DOGE’s ‘Tush Push’ Moment
We, the taxpayers, must demand accountability and fairness — so keep the DOGE Drive alive.
If you’ve been following NFL news, you’ve likely seen that some teams want to ban the so-called “Tush Push.”
For those unfamiliar, the Tush Push is essentially a high-powered quarterback sneak popularized by the Philadelphia Eagles, who have deployed it consistently over the past three seasons. In this year’s Super Bowl, with the Eagles just one yard from the end zone in the first quarter, Jalen Hurts was propelled forward to put points on the board. As Andrew Beaton of The Wall Street Journal notes, it’s become the NFL’s ultimate short-yardage weapon: so effective that the only way to stop it might be to outlaw it.
The official rationale for calling for the Tush Push to be banned is player safety. Yet critics argue this ban is about removing a play no one can effectively defend. This brings us to DOGE, an initiative designed to expose and eliminate decades of government waste, fraud, and abuse. Like the Tush Push, it’s highly effective — and there’s a growing effort to shut it down.
One of the first places the Trump administration applied this “DOGE Drive” was within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — an agency in charge of foreign humanitarian aid that is supposed to complement our foreign policy priorities. Almost immediately, critics on the Left claimed the administration was slashing critical foreign aid, accusing it of neglecting the world’s most vulnerable. I’ve even received messages asking how I could support an “evil” administration that would deprive impoverished nations of lifesaving resources. This is where the DOGE Drive and the Tush Push connect.
Just as opponents of the Tush Push cite player safety, critics of the DOGE Drive say they’re defending humanitarian aid. But in reality, they’re shielding the status quo — a super slush fund for the Left funded by your tax dollars. Here are a few examples recently identified by Congressman Brian Mast (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee:
- $15 million for condoms to the Taliban through USAID
- $446,700 to promote atheism in Nepal through the State Department
- $1 million to support French-speaking LGBTQ groups in West and Central Africa
- $14 million in cash vouchers for migrants at the southern border
- $3.3 million for “Being LGBTQ in the Caribbean” through USAID
- $7,071 for a BIPOC speaker series in Canada
- $3.2 million to help deported Tunisian migrants readjust in Tunisia
- $425,622 to make Indonesian coffee companies more climate and gender friendly
I’m confident that truly legitimate humanitarian projects will continue or be restored. But programs advancing an ideology at odds with the foundational values of our nation should no longer be funded. That is the essence of the DOGE Drive — scrutinizing government expenditures so necessary aid remains and the woke waste dies.
Opponents of the DOGE Drive, like opponents of the Tush Push, realize they can’t compete on a level playing field. They can’t stop something that’s proven to work, so they attempt to ban or undermine it. Let’s not allow that to happen. We, the taxpayers, must demand accountability and fairness — so keep the DOGE Drive alive.
