“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”
—The Declaration of Independence
This line, penned by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, laments the suffocating bureaucracy that the British Empire had unleashed on the American Colonies, just one of many abuses that precipitated the American Revolution. As we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, we would do well to remember this righteous outrage that the Founding Fathers felt toward the British monarchy, which they understood would always be a barrier to liberty and individual rights.
Like the founding generation, President Donald Trump also understands that bureaucracy and big government are the enemies of human flourishing, and has set about dismantling the multitudinous new offices erected since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal created our modern administrative state. Trump shares the outrage of millions of Americans at the great failures of many government agencies that siphon away their tax dollars for little return on investment.
It is infuriating, for instance, that our government sustains the Department of Education (erected 1979), which has demonstrated no real positive effect on the quality of schooling in 45 years despite massive amounts of taxpayer funding. So, when liberals weep and wail at its employees being let go, then ask if anybody voted for this, many of us can only answer by donning our tricorner hats, marching down the street, and raucously beating drums with smiles on our faces: “More!” we cry.
But the bureaucratic swarms “eating out” American substance must be fought at all levels. Blue states and cities are, unsurprisingly, supreme offenders. Two recent stories illustrate this.
In Los Angeles, city controller Kenneth Mejia has been involved in a fight against the powers that be since his 2024 Report of the City Controller’s Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Unit detailed massive corruption. In August 2025, Mejia decided to blow the whistle on the city council’s decision to trim his budget by 15 percent. This means a loss of 27 employees—despite a 61 percent increase in cases of fraud, waste, or abuse reported among the 40 departments and 40,000-plus employees in the 2024 report, controlling approximately $35 billion of the city budget.
That’s a lot of offices and a lot of substance to eat.
This month, Mejia again took to social media to report on how the city of Los Angeles decided to block the city controller’s attempt to do his job and audit the city’s use of funds to fight homelessness. Instead, they decided to hire an outside firm with no expertise in auditing for $3 million.
That the city is likely hiding corruption is supported by allegations of corruption in the LA Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), a joint agency of the county and city. Local news group LAist reports that allegations were made by fired LAHSA employees of misconduct by former CEO Lecia Adams Kellum that include: “financial mismanagement, wasteful spending, hiring unqualified friends into highly paid powerful positions, trying to destroy public records of her communications with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, and getting a lap dance while drunk from a consultant she had just hired.”
According to the county’s investigator, the requirement that LAHSA report all fraud, waste, and abuse to the county was not met.
One is tempted to respond by adapting the cynical line from the 1974 movie Chinatown: “Forget it, Jake: it’s Chinatown.” But Americans don’t want to forget it when it’s LA as a whole. They want answers and reform. Angelenos have an opportunity to demand some answers next month, on October 30th, when the city council meets. Mejia wants residents to insist that his budget no longer be under the city council’s authority.
Minnesota has fewer people than Los Angeles, but the frozen California of the Midwest is doing its best to keep up with the corruption and bureaucratic insanity. Acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Joe Long has announced indictments for fraud concerning multiple state programs this month. In a September 18 press conference, he lamented, “I’ve been prosecuting these cases for years and I have literally run out of ways to express what is happening in our state… and to explain the coming iceberg I see as we reckon with the fraud.” His judgment was that fraud seemed to be more prevalent than legitimate services.
The Feeding Our Future scandal, in which over $300 million of COVID-19-era money set aside to feed hungry children had been gobbled up by fraudsters, was bad enough. But on September 18, Long was speaking about the charging of eight people in a massive fraud scheme involving federal funds dispersed from Minnesota’s Housing Stability Services Program (HSS).
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office press release, the alleged fraudsters supposedly provided assistance with housing and moving expenses but used fake numbers to provide massive payouts for themselves. Set up in 2021 with a projected cost of fewer than $3 million per year, HSS distributed over $21 million that first year and was distributing over $100 million before the spigot was shut off.
This past week, more was revealed. On September 24, Long announced the first of a series of indictments for fraud from a state program providing Medicaid funding for autism services. The 28-year-old woman indicted had allegedly scammed $14 million. As Long observed at that press conference: “To be clear, this is not an isolated scheme. From Feeding Our Future to Housing Stabilization Services and now Autism Services, these massive fraud schemes form a web that has stolen billions of dollars in taxpayer money. Each case we bring exposes another strand of this network.”
Did you catch that? “Billions.” With an “s.”
Most Minnesotans and Americans want to know how all this money was hoovered up by fraudsters while Democrats apparently sat on their hands. Are state officials or politicians getting kickbacks? Or is this just yet another case of massive incompetence indistinguishable from malevolence?
Either way, Americans’ substance is being eaten up – either by people or because of people in public offices. From DC to Minneapolis to LA, our swarm of public officials seems to produce honey only for themselves and criminals.
According to the 20th-century longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
Americans want our government to reflect the movement started by the Founders. They would be satisfied if it were run as a decent business. But they want the racket stopped.
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.
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