My favorite category of government program to run across is "program you've never heard of doing extremely important work to solve a major problem which you have also never heard of." On that note, the US drops millions of pounds of sterile bugs over Panama each week in order to prevent a parasite infestation from moving into North America. Everyone say thank you to the Panama-United States Commission for the Eradication and Prevention of the Cattle Borer Worm (COPEG)
This program had its funding cut during the DOGE cuts last year and now the parasitic worm they were trying to slow the spread of has officially arrived in the United States.
2nd case found in TX, Canada implementing a temp ban on importing Texan beef (source).
Reminder that this is entirely self-inflicted and the result of DOGE taking a chainsaw to the federal government in 2025. While USAID certainly had its fair share of issues, gutting the department has conservatively resulted in 600k deaths (link) and with the 2026 ebola outbreak, we're likely to see this figure climb.
DOGE also forced out more than 1,300 USDA staff members from the Animal Plant Health Inspection Services (source, D-TX) whose job it is to try to contain this exact thing. The cost of the disaster response just declared by TX Governor Abbot is certainly going to be more than maintaining the programs, grants, and staff who set up for this exact situation.
