For generations, Washington has perfected the art of spending money it doesn’t have on projects that never deliver. Bureaucrats authorize ambitious plans. Costs balloon beyond recognition. When local stakeholders can’t foot the bill, the federal government quietly shifts the burden onto hardworking taxpayers. These zombie programs lurch forward year after year. No accountability. Billions consumed. Nothing to show for it but excuses.

The American people sent a clear message in 2024: enough with the blank checks and broken promises. They demanded leaders willing to make hard choices, scrutinize every dollar, and finally impose some fiscal sanity on a government addicted to spending other people’s money. This week, President Trump proved he actually listened. And unlike his predecessors, he’s willing to use the veto pen.

From The Post Millennial:

President Donald Trump vetoed two bills on Tuesday, one relating to the Arkansas Valley Conduit water pipeline in Colorado, and one relating to the Osceola Camp in the Everglades National Park in Florida. These two vetoes are the first two issued by Trump in his second term back in the White House…

“Enough is enough. My Administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies. Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the Nation.”

Those words accompanied President Trump’s first two vetoes of his second term. He rejected a pair of bills that epitomize everything rotten about federal spending. One involved a water pipeline authorized during the Kennedy administration that still hasn’t been completed. The other sought to bail out structures built illegally on federal parkland by a tribe actively fighting the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.

Sixty Years of Broken Promises

The Arkansas Valley Conduit sounds reasonable enough on its surface—a water pipeline serving roughly 50,000 people in southeastern Colorado. But the details reveal a spectacular display of government dysfunction.

President John F. Kennedy signed the authorization for this project in 1962. That’s not a typo. For more than six decades, this pipeline existed only on paper. It languished in bureaucratic limbo because it was, as Trump bluntly noted, “economically unviable.” The original plan required local users to repay the federal government’s investment with interest over 50 years. Fair enough. Except those local participants couldn’t meet their obligations.

So what did Washington do? Double down, naturally.

President Obama’s 2009 fix? Slash the local repayment requirement from 100 percent to 35 percent. Generous. Even so, construction didn’t start until 2023. That required another $100 million from Colorado taxpayers just to break ground.

The price tag tells the real story. More than $249 million has already vanished into this project. Total costs now sit at a staggering $1.3 billion. The bill Trump vetoed would have extended repayment to 75 years and cut interest rates further. Translation: force federal taxpayers to absorb even more of the burden for what was supposed to be a locally funded water project. Hard pass.

Rewarding Rule-Breakers

The second veto addressed an even more audacious request. The Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act sought federal protection and funding for the Osceola Camp, a residential community within Everglades National Park.

Here’s the catch. The structures were built without authorization in the first place.

As Trump’s veto message detailed, the camp “was constructed in 1935, without authorization, in a low area that was raised with fill material.” None of the current structures qualify for historic preservation status. Yet Congress passed a bill requiring the Secretary of the Interior to protect these buildings from flooding. Buildings on land the tribe was never authorized to occupy. The audacity is almost impressive.

The Biden administration had already developed a $14 million plan to protect and replace infrastructure at the unauthorized site. Trump rejected this approach entirely. His reasoning was refreshingly direct: “It is not the Federal Government’s responsibility to pay to fix problems in an area that the Tribe has never been authorized to occupy.”

Trump noted that the Miccosukee Tribe “has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected.” The tribe joined a lawsuit challenging a federal immigration detention facility in the Everglades. So they’re simultaneously demanding federal dollars while working against federal law enforcement. That takes nerve.

The free ride is over. And for American taxpayers tired of funding Washington’s pet projects and broken promises, that’s exactly the accountability they voted for.

Key Takeaways

• Trump’s first vetoes rejected a 63-year-old water project and funding for unauthorized tribal structures.
• The Arkansas Valley Conduit has cost $249 million with estimates reaching $1.3 billion—yet localities still can’t repay.
• Federal taxpayers shouldn’t bail out projects built without authorization or fund groups obstructing immigration enforcement.
• These vetoes signal a new era of fiscal accountability and an end to Washington’s rubber-stamp spending culture.

Sources: The Post Millennial, CBS News