Time to End the NGO Gravy Train

Every year, billions of American taxpayer dollars fund pseudo-charities that serve as little more than extensions of the Democratic Party. With roughly half of Americans voting as Republicans, many citizens are bankrolling their own political opposition — and the corruption runs deeper than one might imagine.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is finally exposing this corrupt system. What they’re finding should outrage every taxpayer: billions of dollars flowing to organizations that aren’t “NGOs” — that’s Washington-speak for non-governmental organizations, otherwise known as “nonprofits.” No, these groups are really BGOs — basically government organizations.

Consider the Solidarity Center, a group that’s been awarded over $86 million in federal funding since 2008, with $61 million given during the Biden administration. This union-created outfit gets 99% of its revenue from taxpayers while serving the AFL-CIO, which gave 86% of its political donations to Democrats in the 2024 election. The Solidarity Center doesn’t just promote union causes. It champions radical “climate justice” and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. When DOGE recommended ending its federal gravy train, the group promptly sued the Trump administration.

This is just one example among many similar schemes. For instance, federal agencies give grants to school districts, which pay Planned Parenthood to teach that biological sex is a myth. This is how the CDC funds HIV grants that somehow end up paying for Planned Parenthood gender ideology training. It’s money laundering with a charitable facade.

The pattern is clear and ugly: use tax dollars to fund organizations that advocate for bigger government, which helps elect politicians who keep the money flowing. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle of cronyism.

Naturally, nonprofit leaders keen to keep the cash coming object to DOGE investigations into this government funding. But nonprofits should not be as reliant on government cash as addicts are on drugs. Most of the federal greenbacks don’t go into smaller, community-based nonprofits but into large, government-dependent nonprofits, even though the latter groups are often less effective at actually helping people.

Big NGOs are much more effective at lobbying for a big-government agenda and filing lawsuits. A colleague found 15 government-funded nonprofits that sued Trump in his first month of this term. Their collective taxpayer funding? At least $1.6 billion. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

The Environmental Law Institute exemplifies this regulatory capture. While receiving awards from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Homeland Security Department, it operates a “Climate Judiciary Project” that “educates” federal and state judges about climate litigation — the same judges who are hearing cases designed to extract billions from energy companies into the hands of environmentalist groups like the institute. That’s corruption masquerading as education.

Perhaps most corrupt of all was the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, tucked into the misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act. As government accountability expert Peter Schweizer puts it, this fund is likely “the most corrupt slush fund in U.S. history.”

When this corruption is exposed, those feeding at the government trough typically respond with efforts at emotional manipulation. Concerned about taxpayer-funded activism? That’s painted as wanting to take food from orphans. Question grants to radical nonprofits? Suddenly that’s opposition to lifesaving medical treatment.

These sob stories are designed to shut down legitimate oversight of how public tax dollars are spent. Don’t fall for it. It’s possible to support genuine charitable work while opposing the use of tax dollars to fund partisan political operations by either political party.

The deficit-plagued federal government cannot afford to waste billions on political advocacy disguised as charity. Legitimate nonprofits that actually help people — rather than push ideological beliefs — will be stronger when they’re accountable to donors who believe in their mission, rather than to government bureaucrats.

Time to end the gravy train.

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This article first appeared in the Baltimore Sun on July 12, 2025.

 

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/time-to-end-the-ngo-gravy-train/