Red Tape, Bureaucracy, and Official Dumbassery

When AP is fact-checking your Cabinet meeting, maybe the meeting was not exactly a masterclass

One of the cleaner ways to spot government nonsense is when an ordinary public event immediately needs a public fact-check. AP published a fact-focused breakdown of false and misleading claims made during Trump’s first Cabinet meeting of 2026, which is a pretty rough sign for a gathering that is supposed to project competence.

That is what makes this government nonsense instead of just normal politics. It is not only spin. It is institutional spin, delivered from the top, in a formal setting, with the full weight of government staging behind it. It is the official version of hoping confident delivery will distract people from whether anything being said actually holds up.

If a Cabinet meeting turns into a bundle of claims that need immediate cleanup, that is not strong leadership. That is bureaucratic theater with nameplates.

Source: AP News, “A look at false and misleading claims made during Trump’s first Cabinet meeting of 2026”

• Pointless rules that make normal life harder
• Agency statements that somehow make things worse
• Public officials defending obviously weak decisions
• Paperwork culture run completely off the rails
• Policy spin that insults the audience’s intelligence

The Employee Retention Credit handed out $283 billion and the GAO found serious flaws in how it was managed

The Employee Retention Credit was created during COVID to help businesses keep workers on the payroll. By the time it was fully expanded and the dust settled, $283 billion had gone out the door. A February 2026 Government Accountability Office report found serious flaws in how the program was run and monitored.

This is a bipartisan government faceplant. The program was created under Trump, expanded under Biden, and mismanaged throughout. Nobody running it apparently thought very hard about what "serious controls" over $283 billion might look like until the GAO showed up with a clipboard.

The lesson the government keeps almost learning and then forgetting: building a giant money pipe during a crisis and trusting people not to abuse it is not a plan. It is a wish.

Source: Citizens Against Government Waste, "This Week In Waste - February 20, 2026"

TSA agents worked without pay for over six weeks. That is the longest partial shutdown in US history and nobody seems particularly embarrassed.

The Department of Homeland Security ran out of funding and partially shut down, which meant TSA officers were showing up to airports, screening passengers, and working security lines without getting paid. For over six weeks. The longest partial government shutdown in American history.

At some point TSA agents started calling out sick at record rates, which is what happens when you ask people to do a federal security job for free. Trump eventually signed an emergency order to get them back pay. But the order may not be a lasting fix, and the underlying DHS funding fight was still unresolved while agents stood in security lines waiting to find out if their next check was real.

The part that earns this a Government Nonsense entry: the whole thing was avoidable. Congress had a funding problem they knew about. They did not solve it. Thousands of workers paid the price while lawmakers figured out their "final offer."

Sources: AP News, "Trump says he'll sign emergency order to pay TSA agents" · NBC News, "The longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history"

The rewards points expiring text is a scam. So is the one about your Social Security statement. And your tax refund.

April 2026 is giving scammers a lot to work with. The FTC flagged a surge in fake rewards program texts telling people their points are about to expire. The SSA's Office of Inspector General issued a warning about a sharp increase in fake Social Security statement emails. The IRS published its annual "Dirty Dozen" list of tax season scams including ghost preparers — people who prepare your tax return for a fee and then refuse to sign it or provide their ID number, leaving you holding the liability.

The common thread across all of these: they use real-sounding agency names, create just enough urgency to make you click before you think, and count on the fact that most people have a vague unease about the IRS, Social Security, and loyalty programs that scammers are happy to exploit.

If you did not initiate the contact, be suspicious. If it feels urgent, slow down. If they want you to click a link or call a number they gave you, use the official website instead.

Sources: FTC Consumer Advice · SSA OIG Scam Alert · IRS Dirty Dozen 2026