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By Gary Tilzer
Across the internet, a growing movement of change advocates is hoping that New Yorkers create a local version of Elon Musk’s DOGE boys to expose the rampant corruption and waste draining New York City’s budget. One Twitter user, @evilgeniusnyc, even proposed that Crazy Eddie owner—known for his strong expertise in the art of corruption and now using his unique skills as an investigative reporter posting daily online reports exposing NY’s budget waste, political corruption and mismanagement—should lead a local DOGE initiative to clean up New York’s broken government, which throws money at problems and never checks if the money is being ripped off or accomplishes its promised goals. However, the reality that the online good government advocates have not addressed is that approximately $14 billion of NYC’s $101 billion budget is funded by the federal government, which is also funded by the NYS government that receives one-third of its budget from Washington. With Trump’s desire to rebuild NYC, it is only a matter of time until Musk’s DOGE boys investigate how the city is spending the federal funds it receives.
Under President Joe Biden, the MTA’s federal funding increased significantly, with nearly $4 billion in federal grants, yet the MTA forced congestion pricing tax on New Yorkers to help cover its patronage-filled payroll and its pay to play corrupt contracts, while its out-of-control spending increases its 44-billion-dollar deficit every year. Musk’s DOGE boys can cut the corruption and wasted in today’s MTA’s capital budget, by finding out why the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) extension to Grand Central Station, originally slated to open in 2009 at a cost of $3.4 billion, ballooned to an astounding $13 billion for just two miles of track when it was finished in 2023. Similarly, DOGE will find out why the 7-train extension to Hudson Yards became the world’s most expensive subway track at $2.5 billion per mile. Musk’s DOGE boys can see which MTA executive must be fired and which MTA connected contractors need to be indicted for stealing billion on the Grand Central Stations project and the 7-train extension, the $31 million spent on building an unnecessary extra staircase at Times Square subway station, and squandered $4 billion remaking the Fulton Street Station Mall in Manhattan, now empty of stores and crime ridden.
New York City’s education budget relies significantly on federal funding. The federal government contributes approximately 10-15% of the city’s total education budget, NYC also gets billions in education funding from the state, which receives over $3.3 Billion in education funding every year from the federal government.
Musk’s DOGE boys, armed with their forensic audits, will uncover the staggering waste and inefficiency in New York City’s education budget, they will also shock 80% of New Yorkers in the type of programs the city’s education department budget is funding, which has ballooned from $6.3 billion in 1990 to a jaw-dropping $38 billion today. This represents an increase of over 600%, despite the fact that NYC public schools today serve nearly 200,000 fewer students than they did in 1990. Only the Musk boys will answer the question: Why does New York City spend $35,941 per student, triple the national average of $13,000, and still have reading and math scores below the national average? With their investigative abilities, Musk’s DOGE boys could dig into the numbers and shed light on why such colossal spending by NY’s government has not translated into better educational outcomes for the city’s students.
Neither the New York State nor the New York City Comptrollers have ever provided a satisfactory explanation why NYC Catholic schools, spending just $16,000 per student, and NYC’s charter schools, at $17,500 per student, consistently outperform public schools in both math and reading scores while spending half as much money. The reality is that both city and state comptrollers, who are responsible for auditing NYC schools, rely on the politically powerful United Federation of Teachers (UFT) who run the city’s public schools, to secure the campaign funding and union voters to secure their reelection or run for higher office, making a truly objective audit of the city’s education department out of the question.
In contrast, only Musk’s DOGE boys, with their independent and the fearless approach of 20-year-olds who think everything they do is a cause—unburdened by political pressures or the political constraints of elected comptroller’s audits—have the ability to conduct a genuine, unbiased investigation into how NYC schools continue to overspend, while failing to properly educate their students. This includes exposing the sweetheart UFT union contracts that fuel wasteful work rules, such as the infamous “rubber rooms” where teachers who are prohibited from teaching continue to collect paychecks. Beyond that, they can uncover the pay-to-play corruption that plagues the city’s contracting system, like the billions wasted on a new reading program that actually lowered reading scores, destroying the lives of the city’s children. Only Musk’s DOGE boys can bring this level of scrutiny, free from the political entanglements that have allowed these egregious practices to persist for so long.
In New York City, the political class and elected officials’ interests today driven by ideological socialist policies are the driving forces behind much of the waste and corruption plaguing the city’s government. The re-election politics of both the city and state Comptrollers are largely to blame for the $101 billion bloated NYC budget, which serves a population of just 8.5 million people—almost identical to the budget entire state of Florida, $114 billion, which has three times as many residents (about 23.4 million to NYC 8.5 million) and three times as many government employees, Florida’s 1,162,400 to NYC’s 325,000. Where is NYC’s money going? For starters, we know there is a billion missing from de Blasio’s wife’s NYCThrive mental health slush fund that the elected NYC Comptroller, City Council, and District Attorneys refuse to investigate.
The results of politically controlled auditing of New York’s finances are even more alarming when you consider that 500,000 people have fled the city and over a trillion dollars in Wall Street businesses have moved south, all due to New York’s high taxes and broken government. New Yorkers elect comptrollers who either want to stay in the job or run for higher office, need the support of the political and special interests that benefit from the city’s waste and corruption. In this environment, only an independent and objective entity like Musk’s DOGE boys has the ability to conduct forensic audits needed to expose and stop the deep-rooted waste and corruption by the city’s political insiders destroying the city’s government. DOGE’s work is crucial to freeing New Yorkers from the political and special interests gridlock that is robbing it’s the city of its future, blocking the restoration of the city’s can-do culture, that made it the greatest city in the world,
What is in it for the Voters This Mayoral Election Year? More of the Same or DOGE Forced Change
New York City’s most powerful elected officials—led by Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and NYS Attorney General Letitia James—are doing everything in their power to block Musk’s DOGE boys from conducting audits of the federal government. What’s even more troubling for the majority of New Yorkers who think the city is headed in the wrong direction and want to change, is that the media only covers who is ahead and who has the most money in the upcoming mayoral race. NYC’s media is not asking questions that New Yorkers are demanding answers from the candidates about critical issues affecting them: Why does NYC public schools spend double the amount per student compared to Catholic and charter schools, yet continue to deliver lower reading and math scores? How did the MTA, which pushed congestion pricing on New Yorkers, manage to rack up a staggering $44 billion in debt? How much of the $25 billion allocated to migrants and the homeless is lining the pockets of corrupt contractors, lobbyists, and nonprofits? And why are NYC taxes so high, yet still result in poor governance that drives both people and businesses out of the city—leading to over half of New Yorkers still living here planning to leave? Top of FormBottom of Form
Sadly, NYC’s media allows candidates to endlessly recycle their politically safe talking points, which often amount to nothing more than throwing more money at every problem without offering real, tangible solutions. This cycle of empty promises only deepens the sense of powerlessness among New Yorkers, leaving them feeling unheard and helpless as their city continues to fall apart. By failing to demand accountability and substance from those in power, the media only perpetuates the status quo, ensuring that true reform remains out of reach.
As a result of media incompetence, more and more people will leave because they know their vote is meaningless in a campaign that fails to address their real needs and concerns. If Musk’s army of auditors can’t step in to expose the corruption and waste destroying the city, then who will? Without a true, independent investigation of the effectiveness of the city’s $101 billion dollar budget, it’s hard to imagine what could save New York from its current downward spiral.
The New York Times, which recently published an opinion piece titled “This Is How Democrats Can Counter Elon Musk,” had a long history of exposing corruption and waste in New York City before its journalism was destroyed by its progressive narrative orthodoxy. In 1993, the paper effectively chronicled how Brooklyn’s Democratic boss Vito Lopez, turned a government-funded nonprofit into a personal political machine with the article “Growth of a New-Age Political Machine”. It also did an excellent job uncovering corruption in nonprofit-run homeless shelters at the end of the de Blasio administration. Both the left-wing narrative NY Times and the politically dependent NYC Comptroller Lander—whose wife works for a nonprofit that represents over 500 other city nonprofits—won’t exposed the rampant waste and corruption within these organizations, which have been used more and more to elect socialist progressives like Lander and the antisemite councilwoman Shahana Hanif. These new age political clubs disguised as government funded nonprofits, invented by Brooklyn Boss Lopez, have become local political machines with volunteers and campaign contributions for almost every elected official and special interest group in the city. Yet, it is a shame that the Times, the city’s elected officials and influential special interest groups like the UFT (United Federation of Teachers), will do everything in their power to keep Musk’s DOGE boys from investigating the city’s budget, contractors, nonprofits, and out of control authorities like the MTA, who receive federal funding, to stop their deep-rooted corruption and waste.
At the very least, Musk’s DOGE boys could shed light on how the expensive socialist-driven policies and programs run by the city’s nonprofit industrial complex besides not working, are riddled with waste and corruption—issues that even the city’s common-sense leaders seem too complacent or unwilling to address.
