We Waste Our Money, But Government Doesn't? & Rabbit Sickness - Top 3 Takeaways - February 10th, 2026
Takeaway #1: Where the money goes
Do you enjoy wasting money? It’s a dumb question, right? But here’s the follow up...do you? The overwhelming odds are that you do. A recent study by the Motley Fool found that to start 2026... 85% of Americans were regularly wasting money on something. And the term waste can be a subjective thing. For that reason, rather than having a third party provide the judgement as to what might be one man’s waste and another man’s preferred taste in something...the Fools analyzed the process a different way. They broke out each person’s spending and then had them do the judging to determine what they realized was wasteful to them. That’s when almost everyone found at least something they were blowing money on. In fact, in the study it was found that up to 8% of people were effectively throwing money away every day. From fast food trips people quickly regret, to unplanned purchases at convenience stores and online its an especially common thing. Btw, so is something that everyone can agree is a waste of money regardless of preferences and priorities...the zombie subscriptions. Based on generations, anywhere from 8% of people (Baby Boomers) up to 26% of people (Millennials) had at least one active subscription they no longer use. Incidentally Millennials proved to be the most wasteful generation with money – moreso than the younger adults in GenZ. In any event, while that information is potentially useful for you to do a little rethinking about how you might address some of your spending (and a reminder to make sure you don’t have zombie subscriptions too)...the reason this is one of my takeaways today is due to the likelihood that local governments aren’t blowing any of your money too. If 85% of adults are wasting money in their personal lives, what would you suspect the number might be if we’re talking about taxpayer funding? Yesterday Palm Beach County Administrator Joe Abruzzo came on the show to talk about Florida’s DOGE and to address recent accusations by Florida’s CFO Blaise Ingoglia that Palm Beach County was the most wasteful county in the state (with an estimated $344 million in waste fraud and abuse). He made some excellent points and if you missed the interview it’s worth a listen, but upon further review...
Takeaway #2: Here are some additional things to consider.
As mentioned, Public Safety/PBSO is the biggest department expenditure (at least if you don’t count reserves – which consumed 22% of the budget most recently), however it’s still only about 21% of the county’s budget. Here’s where the rest of the money goes...Administrative/General government (12%), Transportation (12%), Internal transfers of county funds (11%), Environmental services/utilities (8%), Parks and recreation (6%), Economic development (4%), Health and social programs (2%), IT and related things (2%), miscellaneous (1%). The total spending between all of those things is nearly $9.1 billion in the 2025 fiscal year and just over $9.6 billion for the 2026 fiscal year budget. So, a couple of key points when discussing the validity of Palm Beach County‘s ten-year increase in spending rising by approximately 90%, while the population only increased by 10% (during a window of time in which inflation rose by 34%). First and foremost, PBSO is a leading reason why spending is up considerably over the past decade but at just about a fifth of the spending it’s far from most of the reason. Second, the immoveable object in this conversation is that regardless of the way one chooses to evaluate the county’s spending, when adjusted for population growth and inflation, the county’s spending per captia has well more than doubled in a decade. Whether that spending is categorized as “waste, fraud and abuse” is largely immaterial. The larger question remains...how and why has the size of government spending relative to the population well more than doubled within a decade? Notably, as property taxes have doubled over the past decade too, household incomes have only risen by about 47% over the same time. This speaks directly to the affordability issue which continues to become worse by the year for the average resident locally. This is the rest of the story that speaks to the larger issue in play. It's government spending that’s well in excess of population growth, inflation and household income growth and is continuing in real-time too. Did you get a 15% raise last year? Palm Beach County did. Have you received another 6% raise this year off last year’s 15% raise? Palm Beach County has. But remember, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s not proven to be “waste, fraud and abuse”. From my perspective, the fact remains. If government officials have access to money, they’ll spend it. The need for an elimination of homesteaded property taxes through this exercise has never been more clear.
Takeaway #3: Maybe they really were sick?
So, it’s long been the case that the day after the Super Bowl has historically been the day the most Americans are likely to call out sick. In total an estimated 26.6 million Americans missed work yesterday. That’s a new record totaling about 3 million more than last year. A couple of observations about this...approximately 21%, or over a fifth, of people who watched the Super Bowl called in sick. And while there's a commentary on priorities and society in there somewhere...it’s somewhat notable that there was a 13% jump in “Super Bowl” sickness this year. Maybe that’s what happens when one’s exposed to a Bad Bunny?