$15.9 Billion Fraud: Nebraska’s Congressional Rot and Voter Enablers

Nebraska’s congressional delegation—Senators Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts, and Representatives Mike Flood, Don Bacon, and Adrian Smith—has squandered $15,907,799,072 on fraud, waste, and abuse, as meticulously uncovered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) across 100 instances. This $15.9 billion fiasco, averaging $3,181,559,814.40 per delegate, burdens the state’s 1,216,000 voters with $13,081.91 each—a grotesque betrayal of taxpayer trust. Yet, the real blame lies not just with these delegates but with Nebraska voters themselves, who wield the power of the ballot in America’s democratic system and consistently reelect the architects of this fiscal disaster.

The DOGE report reveals a delegation whose combined net worth—estimated at $58 million to $118.5 million—is a mere 0.74% of the $15.9 billion they’ve greenlit, their $174,000 annual salaries totaling just $8.7 million over a decade. Fischer’s ranch-derived $2 million to $5 million, Ricketts’ inherited $50 million to $100 million, Flood’s media-fueled $5 million to $10 million, and Bacon and Smith’s modest $500,000 to $1.5 million each pale beside this waste. They’ve turned taxpayer dollars into a bonfire, dwarfing their lifetime earnings by a factor of 134 at the high end. But Nebraska voters, not the delegates alone, keep this fire burning. Each election cycle, candidates pledge to curb such excesses—$50,000 DoD leaflets, $600 million idle FEMA fleets, $4.4 billion in overpriced contracts—yet voters reelect the same culprits or their ilk, ensuring the same reckless results.

This $15.9 billion, translating to $8,041.07 per Nebraska’s 1,978,379 residents, reflects a systemic failure fueled by voter apathy or complicity. DOGE’s findings spotlight the delegation’s unanimous “yes” votes on bills like the FY 2025 NDAA, enabling absurdities from $200,000 espresso machines to $590 million bloated aircraft programs. Suspicion of kickbacks and corruption festers—$149,072 soap dispenser markups and $617 million in unused parts suggest more than stupidity—but voters shrug. Alternatives emerge every two or six years, vowing fiscal restraint, yet Nebraskans cling to Fischer (since 2012), Bacon (since 2016), Smith (since 2006), and their successors like Ricketts and Flood, who mirror the same wasteful patterns. The result? A $13,081.91 bill per voter, dwarfing delegates’ salaries by thousands of times, with no end in sight.

Nebraska voters are as guilty as their delegates. They hold the democratic reins, yet opt for continuity over change, keeping this $15.9 billion colossus alive. Ricketts’ business acumen, Fischer’s ranching roots, and Flood’s media savvy don’t translate to fiscal duty—why should they, when voters reward negligence? Bacon and Smith, with modest pre-Congress means, back excesses they’d never stomach personally, yet face no electoral reckoning. DOGE warns this is just 100 items; the delegation’s broader record hints at billions more, a legacy of debt voters perpetuate. Their $870,000 combined yearly pay would take 18,285 years to match $15.9 billion—voters could stop this, but don’t.

Every cycle, challengers decry waste—$5 billion in unused FEMA gear, $4.1 billion in idle infrastructure—but Nebraska’s electorate doubles down on familiarity or party loyalty, ignoring the national debt ballooning under their watch. This isn’t just delegate corruption or ineptitude; it’s voter-enabled rot. The $15.9 billion, a fiscal sin eclipsing the delegation’s financial existence, thrives because Nebraskans let it. They’ve had the chance to oust Fischer, Ricketts, Flood, Bacon, and Smith, or their predecessors, yet choose stasis, leaving $13,081.91 per voter as their own indictment. DOGE’s revelations demand accountability—not just from Congress, but from the Nebraska voters who keep these spendthrifts in power, proving they’re as culpable for this betrayal as the delegates they elect.

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