From the hallways of Kentucky schools to the marble corridors of Sacramento, a troubling picture of American governance emerges in a new analysis by The Federalist: public officials, empowered by taxpayer money, increasingly treat their positions as a license for personal enrichment and institutional grift.
The report paints a landscape where “your government job is supposed to pay for your hotel bar tab and your tickets to see Wicked,” and where critics are dismissed as mean-spirited for questioning the practice. What emerges is a portrait of an “empire of fraud and shameless crony grifting” that spans states and parties.
Kentucky’s School Credit Card Scandal
The investigation opens in Kentucky, where a Republican state senator last year confronted a school superintendent with a list of charges on district credit cards: hotels, ice cream, musical theater tickets, first-class air travel, and a trip to Australia. The charges, which ran into hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly, had little to do with educating children.
Fayette County Public Schools, meanwhile, warned that the district had run out of money and needed more revenue. The superintendent defended the Australia trip as an opportunity for staff to “examine best practices throughout the world to help students in emotional crisis,” a rationale The Federalist dryly notes is common among officials seeking exotic training destinations.
A year later, the controversy has not faded. A recent story described a bizarre “7-Minute Walkthrough” in which the now-retired superintendent slid threatening notes hinting at legal action under the doors of internal critics, according to the report.
California’s Supermajority of Self-Dealing
But Kentucky is just the opening act. The report argues that California, with its Democratic supermajorities, leads the nation in “moral abyss” governance.
In a surprising twist, the state’s then-minority Assembly leader, Heath Flora, a Republican, backed two Democratic tax measures that Democrats could have passed without him. Headlines from May asked: “Republicans rise in support of sales tax increases in California.” The reason became clearer later: Flora was allegedly “funding a second affair with campaign cash,” according to news reports, including $11,500 spent at a single East Sacramento dive bar.
Democrats, the report contends, are “somewhat less shy about taking care of themselves.” Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, who had no insurance background when elected, has reportedly taken at least 32 trips to 23 countries, spending over 163 days abroad on state time. Lara told the Los Angeles Times that accusations of improper travel expenses “really diminishes me as an individual.”
The Nonprofit Revolving Door
Perhaps the most intricate grift, however, is the relationship between government and so-called nongovernmental organizations. The Federalist highlights Assemblyman Corey Jackson, who holds a “doctorate” in social work from an online program. Jackson voted on a budget that lavishly funds an Inland Empire nonprofit called the Center Against Racism and Trauma (CART) — an organization he founded himself shortly before entering the legislature.
CART’s flagship work, according to the report, includes Zoom calls to complain about racism. Yet a month after its director’s underwhelming annual event pitch, California Governor Gavin Newsom finalized a $6 million gift of taxpayer money to the organization. Jackson has voted to fund his own creation, a conflict of interest the report details at length via investigative journalist Laura Powell.
The report’s conclusion is stark: the people driving institutional decline and public debt “don’t share your concern. They’re at the hotel bar, buying drinks with your money.”
Source: thefederalist.com — https://thefederalist.com/2026/08/26/america-is-becoming-an-empire-of-fraud-and-shameless-crony-grifting/