs $650,000 a year and employing four lobbyists at $400,000 a pop. You know — lobbying Congress to keep the gravy train rolling. What a racket!
Let’s walk through this beautiful little scam one more time, because we want to make sure everyone at home fully appreciates it. Step one: NGO gets a fat grant from the federal government. Step two: NGO uses YOUR money to hire lobbyists. Step three: lobbyists go to Capitol Hill and lobby for MORE grants. Step four: repeat forever. That’s not a nonprofit. That’s a money laundering operation with a mission statement.
And who had a front-row seat to this bombshell and responded with the calm, measured dignity of a seasoned legislator?
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Democrat from Connecticut, the ranking member on the committee. She started stammering, waving her hands around, and sputtering about how they “can’t get any information” from the administration. Lady, the information just got handed to you on live television. You just don’t like what it says.
DeLauro’s big complaint was that Burgum wouldn’t name the specific organizations. (Funny how Democrats suddenly love transparency when the spotlight is on someone else’s corruption.) But here’s the thing — she didn’t ask a single follow-up question about the $650,000 CEO salaries. Not one. She didn’t want to know which NGOs were running the scam. She wanted Burgum to stop talking about it.
That tells you everything you need to know.
Because here’s the dirty little secret that Rosa DeLauro and every other Democrat on that committee already knows: these NGOs are part of the machine. They take government money, they lobby for Democratic priorities, they funnel resources into progressive causes, and when budget time comes around, Democrats fight like rabid wolverines to protect every last dollar flowing to them. It’s a closed loop. A self-licking ice cream cone of taxpayer abuse.
Meanwhile, Rep. Chellie Pingree from Maine jumped in to accuse Burgum of “kneecapping industries” by favoring oil and gas. Because apparently the real scandal isn’t that NGO executives are living like Wall Street bankers on public money — it’s that the Interior Department isn’t subsidizing enough solar panels. Priorities!
Chairman Tom Cole, God bless him, backed Burgum to the hilt. He said the administration’s goal is to “remake the federal bureaucracy and rebalance America’s natural resource policies.” Translation for the folks in the cheap seats: we’re done paying six-figure salaries to professional grifters who lobby for their own paychecks.
Burgum, to his credit, didn’t flinch. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t take the bait when DeLauro went into her theatrics. He just laid out the numbers and let them speak for themselves. $650,000 for a CEO whose entire organization runs on tax dollars. Four lobbyists at $400K each. Zero accountability. Zero oversight — until now.
This is what draining the swamp actually looks like, folks. Not tweets. Not press conferences. A cabinet secretary sitting in front of Congress, opening the books, and showing the American people exactly where their money went.
And the Democrats’ response? Not outrage at the corruption. Not demands for reform. Just a meltdown — because the cameras were on and the receipts were real.
We’ve been saying for years that these NGOs are a slush fund. Now we’ve got a cabinet secretary confirming it under oath, with dollar figures attached. The only question left is which organizations are cashing those checks — and whether Congress has the spine to cut them off.
Based on Rosa DeLauro’s performance, we’re guessing the Democrats would rather you never find out.
