Joe Biden’s administration was hiding something massive from the American people.
They thought no one would ever find out about the taxpayer money being funneled to their union allies.
But Trump just exposed one taxpayer scam under Biden that left union bosses scrambling for cover.
Trump’s team uncovers Biden’s hidden union payoff scheme
President Trump’s Office of Personnel Management just dropped a bombshell report that reveals the staggering scope of taxpayer abuse under the Biden administration.
According to data exclusively obtained by The Daily Signal, American taxpayers were forced to fork over $207 million in Biden’s final year alone to pay federal employees for doing union work instead of their actual government jobs.¹
The numbers are jaw-dropping.
Federal bureaucrats billed taxpayers for 3.2 million hours of union activities in fiscal year 2024 – that’s more than 11% of their total work time spent on union business while collecting government paychecks.
But here’s the kicker – Biden’s Office of Personnel Management had completely stopped tracking and reporting this so-called "official time" data, effectively hiding the massive taxpayer ripoff from public scrutiny.
Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell didn’t mince words about what his team discovered when they demanded the hidden data through a March memo.
"During the Biden administration, federal agencies spent millions bargaining sweetheart collective-bargaining agreements that imposed significant costs on the American taxpayer while impeding effective and efficient agency operations," Ezell wrote in the memo. "Agencies paid for both the costs of their and their unions’ bargaining teams."²
The Biden administration wasn’t just allowing this abuse – they were actively covering it up by refusing to release the data that Trump’s OPM had previously tracked.
The worst offenders will shock you
Some agencies turned taxpayer-funded union time into an art form.
The Department of Veterans Affairs led the pack, billing taxpayers a whopping $40 million for 746,381 hours of union work.³
Think about that – while veterans were waiting for healthcare and benefits, VA bureaucrats were spending three-quarters of a million hours on union activities instead of serving those who served our country.
The Department of Homeland Security wasn’t far behind, charging taxpayers $34 million for 557,851 hours of union work while our borders remained under siege.
The Defense Department – the agency responsible for protecting America – billed taxpayers $25 million for 432,843 hours of union activities.
But the real scandal goes deeper than just the payroll costs.
The government also handed over $29 million worth of property to unions, including office space and equipment.
That’s right – taxpayers didn’t just pay union officials’ salaries, they also provided them with free office space and gear to run their political operations.
What union bosses were really doing on taxpayer time
The data reveals exactly how federal employees were spending taxpayer-funded union time, and it’s even worse than you might imagine.
More than 2.5 million hours – a staggering 78% of all taxpayer-funded union time – went to something called "general labor-management relations."⁴
What does that vague category actually cover?
According to the government’s own definitions, it includes activities like "lobbying Congress concerning pending or desired legislation affecting bargaining unit employees" and "allowing certain employees to spend 100 percent of their time handling union representation functions while being paid by Federal agencies."
Translation: Taxpayers were literally funding full-time political activists masquerading as government employees.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal union, has already filed at least nine lawsuits against the Trump administration.
There’s a very real possibility that bureaucrats used taxpayer-funded union time to help coordinate these legal attacks on the President’s agenda.
The historical context makes it even more outrageous
Here’s what makes this scandal truly infuriating – even Franklin D. Roosevelt, the architect of the New Deal and no conservative, opposed unions in the federal government.
FDR understood that the idea of public servants striking for more taxpayer-funded wages was fundamentally wrong.
Yet later presidents caved to union pressure, and bureaucrats were eventually allowed to unionize in exchange for giving up the right to strike.
The taxpayer-funded union time was supposed to be compensation for that trade-off.
But what started as a limited compromise has morphed into a massive taxpayer ripoff that allows union bosses to run political operations on the public dime.
The cost to taxpayers has exploded over the years.
While the 2024 total of 3.2 million hours was actually lower than the 2016 figure of 3.6 million hours, the cost skyrocketed to $207 million – far exceeding the $177 million price tag in 2016 and the $135 million cost in 2019.
Republicans fight back with common-sense legislation
Fortunately, Republican leaders in Congress aren’t sitting idly by while union bosses feast at the taxpayer trough.
Senator Mike Lee and Congressman Ben Cline have reintroduced the No Union Time on the Taxpayer’s Dime Act, which would completely eliminate the practice of paying federal employees for union work.⁵
Senator Joni Ernst and Congressman Scott Perry have gone even further with their Protecting Taxpayer Wallets Act, which would force union officials to repay taxpayers for all the official time pay and government resources they’ve consumed.
National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix didn’t hold back in his assessment of the situation.
"Federal government unions are heavily involved in party politics. They stage massive political protests, and contribute large amounts of money and manpower to influence elections. Employees of these unions should not have their salaries paid by American taxpayers," Mix stated.⁶
The Ernst-Perry legislation is particularly strategic because its fee-based approach creates a new revenue stream, making it eligible for budget reconciliation.
That means it could pass the Senate with just 51 votes instead of the usual 60 needed to overcome a Democrat filibuster.
The bigger picture reveals systematic corruption
This taxpayer-funded union scam represents something much larger – the systematic corruption of the federal bureaucracy under Democrat rule.
Biden’s decision to stop tracking and reporting this data wasn’t an oversight.
It was a deliberate attempt to hide the massive financial benefits his administration was showering on their union allies while American families struggled with inflation and economic hardship.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect for Trump to expose this abuse.
As the President works to implement his America First agenda, these revelations provide clear justification for the major government reforms his supporters have been demanding.
Union bosses who have grown fat and lazy on taxpayer dollars while plotting against the Trump administration are about to face a reckoning they never saw coming.
The $207 million taxpayer ripoff in Biden’s final year alone proves that the deep state’s corruption runs deeper than most Americans ever imagined.
¹ Tyler O’Neil, "EXCLUSIVE: Taxpayers Spent $207 Million to Pay Bureaucrats to Work for Unions in Biden’s Final Year," The Daily Signal, August 7, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ National Right to Work Committee, "Lee and Cline Sponsor Bill to Stop Spending Tax Dollars on Union Activities," April 7, 2025.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Ibid.
