Corruption Watch, The Halloween Edition
Life in the United States doesn't need to be this scary.
No child should go hungry. The Trump administration is deciding not to tap into the federal government’s roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to ensure that Americans who need help getting food have their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Democrats wrote to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to request that contingency funds be used, but the request was denied, according to PBS. It’s expected that starting tomorrow, November 1, the program that helps one in eight Americans buy groceries will not be funded, as a result of the Republican-controlled Congress remaining shut down and the Trump administration failing to find a workaround to provide food assistance.
Tomorrow, finding health insurance gets even more terrifying. As the American Care Act (ACA) premiums expire on November 1, meaning that the premiums that people looking for health insurance on the marketplace will have to pay will dramatically increase. (Democrats have strenuously opposed these increases, leading Republicans to shut down the government.) According to a recent report from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 93% of marketplace enrollees receive the tax credits, and if they expire as expected, premium costs will more than double: “Premium costs will soon increase for people across states, ages, and income levels. Many have already experienced ‘rate shock’ and more will continue to do so.’” The report anticipates that without the credits 3.8 million more people will end up uninsured over the next decade.
And then your high medical bills will haunt you. What’s going to happen when more people are uninsured or have diminished insurance? It’s reasonable to expect more people will struggle to cover out-of-pocket medical bills. This week the Trump administration issued guidance prohibiting states from wiping medical debt from consumers’ credit ratings, according to The Lever. So, we can expect that health crises will send more Americans into a downward spiral of not being able to rent or buy homes or get other lines of credit that they need to improve their lives or just get by.
Meanwhile, actual ghouls are getting even richer. President Trump and his family “have raked in more than $800 million from sales of crypto assets in the first half of 2025 alone,” in addition to the potential billions of paper wealth they’ve gained from promoting their crypto businesses this year, according to a massive report by Reuters. The report describes how Don Jr. and Eric Trump went on a “globetrotting investment roadshow” to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, where they promoted World Liberty and other Trump investment organizations. “These people are not pouring money into coffers of the Trump family business because of the brothers’ acumen. They are doing it because they want freedom from legal constraints and impunity that only the president can deliver,” Kathleen Clark, law professor at Washington University, told Reuters. This is a conflict of interest “unprecedented in modern history.”
And richer. “America’s 916 billionaires have reached a recording-breaking wealth level of $8 trillion collectively,” according to a new report from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF). That’s an increase of over $5 trillion since the first Trump administration delivered massive tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. And this while workers are losing their paychecks and access to food assistance.
While the government punishes civil servants and protects insurrectionists. Two federal prosecutors have been placed on administrative leave immediately after describing the January 6th attack as “thousands of people compromising a mob of rioters” attacking the Capitol, according to Politico. This description, which is a fact, was part of a sentencing recommendation for one of the Capitol attack participants who Trump has pardoned. The Politico report notes that these prosecutors are dozens of other prosecutors who have faced termination or demotion because of their work on related Jan. 6th cases.
And Republicans disempower voters. The Republicans running Congress still haven’t allowed Adelita Grijalva to be sworn in to represent the Americans in AZ-07 who elected her. Check out this Democracy News conversation to hear Congresswoman Elect Grijalva and Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United, discuss how “our democracy is built on free and fair elections, and this is a direct attack on that.”
Melania Trump has decorated what’s left of the White House with a flair for the macabre, reports The Daily Beast. Donald Trump has demolished the iconic East Wing, with plans to spend $300 million building a ballroom sponsored by a long list of companies, many of which – like Palantir, which has a $30 million contract with ICE to expand surveillance – have business before the federal government. Happy Halloween, everyone.