Dear Reader,
THE GOVERNMENT LOST $186 BILLION LAST YEAR.
Not missing in a couch cushion. Not misplaced on a spreadsheet. Gone. Paid out to the wrong people, in the wrong amounts, through the wrong programs. The Government Accountability Office said so. Congress knows. And the total since 2003 is $3 trillion. That's not a typo.
Inside today's issue:
- $3 Trillion Missing: The GAO just confirmed $186 billion in improper federal payments for fiscal year 2025. Up $24 billion from the year before. The government keeps doing it. Your dollar keeps shrinking.
- DOGE's Accounting: Musk's team claimed $110 billion in savings. The GAO reviewed those claims. It could verify exactly 4% of them. The other 96%: unsubstantiated.
- The Real Number: The IRS estimates the annual tax gap at $600 billion. Add that to the $186 billion in improper payments. This is not a budget problem. It is a systemic failure with no one in charge.
- Larry Benedict, Oil Skimming: Larry Benedict says the oil market is creating unusual opportunities right now. (Brownstone Research)
Let me give you the numbers as the GAO reported them.
Fifteen federal agencies. Sixty-four programs. $186.4 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2025. That is $24 billion more than the year before. Not less. More. And cumulative improper payments since fiscal year 2003 now total approximately $3 trillion.
Three trillion dollars. That is roughly the entire GDP of Germany.
More than half of this year's $186 billion came from healthcare programs: Medicare, Medicaid, the earned income tax credit, SNAP. The government's own watchdog calls it "a government-wide issue for more than twenty years." Nine of the ten recommendations Congress made to fix this in 2022 are still open.
Still. Open.
Now here is where it gets good.
While this was happening, DOGE was running its war on waste. Musk's team reported saving $110 billion in taxpayer money. They put the number on their website. They held the press conferences. Trump called it a revolution in government efficiency.
The GAO went to look at those savings. Here is what they found.
For canceled federal grants, DOGE could not provide supporting information for 96% of its claimed savings. More than 22,500 contracts DOGE said were eliminated were never actually canceled. The GAO report said DOGE's numbers were "not transparent" and "largely could not be verified."
So the government lost $186 billion. DOGE saved a number it cannot prove. And we're all supposed to feel better about how Washington is cleaning up its act.
I have seen this movie before. Every empire, in its late stage, produces the same theater. It appoints a committee to investigate waste. The committee issues a report. The waste grows. The currency weakens. The committee gets a bigger budget.
Here is the number I keep coming back to: M2 money supply just hit $23.2 trillion. An all-time record. The Fed hiked rates last week and it is still growing. Every dollar of that expansion dilutes what you hold. Every dollar of improper payment adds to the deficit. Every dollar of unverified DOGE savings is theater designed to make you feel like someone is watching the store.
Nobody is watching the store.
But here is what this $186 billion number is really telling you about your money and what you can still do about it...
The government is not going to fix this. That is not cynicism. That is history.
Every major currency debasement in the last 200 years followed the same script. Governments spend more than they collect. They borrow. Then they print. Then they lose control. The $3 trillion in improper payments since 2003 is not an anomaly. It is a symptom. The patient has been sick for two decades.
My rich dad taught me one thing about institutions that habitually mismanage money: do not keep your wealth in what they control.
Gold does not have a budget committee. Silver does not submit quarterly reports to Congress. Real estate does not depend on an agency correctly processing a form. These are assets that have survived every empire that printed its way into the grave.
I bought my first gold coin in 1972. I have been buying ever since. Not because gold is exciting. Because $186 billion in annual losses is a confession. It tells you exactly what the dollar is worth to the people running it.
The question is not whether the system is broken. The GAO just answered that. The question is whether you are positioned outside it before the next $24 billion increase arrives.
To your freedom,
Robert Kiyosaki
Author, Rich Dad Poor Dad
P.S. While Washington counts what it cannot account for, the oil market is creating real opportunities for people who know where to look. Larry Benedict just released a new briefing on a strategy he calls "Oil Skimming." His readers have had the chance at payouts like $4,354, $4,783, and $6,268. See the details here.