The Trump administration spent $9.5 billion last year on paid administrative leave as it pushed to cut costs, the Government Accountability Office said.
Page A2From§Eachthe noon edition — 16 September 2026
PAID NOT TO WORK
Government finds $16.5 billion to pay employees not to work, none to audit millionaires or feed kids
As it ran on the front
All together now — the Government Accountability Office's own numbers, released Tuesday. Line one: $9.5 billion spent last year on paid administrative leave, workers logged in to do nothing, DOGE-era cuts running the clock. Line two, a separate column entirely: nearly $7 billion more, paid out to employees the administration was trying to talk out the door — money that bought no work either, just an exit that hadn't finished exiting yet. Two different pots, GAO is clear about that, and neither one produced an hour of labor.
The trend line explains why the pots got so full. Federal workers' use of paid leave rose 435 percent in the first two years of this administration. The workforce shrank by roughly 216,000 people over 2025 — the number DOGE points to as the win, the savings, the smaller government it promised. But savings and spending are not the same ledger. The people counted as "gone" were, for months at a stretch, still on the books, still drawing a check, just no longer showing up to do the job the check was for.…
…(cont) On September 1st, a different watchdog put a number on what that downsizing cost somewhere else. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found IRS audit revenue fell 35 percent in fiscal 2025, after the same staffing cuts hit the agency responsible for chasing money the wealthy already owe. The IRS didn't get more efficient. It got smaller, and the bill collector stopped knocking as often.
Three days later, on September 4th, the other end of that math showed up. The 2025 budget law cut SNAP by more than at any point since the program began six decades ago, pushing enrollment to its lowest level in 17 years. Roughly five million people lost eligibility. One and a half million of them are children who now risk losing free school meals.
The reports don't quote anyone saying the government couldn't afford audits or lunches. They don't have to. The GAO already did the math: $9.5 billion here, nearly $7 billion there, paid out for nothing done, the same year the audits got smaller and the lunch line got shorter. The money exists. It found its way to a payroll for people not working before it found its way to a kid's tray.
“They call the audits and the school lunches too expensive, then quietly hand $16.5 billion to people they're paying to stop showing up — that's not saving money, that's a severance party dressed up as discipline. Same GAO report, same government: the tax cheats keep more, the kids get less, and somehow there's always room at the top for a payroll that does nothing. You want to know where the money went? It's still on the books, it's just not on your kid's tray.”
“Look, this is basic government efficiency — you don't just fire people, you transition them out responsibly, and responsible transitions cost money, that's just — okay, fine, that IS the plan, paying people not to work while they exit is the streamlining. And sure, the IRS numbers dipped, but chasing rich people's back taxes was never the best use of agent hours anyway — wait, did I just say the tax collectors shouldn't collect taxes? That's not — let's just say the school lunch thing is really more of a state issue.”
The receipts
The federal workforce shrunk by roughly 216,000 workers in 2025, according to federal data.
The Trump administration paid outgoing employees an estimated nearly $7 billion to not work as it encouraged them to leave the federal service, a government watchdog found in a Tuesday report. Federal workers' use of paid leave increased 435 percent under the first two years of the Trump administration, a dynamic the Government…
· 'Wealthy Tax Cheats Reaping the Benefits': IRS Audit Revenue Plummets After Trump Purge from the morgue, 1 Sep 2026
· ‘Obviously Going to Increase Hunger’: Trump SNAP Cuts Imperil Free School Meals for Millions of Kids from the morgue, 4 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.