Fiscal conservatism has died, replaced by an open season of corruption in the Trump administration.
For example, on her last day as director of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem signed a multi-million dollar agreement to buy five aircraft from a company owned by a political contributor of hers.
A report from The New York Times shows the planes were purchased for millions more than their current worth — including $108 million for a Boeing 737 airliner that had been converted into a massive private jet, complete with a stand-up bar, two bedrooms, marble showers and a table covered in manta ray skin. Two smaller Gulfstream luxury jets at prices that also seemed to yield a hefty profit for the seller — $45 million apiece for a pair of 17-year-old Boeing 737 passenger planes.
Kristi Noem
Noem’s graft seems ordinary, even unexceptional, compared to the rest of the “hogs at the trough.” Jared Kushner’s deals with Saudi Arabia and Russia scream graft and greed. The Saudi Arabia Investment Fund provided Kushner $2 billion. The Trump administration’s talks with Russia about ending the war in Ukraine have expanded to include a multibillion-dollar oil deal that would benefit Middle Eastern business executives with ties to the two main U.S. negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
The deal, which is contingent on approval from the U.S. government and the Kremlin, is for a sprawling set of oil fields, refineries and gas stations around the world owned by Lukoil, one of Russia’s biggest energy companies.
A Russian businessman paid for Donald Trump Jr.’s lavish wedding after-party. President Trump assured the public this was a common practice. “Well, it’s totally, it’s totally allowed. And a lot of people have parties and all, but it’s totally allowed,” Trump said. “But as I understand it, he paid them back. He didn’t want to have that, so I hear he paid them back. A person that he knows pretty, I guess a friend of his, gave him a wedding party. That’s very common.”
US President Donald Trump and Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia during a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday November 18. (Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
What happened to fiscal conservatism, which used to be the rally cry of the Republican Party?
Fiscal conservatives advocate tax cuts, reduced government spending, free markets, deregulation, privatization, free trade, and minimal government debt. These highly principled, mostly Republican leaders, always have been people of integrity, decency, honesty and virtue. Such values now seem rare in Congress.
“GOP fiscal conservatives made balanced budgets a governing credo for a generation.”
Ross Levine, opinion contributor for The Hill asks, “Where have all the fiscal conservatives gone?”
GOP fiscal conservatives made balanced budgets a governing credo for a generation. But in the 1980s, historian Robert McElvaine says, “Republicans made a wonderful political discovery: If you offer people the benefits of spending without asking them to pay taxes, they like that even more. So the Republicans developed their own political formula: ‘Borrow, borrow; spend, spend; elect, elect.’”
Yet now Republicans are guiding a budget through Congress that would increase primary deficits by about $3.3 trillion over the next decade, far surpassing even the borrowing allowed by its own budget blueprint.
Fiscal conservatism has been replaced by outright corruption.
Thomas Friedman, economist and New York Times contributor, writes, “With each passing month of his presidency, Donald Trump behaves more like America’s commander in thief than its commander in chief.”
Trump conspired with his own Justice Department, headed by his former personal lawyer, to use taxpayer money to create a $1.776 billion political slush fund, supposedly to compensate those Trump supporters who “suffered weaponization and lawfare” at the hands of his predecessor.
Fiscal conservatism is on life support at the hands of Donald Trump. It turns out the author of The Art of the Deal left out one word in his title: Shady.”
“Fiscal conservatism is on life support at the hands of Donald Trump.”
How has Trump managed such a prodigious feat of outright thievery? Somehow he has turned the seven cardinal sins into the virtues of unrestrained capitalism. He has used the sleight of hand trickery of a magician. His hustle consists of glitz on one hand and while no one is looking, his other hand dips into the treasury and increases the graft.
Trump’s Washington, D.C., projects — the Rose Garden, the Reflecting Pool, the Smithsonian Institute, the Kennedy Center, the Trump Ballroom and his massive triumphal arch are all part of the glitz.
Don’t be fooled by the glitz or the gold gilding in the Oval Office. The president has been lining his pockets while painting the city gold.
His administration has faced widespread allegations of insider trading. Trump’s grants of pardons and clemency have favored political allies and loyalists, with several given after millions in donations or fees. “Pardons for Sale” should be a sign in front of the White House.
Trump has solicited donations from companies and individuals who then benefit from favorable regulatory actions. He has maintained an active stock market account with thousands of trades totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Trump has directly benefited by soliciting his own memecoin $TRUMP and benefitted from his family’s cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial, which has received investments by anonymous individuals and foreign governments.
As of his July 2026 financial report, Trump made more than $2.2 billion in 2025 compared to $622 million in 2024, of which $1.4 billion came from his family’s cryptocurrency business. Trump has received an unusually large number of expensive gifts, such as a $400 million jet from Qatar or gold bars, a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.
Television ads praising Trump and promising to “expel the warmongers” from the government and fight the “deep state” is costing taxpayers $1.5 million. The ads caption reads, “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” I want a tax refund.
“Fiscal conservatives now are isolated without voice, influence or power.”
Fiscal conservatives now are isolated without voice, influence or power. They dare not assemble in groups. The president has destroyed the fiscal conservative movement. The guardrails designed to stop graft are down, the guard house is empty, the Department of Treasury is headed by a fellow Trump billionaire, Scott Bessent, and licenses to steal are granted to every Trump official and friend.
The modern hero and shaper of the fiscal conservative movement was Ronald Reagan. He was the patron saint of the Republican Party until Trump destroyed the Reagan movement.
Reagan pushed through the Economic Recovery Tax Act based on supply side, “trickle down” economics. Reagan defined the fiscal conservative movement. Perhaps Reagan’s most lasting achievement was starting the Republicans down the path to becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the conservative movement, a journey that was continued during the Bush presidencies.
Trump fragmented the Reagan conservative movement, labeled fiscal conservative Republicans who opposed him as “RINO’s” and opened wide the doors of graft and corruption.
Trump trashed Reagan’s conservative vision. As rhetorical theorist Craig Smith notes, “Instead of embracing the optimistic compassionate conservatism of Reagan, Trump seized on the fear and anger aroused by terrorist attacks and illegal immigration.”
No one seems to notice the thieves in the White House and how much they are stealing. Kristi Noem was simply the next Trumper flagged for greed and corruption, but she felt immune in her grasping for one last outburst of obvious corruption. The greed and corruption appear to have no limits or shame.
As Trump becomes very, very, very richer, the poor become very, very, very poorer. And the gall of a president to engage in greedy behavior when Americans are feeling the pinch may be his undoing. If so, the fiscal conservatives could come out of hiding and restore the Republican Party to its previous norm.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.