'It's a talent tax': AI CEOs fear demise as they accuse Trump of launching 'labor war'

Alexandria Jacobson,

 Investigative Reporter
October 6, 2025 7:02AM ET





Donald Trump and Melania Trump host tech leaders at the White House.

 REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Flanked by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump hosted a White House dinner with some of the richest and most powerful leaders of the world’s tech giants.

To Fraser Patterson, CEO and founder of Skillit, an AI-powered construction hiring platform, it was no coincidence that after the meeting last month of more than 30 Silicon Valley power players and Trump advisers, the administration unveiled a plan to charge $100,000 one-time application fees for H-1B visas, which tech companies typically use to employ highly skilled foreign workers.

“It can appear as though, rather than it being an improvement to immigration policy, it feels a little more like a labor war strategy,” Patterson said.

“Isn't one of the great tenets of the American way of life and Constitution the separation of church and state? Wouldn't that extend to business, too, between business and state?”

Patterson’s New York-based company employs eight — an infinitesimal fraction of the workforce at giants like Amazon, with more than a million employees and nearly 15,000 H-1B visa holders.

“The largest technology companies are going to be able to hoard the best global talent, and I think it's easy to be able to draw a straight line between that and shutting out the smaller startups and the smaller firms that can’t enforce that price tag,” Patterson said.


“I think it scales back the competitiveness of the technology industry, broadly speaking.”
‘Global war on talent’

The Trump administration says the current H-1B visa program allows employers “to hire foreign workers at a significant discount to American workers,” and the program has been “abused.”

Last week Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) reintroduced bipartisan legislation, The H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act, to close loopholes in programs they say tech giants have used while laying off Americans.

But, Patterson said, limiting H-1B visas will effectively end up “closing the door on skilled workers” and “gift Europe the best possible opportunity to label itself as the tech talent hub.

“The general consensus is this is going to narrow the pool,” Patterson said.

“There's going to be just fewer nationalities represented, fewer ideas. The U.S. becomes less of a magnet.”

Rich Pleeth, CEO and founder of Finmile, an AI-powered logistics and delivery software, agreed that the fee might tilt the scales of tech dominance away from the U.S., where places like San Francisco and New York have long been considered global hubs for innovation.

“The global war on talent is real,” Pleeth said. “Europe has a golden opportunity … Canada, Singapore, Berlin, they're all going to benefit.”


Rich Pleeth (provided photo)

Finmile employs 15 people in the U.K., seven in Romania and two in the U.S.

“It's very challenging for smaller companies like us,” Pleeth said.

“Talent is everything, and if the U.S. makes it harder to bring in the world's best talent, where do you set up headquarters?”

While the Trump administration says the new H1-B fee will help American workers, particularly recent college graduates seeking IT jobs, Patterson said it would have the opposite effect, likely leading to “greater offshoring.”

Thanks to Trump’s array of trade tariffs, which he says will bring jobs back to the U.S., many American small businesses are already struggling to survive as they face increased costs.

“In reality, it's probably going to lead to labor shortages,” Patterson said. “You can't just turn on a faucet overnight to really highly skilled local workers.”

Nicole Whitaker, an immigration attorney in Towson, Md., said the proposed $100,000 fee sends the message to foreign workers seeking job opportunities in the U.S. that "our doors are closed ... find another country."

"This is a part of a bigger and broader push by this administration — even if things don't go into effect— to make it look like we are shutting down our borders. We are not open, and we're not welcoming toward immigrants," Whitaker said.

‘The next Googles’

Pleeth, a former marketing manager at Google, pointed to tech leaders including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who were born in India but came to the U.S. for college and to work.

“If you suddenly make it hard for talented people to come in, the next Googles are not going to be built in the U.S.,” Pleeth said.

“Talent is the oxygen for the tech industry. For decades the U.S. had an open pipeline … we don't expect the $100K toll to hit the tech companies who are the ones who can afford it the most.”

Skillit currently does not have any employees sponsored through the H-1B visa program but Patterson said he had used it when the fees were more reasonable, around $2,500.

Patterson, who was born in Scotland, came to the U.S. on an O-1 visa for foreign workers of “extraordinary talent.” He is now close to becoming a U.S. citizen.


Fraser Patterson (provided photo)

“Very onerous, nerve-racking, even to get here … but I would say it wasn't disproportional to the value of coming here,” he said.

Pleeth wants to move from the U.K. to the U.S. with his wife, two daughters and dog, a process he expects some challenges with but is hopeful will “eventually move forward.”

“It's just going to become a lot harder for junior people who can share cultures, can come in with new ideas,” Pleeth said.

“It's a talent tax.”

Alexandria Jacobson is a Chicago-based investigative reporter at Raw Story, focusing on money in politics, government accountability and electoral politics. Prior to joining Raw Story in 2023, Alex reported extensively on social justice, business and tech issues for several news outlets, including ABC News, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. She can be reached at alexandria@rawstory.com. More about Alexandria Jacobson.

'Anxiousness and frustration' hits red state as Trump serves 'bitter pill': rural leader

Cami Koons,

 Iowa Capital Dispatch
October 4, 2025 



Tom Adam, Iowa Soybean Association president, farms near Harper, Iowa, in Keokuk County.

 (Photo by Joclyn Kuboushek/Iowa Soybean Association)

Iowa Soybean Association President Tom Adam urged the Trump administration, in a statement Thursday, to prioritize a trade deal with China and to support soybean farmers who are without their biggest market.

China typically buys 60% of global soybean exports, and the U.S. used to be China’s preferred supplier until it turned to Brazil during the trade wars of the first Trump administration.

Now, China appears to have turned to Argentina for its soybeans, and U.S. farmers worry they’ll be stuck with a bountiful harvest and nowhere to sell it.

China placed an order with Argentina shortly after the U.S. agreed to a $20 billion bailout deal with the South American country. According to the American Soybean Association, China typically purchases soybeans from the U.S. before harvest begins. A couple weeks into the harvest season in Iowa, and China has not placed an order, presumably in protest of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.

“Agriculture thrives when America leads on trade,” Adam said in the statement. “We can’t afford to let uncertainty and political maneuvering erode the markets farmers have spent decades cultivating.”

Adam said the mood in rural Iowa is one of “anxiousness and frustration” because of “trade policy that’s severely straining relationships” with key trade partners.

Adam, who also farms near Harper, said President Donald Trump’s current trade policies are a “bitter pill” for farmers, despite the fact that many farmers voted to elect Trump.

“With strong yields and a nearly ideal harvest season underway across Iowa and large sections of rural America, grain bins will soon be filled with quality U.S. soy that needs to find a home,” Adam wrote.

An Iowa State University report from July estimated that reciprocal tariffs – where the country places the same tariff amount on U.S. goods as the U.S. has placed on their goods — could cause losses between $191 million and $1.49 billion to the Iowa soybean industry.

While soybeans stand to lose the most, according to the report, the corn, ethanol and hog industries in Iowa were also projected to lose hundreds of millions because of the reciprocal tariffs.

ISA urged the administration to broker a trade agreement with China that “immediately expedites soybean purchases.”

President Trump has expressed plans to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a trade summit at the end of October, but Adam said every day without a Chinese trade deal “closes the window tighter” on the “critical” sales period for soybeans between October through February.

The release from Iowa Soybean Association said this year, Iowa farmers are set to harvest about 550 million bushels of soybeans across 9.3 million acres.

With no soybean sales to China currently on the books, farmers are worried they’ll have to find a place to store their crops, or find a different market.

Adam also urged Congress to “provide immediate trade mitigation funding” to farmers to tide them over until a deal can be reached.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said Tuesday that farmers would rather have a market to sell into than rely on a government payout. He also said the administration might find a solution using tariff money instead of congressionally allocated funds.

Adam said a federal farm payment was “not ideal” but that it would “enable many farmers to survive another year.”

Finally, the Iowa Soybean Association president asked the administration to finalize Renewable Volume Obligations – something EPA proposed earlier this year – to boost the biofuels industry. A boost in this industry would give farmers another soybean market to sell into.


“The crop is here,” Adam said. “The quality is proven. The demand exists. What’s missing is the resolve to reconnect America’s farmers with a world of buyers who want to purchase our soybeans.”

This story was originally produced by Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network that includes Missouri Independent, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

'We've lost a lot of contracts': GOP senator admits Trump trade policy now hurting farmers

Alexander Willis
October 3, 2025 

Screengrab / Newsmax

China’s recent boycott of American soybeans may end up costing American farmers billions of dollars, and, according to one Republican senator, blame should be placed directly on President Donald Trump’s trade policy.

“China is just not budging on this, and unfortunately, we've lost a lot of soybean contracts due to these... elongated negotiations,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) admitted Friday while appearing on Newsmax.

China announced the boycott following Trump’s on-and-off again tariffs on the Asian nation, which in April were raised to as high as 125% before being brought back down as a temporary tariff truce. Given China is, by far, the largest importer of American-grown soybeans, the boycott has left farmers enraged, with Trump, reportedly in panic, considering providing farmers with a $10 billion bailout.

Asked about the potential bailout for farmers, Ernst said farmers were not happy with the offer, and stressed the need to find a way to end China’s boycott, rather than subsidize American crop growers.

“Unfortunately, our farmers do need that assistance,” Ernst said. “They don't like it, they do consider it welfare, they want trade not aid, and so we really need to see some of these new markets opening up around the globe. We need to see additional domestic consumption of our commodities like soybeans and corn.”

Ernst has had a tumultuous relationship with the MAGA movement, with critics accusing the Iowa Republicans of “trying on a MAGA suit” to mixed results. She’s demonstrated a strong allegiance to Trump and frequently votes in accordance with his agenda, though has faced scrutiny from MAGA figures for being insufficiently loyal to the president, particularly after reports that she was skeptical of Trump’s pick for Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.

Perhaps in an effort to signal her continued loyalty to Trump, Ernst’s parting words on the matter of the potential bailout for farmers were ones of praise for the president.

“But if there's anybody that can make a deal, it's President Trump, so we'll continue to hope for the best and we'll help our farmers where and how we can,” Ernst said.

US farmers hit by trade war to get ‘substantial’ aid: Treasury chief

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE, IF AT ALL

By AFP
October 2, 2025


Farmers are a key political support base for President Donald Trump, but have been caught in the crossfire as Washington and Beijing traded barbs - Copyright AFP/File JIM WATSON

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled Thursday that “substantial support” for farmers would be announced next week, particularly for those growing soybeans, as they struggle with fallout from President Donald Trump’s trade conflicts.

Worries have been growing for weeks of a major hit to farmers, a key part of Trump’s political base, as exports to China dry up over tariffs instituted by Beijing in retaliation to US levies.

“You should expect some news on Tuesday on substantial support for our farmers, especially the soybean farmers,” Bessent told CNBC early Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal also reported Thursday that President Donald Trump is mulling $10 billion or more in aid to American farmers as the trade tensions take a toll.

The Trump administration is considering using revenue collected from the president’s tariffs to fund much of this support, the Journal reported, with the money potentially distributed in the upcoming months.

Asked about the matter, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins “are always in touch about the needs of our farmers, who played a crucial role in the President’s November (election) victory.”

“He has made clear his intention to use tariff revenue to help our agricultural sector, but no final decisions on the contours of this plan have been made,” she told AFP.

Bessent did not provide figures in his interview with CNBC either, but said: “They’ve had President Trump’s back, and we’ve got their back.”

Farmers have been particularly caught in the crossfire as Washington and Beijing imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on each other’s exports.

On Wednesday, Trump said that he planned to push Chinese President Xi Jinping on purchases of US soybeans when they meet in the coming weeks.

The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies are expected to speak in around four weeks, on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea.

The American Soybean Association warned in August that Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs were shutting US farmers out of their biggest export market going into the 2025 harvest — with China being a top global buyer of soybeans.

But Beijing’s counter tariffs, after Trump targeted Chinese goods with fresh duties, has stunted sales to the country. Instead, Chinese buyers have relied more on other exporters like Brazil and Argentina.

“Nobody wants to trade with us,” said Jonathan Driver, a soybean farmer in Arkansas.

While farmers can still sell their crops, he warned that many are selling them for a loss.

“It’s going to put several people out of business,” he told AFP. “And we’ve had prices of everything continue to go up.”

LATAM BLOG: Friends till the end? Trump's costly loyalty to Latin America's strongmen

Trump may genuinely believe that ideological friends will be friends "right till the end.” But in the unforgiving world of international economics, bills come due regardless of personal affection.

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By Marco Cacciati September 28, 2025

As the US administration shifts its focus away from Europe and Asia (though for how long remains anyone’s guess) back to its Monroe Doctrine backyard, South America's two largest economies find themselves on opposite sides of Donald Trump's ideological ledger. Argentina basks in the glow of unprecedented American financial support, whilst Brazil weathers punitive tariffs imposed purely to protest the prosecution of the president's political ally. The disparity betrays a troubling truth: Washington's Latin America policy has devolved into a personality contest, where economic logic takes a back seat to political theatre.

Just as Argentine authorities burned through $1bn in reserves within 48 hours defending the peso from politically-driven turmoil, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week announced America would deploy "all options on the table", including a proposed $20bn currency swap and direct purchases of sovereign bonds, to prop up what he called a "systemically important ally." Meanwhile, Brazil faces 50% tariffs on its exports to America – from beef to coffee – despite running a consistent trade deficit with the United States. The stated reason? Retaliation for Brazil's Supreme Court convicting former president Jair Bolsonaro on charges of attempting a coup d'état.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Trump's approach echoes a certain rock-ballad romanticism: the belief that ideological friends will be friends “right till the end,” holding out hands when all hope is lost. But international relations rarely follow the script of stadium anthems. Banking on personal chemistry to override economic realities is a dangerous gambit. And while warmongering against Venezuela, an oil-rich failed state under leftist autocracy, plays well across the US political spectrum, Trump's contradictory posturing towards Brazil and Argentina presents a harder sell. How does one explain bailing out Buenos Aires and punishing Brasília, when both policies harm American wallets?

The Bolsonaro factor

Trump's intervention on behalf of his “mini-me of the Tropics”, whom he apparently believes is suffering a witch hunt at the hands of leftist judges, represents an extraordinary breach of diplomatic protocol. In fact, the Brazilian judiciary's methodical prosecution of Bolsonaro and seven co-conspirators, including generals and cabinet ministers, consecrated the nation's institutional maturity. For the first time in Brazil's history, a failed coup has been tried in civilian courts rather than swept aside. The 27-year sentence handed down in September sent an unmistakable message: democratic institutions will no longer tolerate attempts to subvert the popular will.

But far from being impressed by this textbook application of democracy, Trump has responded with economic warfare, deploying tariffs as a cudgel to interfere with Brazil's judicial process. The irony is rich: these measures harm American consumers more than Brazilian producers. From January to July, Brazil exported 199.7 thousand tons of beef to America – around 23% of the US’ total beef imports – underlining the country's crucial role in feeding American consumers whilst the domestic beef industry stumbles due to drought and cyclical herd decline. The bottom line is, Trump's tariffs threaten to inflate grocery bills for his red-meat-loving base.

Brazil, for its part, has responded with equanimity. Foreign Trade Secretary Tatiana Prazeres announced plans to accelerate diversification efforts, prioritising markets in Mexico, Canada and India whilst deepening ties with China and other BRICS partners. The episode merely reinforces a trend already well underway: the US share of Brazilian exports has steadily declined as Latin America’s biggest market pivots towards Asia and Europe.

The economic illogic becomes even more apparent when considering America's actual trade relationship with Brazil. Despite Trump's claims to the contrary, official data show America runs a consistent surplus with the world's fourth-largest democracy. The tariffs appear driven in large part by Jair Bolsonaro's son Eduardo's relentless lobbying in Washington, combined with Trump's personal sympathy for a fellow strongman who, like him, refused to accept electoral defeat and inspired a violent mob of supporters to storm government buildings.

Milei's moment

Argentina presents the inverse scenario. President Javier Milei, the self-styled anarcho-libertarian who consults his dead dogs through a medium, has become Trump's favourite Latin American leader. The mutual admiration society reached peak absurdity when Trump adopted the slogan "Make Argentina Great Again" and offered what he termed his "full endorsement" for Milei's 2027 re-election campaign.

To be fair, Milei has delivered impressive early results. Annual inflation has plummeted from over 200% when he took office in December 2023 to 39.4% by June. He achieved a fiscal turnaround of five percentage points of GDP in just two months—a feat economists describe as previously unthinkable in Argentina. Monthly inflation has remained below 2% for four consecutive periods, whilst the government has maintained primary surpluses.

Yet these achievements came through brutal recession and wage compression, with many workers and pensioners experiencing declining purchasing power compared to early 2023. Milei's party suffered a devastating defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections in September, whilst his sister – and political mistress – Karina faces corruption allegations. Legislative rebellions have successfully overturned presidential vetoes on spending measures, sparking capital flight, investor distress and a run on the peso.

This is where American support becomes crucial – and controversial. Bessent's promise of a $20bn swap line and bond purchases amounts to a massive bet on Milei's political survival. Yet the Treasury Secretary hedged carefully, stating that "immediately after the election, we will start working with the Argentine government on its principal repayments", suggesting Washington wants to see October's midterm results before opening the cheque book.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has already fired warning shots, lambasting plans "to use significant emergency funds to inflate the value of a foreign government's currency" whilst "cutting health care for millions of Americans at home."

But opposition crosses party lines. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley complained that America would “bail out Argentina while they take American soybean producers' biggest market,” adding that “family farmers should be top of mind” in any negotiations.

The criticism resonates because it highlights an uncomfortable truth: Trump is simultaneously harming two key constituencies, using taxpayer money to bail out Argentine bondholders whilst his Brazilian tariffs drive up prices for American consumers

The China conundrum

Both relationships are complicated by Beijing's growing foothold in South America. Despite fierce campaign rhetoric about distancing from China, Milei quietly renewed a $5bn currency swap with the People's Bank of China. Trade with Beijing has actually expanded under his administration, with volumes doubling in some categories. Brazil has gone even further, accelerating its pivot towards the Asian superpower and other BRICS partners in response to American tariffs − a relationship Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi now calls “the best in history.”

The contradictions deepened last week when Argentina's emergency tax holiday for grain exports backfired spectacularly on American interests. Buenos Aires had eliminated its 26% soybean levy to encourage farmers to liquidate much-needed dollar holdings, but the move triggered such intensive Chinese buying that Argentina hit its $7bn sales threshold in just three days. The buying frenzy redirected Chinese demand away from American suppliers already struggling with retaliatory tariffs, prompting Bessent to hastily announce that Washington was “working with the Argentine government to end the tax holiday.” Having reached its revenue target whilst heeding Washington's grievances, the Milei administration promptly reinstated the levies.

Trump has thus achieved the opposite of his intentions: his ideologically rooted policies are pushing both countries closer to Beijing, undermining his administration's stated goal of reducing Chinese influence in Latin America.

Electoral arithmetic

The sustainability of both approaches faces imminent tests. Argentina's October midterms will determine whether Milei can secure the legislative majority needed for his ambitious reform agenda. Current projections suggest his La Libertad Avanza party will struggle to overcome the combined opposition of Peronists emboldened by recent provincial victories.

In Brazil, meanwhile, Trump's intervention has paradoxically boosted President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's flagging popularity ahead of next year's election. The tariffs have united even moderate conservative Brazilians against perceived American bullying. Tarcísio de Freitas, São Paulo's governor and the emerging centre-right presidential candidate, has distanced himself from both Bolsonaro and his American patron.

When hope is lost

How long can ideology trump economics? Market realities suggest not very long. Reuters reports that Trump's recent softening stance towards Lula, a prelude to a possible meeting in the coming weeks, may have been prompted by warnings from American agribusiness about the impact of Brazilian beef tariffs on domestic prices. The president who promised to protect American workers can hardly afford to be blamed for inflating their grocery bills.

Similarly, Argentina's fundamental vulnerabilities persist despite American promises. The country maintains an $18bn currency swap with China and carries a renegotiated IMF programme requiring strict conditionality, with peak exposure to the fund expected to reach some $58bn by 2026. Government bond yields remain between 16% and 26%: levels that effectively lock it out of international capital markets. Even massive American support may prove insufficient if October's elections confirm legislative gridlock.

The deeper question is whether Washington can afford to conduct Latin America policy as an ideological beauty contest. China stands ready to fill any vacuum left by American caprice, offering infrastructure investment without political strings attached. European and Asian partners offer enticing alternatives to countries tired of Washington's mood swings. Most importantly, the region's voters have repeatedly shown they prioritise economic stability over ideological purity – the very reason why Milei triumphed in 2023 over the free-spending Peronists whose interventionist policies had plunged Argentina into yet another crisis.

But that pragmatism cuts both ways. Bessent’s dollars and IMF praise may not save Milei from the harsh judgment of Argentines next month, as many face declining living standards from his sweeping austerity measures. In Brazil, voters are distancing themselves from the toxic far-right narrative embodied by Bolsonaro and amplified by Trump's intervention. The likely result? Both countries gravitating towards the centre, whether through Tarcísio de Freitas in Brazil or, ironically, a Peronist revival in Argentina led by Axel Kicillof. Despite his disastrous tenure as Kirchner's finance minister, Kicillof has successfully rebranded himself as the pragmatic governor of Buenos Aires province. Voters, it seems, have remarkably short memories when desperation sets in.

Ultimately, Trump's erratic interventionism reveals the poverty of treating complex economies as simple morality plays. Brazil's democracy deserves respect for prosecuting an attempted coup, not punishment for following the rule of law. Argentina's pro-market reforms merit conditional support based on economic fundamentals, not personal chemistry between presidents. Until the MAGA administration learns to separate personality from policy, it risks accelerating America's loss of influence in its own backyard to more pragmatic rivals.

Trump may genuinely believe that political friends will be friends "right till the end.” But in the unforgiving world of international economics, bills come due regardless of personal affection. When American consumers face higher prices and Argentine reforms falter despite American largesse, ideological bromance will provide cold comfort. Reality, as always, will have the last word.

Marco Cacciati is the regional editor for Latin America at bne Intellinews.

Is the Pentagon Spending Taxpayer Money on Alien Tech?

Too over the top? Perhaps, but the Pentagon is so secretive that the public is left to speculate. Congress must hold the DOD accountability for how it uses its funds.

Ellen Brown
Aug 31, 2025

Common Dreams

The US federal debt has now passed $37 trillion and is growing at the rate of $1 trillion every five months. Interest on the debt exceeds $1 trillion annually, second only to Social Security in the federal budget. The military outlay is also close to $1 trillion, consuming nearly half of the discretionary budget.

As a sovereign nation, the United States could avoid debt altogether by simply paying for the budget deficit with Treasury-issued “Greenbacks,” as Abraham Lincoln’s government did. But I have written on that before (see here and here), so this article will focus on that other elephant in the room, the Department of Defense (DOD).

Under the Constitution, the military budget should not be paid at all, because the Pentagon has never passed an audit. Expenditures of public funds without a public accounting violate Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution, which provides:
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

The Pentagon failed its seventh financial audit in 2024, with 63% of its $4.1 trillion in assets—approximately $2.58 trillion—untracked. From 1998 to 2015, it failed to account for $21 trillion in spending.

As concerning today as the financial burden is the wielding of secret power. US President Dwight Eisenhower warned in his 1961 farewell address: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

President John F. Kennedy echoed that concern, warning in 1961 that “secret societies” and excessive secrecy are “repugnant in a free and open society,” threatening democracy by withholding truth from the public. He warned that excessive concealment, even for national security, undermines democracy by denying citizens the facts needed to hold power accountable. “No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed,” he said. If untracked billions fund classified programs, citizens are left powerless, governed by a shadow entity answerable to no one.

Those concerns persist today. On August 13, 2025, Joe Rogan interviewed US Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who leads a House Oversight Committee focused on government transparency regarding various topics, including UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, formerly UFOs). Luna said the committee had been formed after she and two other congresspeople were denied access at Eglin Air Force Base to information on UAPs provided by whistleblowers. The problem, she said, was that Congress was supposed to represent the public and be an investigative body for it, “and you have unelected people operating basically in secrecy… I think this goes all the way back even to JFK, with how they basically have operated outside of the purview of Congress and basically… have gone rogue…”

The main gate into the Area 51 United States Air Force Nellis Testing Range is shown in Lincoln County, Nevada.
(Photo by David James Henry/ Wikipedia)

A Behemoth Without Oversight

The Department of Defense’s $885.7 billion budget for 2025, approved by the House of Representatives, dwarfs the military spending of China ($296 billion), Russia ($84 billion), and the next eight nations combined. Managing $4.1 trillion in assets—from aircraft carriers to secret drones—along with $4.3 trillion in liabilities (e.g. personnel costs and pensions), the federal government’s largest agency oversees a military empire spanning over 4,790 sites worldwide. Yet it operates with minimal oversight.

The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 mandated audits for all federal agencies, but the National Defense Authorization Act of 2018 delayed the Pentagon’s first department-wide audit to 2018 due to its unwieldy size, its decentralized systems, and its outdated software. The DOD has failed every audit since that time. In 2024, it could not account for its $824 billion FY 2024 budget, with 2,500 new audit issues identified. Of 24 reporting entities, only nine received clean opinions, while 15 received disclaimers due to insufficient data. In fact the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has flagged DOD financial management as high-risk for waste, fraud, and abuse ever since 1995.

A 2016 report in The Nation highlighted $640 for a toilet seat and $7,600 for a coffee pot.

As observed in a January 2019 article in Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi, openly secret budgets were first legalized in 1949 with the passage of the Central Intelligence Agency Act, which exempted that newly created agency from public financial disclosure. The act stated, “The sums made available to the Agency may be expended without regard to the provisions of law and regulations related to the expenditure of Government funds.”

The aim of the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 was to curb billions of dollars said to be lost each year through fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement of public budgets. Despite the mandated audits for all federal agencies, the DOD—the only major agency without a clean audit—has received $3.9 trillion in congressionally approved funding since 2018. “Every year that members of Congress vote to boost Pentagon spending with no strings attached,” observed federal budgeting expert Lindsay Kosgharian, “they choose to spend untold billions on weapons and war with no accountability.”

The Audit the Pentagon Act of 2023, backed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), proposes docking 0.5–1% of budgets for audit failures, but the measure has not received a vote.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), launched with promises to strip waste, fraud, and abuse from federal agencies, has conspicuously sidestepped the Pentagon. A June 2025 article titled “Why DOGE Was Always Doomed: The Pentagon Problem,” points out that the DOGE mission was seriously hampered by the Pentagon’s exemption from auditing:
In FY 2024, total discretionary spending was about $1.6 trillion. Of that, the Pentagon alone received $842 billion. In other words, it got more funding than all other departments combined. You read that right: one (very special) department received more than all the rest put together.

Funds that are not accounted for divert resources from critical needs like troop readiness, healthcare, and infrastructure. Overbilling by contractors enriches corporations while taxpayers foot the bill. And the lack of transparency erodes public confidence, as Americans struggle with domestic priorities.

The Missing $21 Trillion: Fraud, Waste, or Something Worse?

The Pentagon’s audit failures mask not just inefficiency and waste but pervasive fraud and corruption. Between 1998 and 2015, Inspector General reports show that the DOD could not account for $21 trillion in spending—65% of federal spending during that period. For perspective, the entire US GDP in 2015 was $18.2 trillion. In 2023, the agency failed to document 63% of its $3.8 trillion in assets, up from 61% the prior year. A 2015 DOD report identifying $125 billion in administrative waste was suppressed to protect budget increases.

There is plenty of verified waste to support the case for mismanagement. Military contractors, who receive over half of the Pentagon’s budget, are a major culprit. The F-35 program, managed by Lockheed Martin, was reported in 2021 to be $165 billion over budget, with $220 billion in spare parts poorly tracked. A 2023 CBS News investigation found that contractors routinely overcharged by 40-50%, with some markups reaching 4,451%. A 2016 report in The Nation highlighted $640 for a toilet seat and $7,600 for a coffee pot.

It is no longer even necessary to cover up fraud and corruption by wildly inflated prices. In 2017, former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) official Catherine Austin Fitts collaborated with Mark Skidmore, an economics professor at Michigan State University, to document the missing $21 trillion in unsupported journal voucher adjustments at the DOD and HUD. In a June 2025 article published in Fitts’ journal The Solari Report titled “Should We Care about Secrecy in Financial Reporting?,” Dr. Skidmore discussed how the government responded to the publication of his research with Fitts. Its response was to immediately eliminate the paper trail leading to its covert financial operations. In particular: “Pentagon officials turned to the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) for advice. Several months later, FASAB posted a new document (FASAB 56), which recommended that the government be allowed to misstate and move funds to conceal expenditures if it is deemed necessary to protect national security interests.”

Fitts remarked, “The White House and Congress just opened a pipeline into the back of the US Treasury, and announced to every private army, mercenary, and thug in the world that we are open for business.”

Speculation Run Rampant

In a widely-viewed interview by Tucker Carlson on April 28, 2025, Fitts expressed her belief that the missing trillions had been funneled into classified projects involving advanced technologies, including massive underground bunkers to protect elites from a “near-extinction event;” and that they were using advanced energy systems and hidden transit networks possibly linked to extraterrestrial tech. She discussed “interdimensional intelligence” and a secret space program linked to a “breakaway civilization.” The latter term was coined by UFO researcher Richard Dolan and is defined by Google as “a theoretical, hidden society that operates outside of mainstream civilization with advanced technology, often linked to UFO phenomena and secret space programs.”

In a Danny Jones interview in May 2025, Fitts alluded to Deep Underground Military Bases (“DUMBs”), perhaps used for “advanced technology or off-world operations.” Existence of these bases was confirmed two decades earlier by whistleblower Philip Schneider, a US government geologist and engineer involved in their construction. In his last presentation in 1995, Schneider said there were 131 of these cities connected underground by mag-lev rail, built at a cost of $17-26 billion each. According to his biographer, Schneider was assassinated in 1996 by a US intelligence agency for disclosing the government cover-up of UFOs and aliens.

Too over the top? Perhaps, but the Pentagon is so secretive that the public is left to speculate. Are we dealing with a scenario like that in such Hollywood movies as the 1997 film Men in Black, in which hidden forces—human or alien—control our fate?

As taxpayers footing the bill, we are entitled to know not only where our money is being spent but who is really in charge of our government.

The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) contends that no verifiable evidence supports extraterrestrial activity. But other prominent figures support the UFO-UAP narrative. In 2017, the New York Times exposed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), said to be a $22 million DOD initiative run by Luis Elizondo investigating UAPs from 2007-2012.

According to BBC News, Haim Eshed, former head of Israel’s space security program, claimed in a 2020 interview with the Yediot Aharonot newspaper that the US government has an “agreement” with a “Galactic Federation” of extraterrestrials. He alleged aliens have been in contact with the US and Israel, with secret underground bases where they collaborate on experiments. Eshed claimed the United States was on the verge of disclosing this under President Donald Trump but withheld it to avoid “mass hysteria.” The claims were unverified but provocative.

In recent years, Congress has increased its focus on UAPs, with high-profile hearings in 2022, 2023, and 2024. In 2023, whistleblower David Grusch, a former intelligence officer, testified that the US possesses “non-human origin” craft and “dead pilots,” based on classified briefings. On November 13, 2024, the House Oversight Committee’s hearing, “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth,” featured testimony from Luis Elizondo, retired Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, journalist Michael Shellenberger, and former NASA official Michael Gold, who claimed the US possesses UAP technologies and has harmed personnel in secret retrieval programs. Shellenberger alleged that a covert “Immaculate Constellation” program hides UAP data from Congress.

Some lawmakers, including Rep. Luna and Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), continue to criticize Pentagon secrecy and to push for transparency. In May 2024, Burchett introduced the UAP Transparency Act, requiring the declassification of all UAP-related documents within 270 days. He stated:
This bill isn’t all about finding little green men or flying saucers, it’s about forcing the Pentagon and federal agencies to be transparent with the American people. I’m sick of hearing bureaucrats telling me these things don’t exist while we’ve spent millions of taxpayer dollars on studying them for decades.
Secrecy Undermines Democracy

With $21 trillion unaccounted for historically, $165 billion in F-35 overruns, and $125 billion in buried waste, the DOD’s financial mismanagement needs urgent reform. Congress is primarily responsible for overseeing the DOD budget, exercising its constitutional “power of the purse” under Article 1 of the US Constitution. So why isn’t it enforcing this mandate?

The chief excuse given is the need for secrecy for security reasons, but a congressional committee could be given access to the Pentagon’s financial data in closed session in order to exercise public oversight and enforce accountability. Other factors are obviously at play, including political influence, lobbying, campaign contributions from the defense sector, and a lack of penalties for noncompliance.

To restore accountability, Congress needs to enforce the Audit the Pentagon Act, modernize DOD systems, and investigate contractors profiting from lax oversight. UAP transparency is also critical, whether to debunk myths or uncover truths.

As taxpayers footing the bill, we are entitled to know not only where our money is being spent but who is really in charge of our government. The Pentagon’s secrecy and lack of accountability could be shielding anything from contractor fraud to UAP programs and alien alliances. If there is information so secret that even our elected representatives don’t have access to it, who does have access? Is there a secret government above the government we know? Without fiscal transparency and accountability, we can no longer call ourselves a democracy, as JFK warned.

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Ellen Brown
Ellen Brown is an attorney and founder of the Public Banking Institute. She is the author of twelve books, including the best-selling "Web of Debt," and "The Public Bank Solution," which explores successful public banking models historically and globally.
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The US Military Budget Nobody Controls

Unaudited Power

by Ellen Brown / August 28th, 2025

The U.S. federal debt has now passed $37 trillion and is growing at the rate of $1 trillion every five months. Interest on the debt exceeds $1 trillion annually, second only to Social Security in the federal budget. The military outlay is also close to $1 trillion, consuming nearly half of the discretionary budget.

As a sovereign nation, the United States could avoid debt altogether by simply paying for the budget deficit with Treasury-issued “Greenbacks,” as Abraham Lincoln’s government did. But I have written on that before (see here and here), so this article will focus on that other elephant in the room, the Department of Defense.

Under the Constitution, the military budget should not be paid at all, because the Pentagon has never passed an audit. Expenditures of public funds without a public accounting violate Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7of the Constitution, which provides:

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

The Pentagon failed its seventh financial audit in 2024, with 63% of its $4.1 trillion in assets—approximately $2.58 trillion—untracked. From 1998 to 2015, it failed to account for $21 trillion in spending.

As concerning today as the financial burden is the wielding of secret power. Pres. Dwight Eisenhower warned in his 1961 farewell address, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Pres. John F. Kennedy echoed that concern, warning in 1961 that “secret societies” and excessive secrecy are “repugnant in a free and open society,” threatening democracy by withholding truth from the public. He warned that excessive concealment, even for national security, undermines democracy by denying citizens the facts needed to hold power accountable. “No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed,” he said.  If untracked billions fund classified programs, citizens are left powerless, governed by a shadow entity answerable to no one.

Those concerns persist today. On Aug. 13, 2025, Joe Rogan interviewed U.S. Representative Anna Paulina Luna, who leads a House Oversight Committee focused on government transparency regarding various topics, including UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, formerly UFOs). Luna said the committee had been formed after she and two other congressmen were denied access at Eglin Air Force Base to information on UAPs provided by whistleblowers. The problem, she said, was that Congress was supposed to represent the public and be an investigative body for it, “and you have unelected people operating basically in secrecy. … I think this goes all the way back even to JFK, with how they basically have operated outside of the purview of Congress and basically… have gone rogue ….”

A Behemoth Without Oversight

The Department of Defense’s $885.7 billion budget for 2025, approved by the House of Representatives, dwarfs the military spending of China ($296 billion), Russia ($84 billion), and the next eight nations combined. Managing $4.1 trillion in assets—from aircraft carriers to secret drones—along with $4.3 trillion in liabilities (e.g. personnel costs and pensions), the federal government’s largest agency oversees a military empire spanning over 4,790 sites worldwide. Yet it operates with minimal oversight.

The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 mandated audits for all federal agencies, but the National Defense Authorization Act of 2018 delayed the Pentagon’s first department-wide audit to 2018 due to its unwieldy size, its decentralized systems, and its outdated software. The DOD has failed every audit since that time. In 2024, it could not account for its $824 billion FY 2024 budget, with 2,500 new audit issues identified. Of 24 reporting entities, only nine received clean opinions, while 15 received disclaimers due to insufficient data. In fact the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has flagged DoD financial management as high-risk for waste, fraud, and abuse ever since 1995.

As observed in a January 2019 article in Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi, openly secret budgets were first legalized in 1949 with the passage of the Central Intelligence Agency Act, which exempted that newly created agency from public financial disclosure. The Act stated, “The sums made available to the Agency may be expended without regard to the provisions of law and regulations related to the expenditure of Government funds.”

The aim of the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 was to curb billions of dollars said to be lost each year through fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement of public budgets. Despite the mandated audits for all federal agencies, the DoD – the only major agency without a clean audit – has received $3.9 trillion in congressionally approved funding since 2018. “Every year that members of Congress vote to boost Pentagon spending with no strings attached,” observed federal budgeting expert Lindsay Kosgharian, “they choose to spend untold billions on weapons and war with no accountability.”

The Audit the Pentagon Act of 2023, backed by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Grassley, proposes docking 0.5–1% of budgets for audit failures, but the measure has not received a vote.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), launched with promises to strip waste, fraud, and abuse from federal agencies, has conspicuously sidestepped the Pentagon. A June 2025 article titled “Why DOGE Was Always Doomed: The Pentagon Problem,” points out that the DOGE mission was seriously hampered by the Pentagon’s exemption from auditing:

In FY 2024, total discretionary spending was about $1.6 trillion. Of that, the Pentagon alone received $842 billion. In other words, it got more funding than all other departments combined. You read that right: one (very special) department received more than all the rest put together.

Funds that are not accounted for divert resources from critical needs like troop readiness, healthcare, and infrastructure. Overbilling by contractors enriches corporations while taxpayers foot the bill. And the lack of transparency erodes public confidence, as Americans struggle with domestic priorities.

The Missing $21 Trillion: Fraud, Waste or Something Worse?

The Pentagon’s audit failures mask not just inefficiency and waste but pervasive fraud and corruption. Between 1998 and 2015, Inspector General reports show that the DoD could not account for $21 trillion in spending—65% of federal spending during that period. For perspective, the entire U.S. GDP in 2015 was $18.2 trillion. In 2023, the agency failed to document 63% of its $3.8 trillion in assets, up from 61% the prior year. A 2015 DoD report identifying $125 billion in administrative waste was suppressed to protect budget increases.

There is plenty of verified waste to support the case for mismanagement. Military contractors, who receive over half of the Pentagon’s budget, are a major culprit. The F-35 program, managed by Lockheed Martin, was reported in 2021 to be $165 billion over budget, with $220 billion in spare parts poorly tracked. A 2023 CBS News investigation found that contractors routinely overcharged by 40–50%, with some markups reaching 4,451%. A 2016 report in the Nation highlighted $640 for a toilet seat and $7,600 for a coffee pot.

It is no longer even necessary to cover up fraud and corruption by wildly inflated prices. In 2017, former HUD official Catherine Austin Fitts collaborated with Mark Skidmore, an economics professor at Michigan State University, to document the missing $21 trillion in unsupported journal voucher adjustments at the DoD and HUD. In a June 2025 article published in Fitts’ journal The Solari Report titled “Should We Care about Secrecy in Financial Reporting?,” Dr. Skidmore discussed how the government responded to the publication of his research with Fitts. Its response was to immediately eliminate the paper trail leading to its covert financial operations. In particular, “Pentagon officials turned to the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) for advice. Several months later, FASAB posted a new document (FASAB 56), which recommended that the government be allowed to misstate and move funds to conceal expenditures if it is deemed necessary to protect national security interests.”

Fitts remarked, “The White House and Congress just opened a pipeline into the back of the US Treasury, and announced to every private army, mercenary and thug in the world that we are open for business.”

Speculation Run Rampant

In a widely-viewed interview by Tucker Carlson on April 28, 2025, Fitts expressed her belief that the missing trillions had been funneled into classified projects involving advanced technologies, including massive underground bunkers to protect elites from a “near-extinction event;” and that they were using advanced energy systems and hidden transit networks possibly linked to extraterrestrial tech. She discussed “interdimensional intelligence” and a secret space program linked to a “breakaway civilization.” The latter term was coined by UFO researcher Richard Dolan and is defined by Google as “a theoretical, hidden society that operates outside of mainstream civilization with advanced technology, often linked to UFO phenomena and secret space programs.”

In a Danny Jones interview in May 2025, Fitts alluded to Deep Underground Military Bases (“DUMBs”), perhaps used for “advanced technology or off-world operations.” Existence of these bases was confirmed two decades earlier by whistleblower Philip Schneider, a U.S. government geologist and engineer involved in their construction. In his last presentation in 1995, Schneider said there were 131 of these cities connected underground by mag-lev rail, built at a cost of $17-26 billion each. According to his biographer, Schneider was assassinated in 1996 by a U.S. intelligence agency for disclosing the government cover-up of UFOs and aliens.

Too over the top? Perhaps, but the Pentagon is so secretive that the public is left to speculate. Are we dealing with a scenario like that in such Hollywood movies as the 1997 film Men in Black, in which hidden forces—human or alien—control our fate?

The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) contends that no verifiable evidence supports extraterrestrial activity. But other prominent figures support the UFO/UAP narrative. In 2017, the New York Times exposed the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), said to be a $22 million DoD initiative run by Luis Elizondo investigating UAPs from 2007–2012.

According to BBC News, Haim Eshed, former head of Israel’s space security program, claimed in a 2020 interview with the Yediot Aharonot newspaper that the U.S. government has an “agreement” with a “Galactic Federation” of extraterrestrials. He alleged aliens have been in contact with the U.S. and Israel, with secret underground bases where they collaborate on experiments. Eshed claimed the United States was on the verge of disclosing this under President Trump but withheld it to avoid “mass hysteria.” The claims were unverified but provocative.

In recent years, Congress has increased its focus on UAPs, with high-profile hearings in 2022, 2023, and 2024. In 2023, whistleblower David Grusch, a former intelligence officer, testified that the U.S. possesses “non-human origin” craft and “dead pilots,” based on classified briefings. On November 13, 2024, the House Oversight Committee’s hearing, “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth,” featured testimony from Luis Elizondo, retired Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, journalist Michael Shellenberger, and former NASA official Michael Gold, who claimed the U.S. possesses UAP technologies and has harmed personnel in secret retrieval programs. Shellenberger alleged that a covert “Immaculate Constellation” program hides UAP data from Congress.

Some lawmakers, including Rep. Luna and Rep. Tim Burchett, continue to criticize Pentagon secrecy and to push for transparency. In May 2024, Burchett introduced the UAP Transparency Act, requiring the declassification of all UAP-related documents within 270 days. He stated:

This bill isn’t all about finding little green men or flying saucers, it’s about forcing the Pentagon and federal agencies to be transparent with the American people. I’m sick of hearing bureaucrats telling me these things don’t exist while we’ve spent millions of taxpayer dollars on studying them for decades.

Secrecy Undermines Democracy

With $21 trillion unaccounted for historically, $165 billion in F-35 overruns, and $125 billion in buried waste, the DoD’s financial mismanagement needs urgent reform. Congress is primarily responsible for overseeing the DoD budget, exercising its constitutional “power of the purse” under Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. So why isn’t it enforcing this mandate?

The chief excuse given is the need for secrecy for security reasons, but a congressional committee could be given access to the Pentagon’s financial data in closed session in order to exercise public oversight and enforce accountability. Other factors are obviously at play, including political influence, lobbying, campaign contributions from the defense sector, and a lack of penalties for noncompliance.

To restore accountability, Congress needs to enforce the Audit the Pentagon Act, modernize DoD systems, and investigate contractors profiting from lax oversight. UAP transparency is also critical, whether to debunk myths or uncover truths.

As taxpayers footing the bill, we are entitled to know not only where our money is being spent but who is really in charge of our government. The Pentagon’s secrecy and lack of accountability could be shielding anything from contractor fraud to UAP programs and alien alliances. If there is information so secret that even our elected representatives don’t have access to it, who does have access? Is there a secret government above the government we know? Without fiscal transparency and accountability, we can no longer call ourselves a democracy, as JFK warned.

• This article was first posted as an original to ScheerPost.com.

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Ellen Brown is an attorney, co-chair of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 400+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. Read other articles by Ellen.