If you need another reason to hope for success from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—you probably don't, but there are plenty to go around—it turns out that efforts by the waste-hunting, government-shrinking (we hope) body may not just save money; it may help make people more honest. That's because, after decades of increasing flows of federal grants to local governments, there's strong evidence that the money fuels corruption.
Federal Money and the Surge in Corruption
In a paper published this month, Windfall federal grants and local government corruption, authors Xiangpei Chen (an assistant professor of accounting at Loyola University Chicago) and Angela K. Gore, Jennifer Spencer, and James Wade (all of George Washington University) note that federal grants to local governments increased from $135 billion to $1.2 trillion between 1990 and 2022. The money came from 1,670 federal programs, prompting concern from agencies including the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
