Scoop: Top Republicans are banking on Trump’s promised $8 billion for farmers to stem GOP bleeding in farm states. It’s worked in the past just ahead of Election Day.
But the internal, taxpayer funded USDA account Trump is tapping doesn’t actually have enough $$ in it right now to make the direct payments. Congress will have to approve the new funds (a fight ahead in a GOP pkg or bipartisan year-end bill) or the admin will have to take it from another program, per Trump officials.
Farmers won’t get any payments until late Nov or Dec at the earliest, likely later. The disaster aid-like payment structure is coming later in Nov.
Farm state Hill Rs are still planning to push for another +$12 billion in year-end package. They've said farmers need +$50 million in aid to recover from the hit of tariffs and high fuel costs.
I do wonder how popular socialism for Farmer Brown will be in December, with so many (likely) voting for the last time. Eh, that might make them more generous; who really knows? But focus on the fact that money isn’t there, and then follow this:
Andrew Feinberg was the reporter in that exchange. The White House amplified Trump's outrage:
Feinberg makes clear the insult is one he would never use. No one should. It didn’t start that way.
But it went that way:All for an event that started off pretty normal. White House officials were going to hand out a reward to Nick Shirley, the right-wing YouTuber whose viral videos jump-started the administration’s crusade against day-care and home health care businesses in Minnesota run or owned by Somali-Americans. For their part, Trump, Vance and even Shirley acted like the idea of rewarding whistleblowers was new and unique to this administration, with the YouTube personality claiming there has “never been an incentive for anyone to ever expose fraud” in the country’s entire history.
Because I’ve spent most of my professional life covering the federal government, I know there’s already a mechanism to reward whistleblowers on the books, I knew Shirley — and the rest — were dead wrong about that.
That mechanism is a law dating back to 1863. That’s all that’s really relevant to our conversation, here. That, and the law allows
qui tam cases (guaranteed Trump has never heard that term), and pays up to 25% of the recovered funds goes to the whistleblower. Again, by law.
Let’s keep this that simple. Because the important point is the law, and it allows 25% as a “finder’s fee.” Trump’s “big announcement” today was that he was offering 1% for the same info. You can see up there 👆
Feinberg asking about that, and Trump’s response.
So why would anyone use the administration’s “tip line” when they could get far more cash for using the tried-and-true process that’s been around since the days of Abraham Lincoln?
I asked the president that exact question. His response? “Because it’s a lot of money.”
“At 1 percent, people will make millions and millions of dollars for turning in what actually is a somewhat routine crime of, you know, of millions of millions. But we’re talking about we’re talking about billions and actually probably trillions of dollars,” said Trump, who may not have understood the question or was unable to fathom that ten to 25 percent is far more than one percent.
The President, IOW, is innumerate. QED. He’s also a poorly informed boob. You can’t make millions and millions of dollars off 1% of claims worth millions of dollars. And under the Federal Claims Act, the whistleblower is entitled to up to 25% of the recovery.
There’s also the simple fact Trump can’t invent a payout system based on his innumeracy and an EO he signed and probably didn’t read. That’s allocation of federal funds. Only Congress can do that. More flatly, the Federal Claims Act is a federal statute with judicial opinions behind it. Trump’s EO is, by contrast, not binding on the Congress or the Treasury, and its terms are subject to Trump’s interpretation. Aside from the fact there’s the whole question of where the money for the “fee” comes from, and can the federal government claw it back in two years if it wants to? Spoiler: it can. EO’s are not binding on Congress, nor on subsequent Administrations. Not if the next President doesn’t want them to be.
Trump has absolutely no idea how any of this works. He cannot spend funds Congress has not allocated, and he can’t offer financial rewards Congress has not authorized. Two sides of the same coin. And it’s not his coin.
