It seems apt, with the sweeping and nearly constant change effected by the White House in the last 11 months, to look at a few key areas of impact for Americans and the world in 2025.
Federal spending, debt, and budget
The new administration came in hot on this topic, establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to root out wasteful spending. Originally co-chaired by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Ramaswamy immediately resigned to concentrate on his Ohio gubernatorial campaign. Musk remained until late May.
Although there have been significant cuts to certain parts of the government – USAID has been eradicated, the Department of Education has been heavily restructured, the Department of Housing and Urban Development somewhat crippled – Federal spending increased mid-year with the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB). Most of the money has gone to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Pentagon.
The White House budget for fiscal year 2026, which has yet to be passed by Congress after a full quarter has passed, keeps spending level with previous year’s levels, if one ignores the OBBB.
Interestingly, a strengthening economy coming out of 2024, combined with stronger IRS enforcement on wealthy individuals (some of which came from selected 2017 tax cuts allowed to expire in the OBBB), and tariff revenues (remember, tariffs are taxes) increased tax revenues for the year, lessening deficit impacts. However, this isn’t an economic story the White House is going to trumpet.
Interest payments on the Federal debt, approaching $40 trillion, cost the government nearly a trillion dollars ($981 billion) in fiscal year 2025. In the first two months of fiscal year 2026, October and November, the U.S. borrowed $489 billion to finance our debt.
Overall economic numbers are mixed. Inflation is not slowing as promised, hovering around three percent. Tariffs are largely to blame. Unevenly applied and raising consumer prices across many key sectors, tariffs may be the primary factor in the delays to interest rate cuts demanded by the White House.
The job market remains soft. Federal job cuts and voluntary resignations/retirements from the federal sector released 317,000 civil servants into the labor market this year – although the buyouts offered by the government generated a sizable boost to overall GDP. Continued uncertainty as the U.S. pivoted away from free trade and the longest-ever government shutdown prevented employers from significant new hiring.
GDP growth is up for the year compared to 2024 (2.8% compared to 2%) although it is “K-shaped” growth with increased consumer spending by the affluent and reduced spending by poorer consumers.
Surveillance
In addition to a large cash infusion, DHS has also received unprecedented access to IRS and Social Security databases. This is a matter of concern. Tax and Social Security information is typically considered “Personally Identifiable Information” or PII and is closely safeguarded from a cybersecurity perspective. It is now being used as ICE is attempting to meet White House deportation quotas of 3,000 immigrant arrests a day, set in May.
The State Department has also created a requirement for any individual requesting a visa to turn over their social media profiles. The only other countries with anything close to this sort of requirement are Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Venezuela…not nations on the leading edge of human rights or excellence in immigration management.
I would bring your attention to the social media platform TikTok. TikTok was officially ordered to cease operations in the United States or sell to a U.S. firm in 2024 over longstanding security concerns. The new administration issued an executive order delaying the action until the sale could be completed. As of Dec. 2025, it appears a joint venture led by Oracle will close the sale of 45% of the U.S. unit of TikTok by Jan. 22. ByteDance, the Chinese creator/owner of TikTok, will retain over one-third of the U.S. entity.
You should know: TikTok is used by the Chinese Communist Party as a surveillance tool. This is the primary factor for the actions taken against it by the U.S. since 2020. TikTok features a wonderfully addictive algorithm and tremendous surveillance capability. ByteDance has used TikTok to track American journalists visiting China in several well-documented cases.
Oracle holds billions of dollars in government contracts. As a trusted partner, it should not be a stretch for Oracle to access the TikTok algorithm for any purpose directed by the government. That is, DHS is already using IRS and Social Security data to track us. The U.S. is singling itself out – ahead of even the worst dictatorships – to force visitors to turn over social media profiles. And now the U.S. government will be able to access the most sophisticated digital tracking tools with the TikTok deal.
Congress
The 119th Congress has been marked by one of the slimmest majorities for any party for nearly a century, one of the poorest records of accomplishments, and a modern record for incumbents bowing out (53 members of the House and Senate are not running for re-election).
There’s no budget three months into the new fiscal year. And after handing the administration everything on its wish list in 2025, the midterm election momentum from the majority party seems tepid at best. Also from the minority party. Even the firebrands have gone on mute. Hello? Anybody home?
Authoritarianism
The White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the border czar Tom Homan, and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought seem hellbent on a single branch of government running the country. Only one of these individuals, Vought, was confirmed by Congress.
The desire to sidestep Congress, to militarize our borders and our cities, to create a masked internal Federal police force – this was all unthinkable to me as a Republican four decades ago. At the end of 2025, it has all taken place, largely at the vision and orders of these three individuals.
The intent can be seen clearly in this quote from Vought in late 2024: “We’re trying to build a shadow office of Legal Counsel so that when a future president says, what legal authorities do I need to shut down the riots? We want to be able to shut down the riots and not have the legal community or the defense community to come in and say, that’s an inappropriate use of what you’re trying to do.”
Compare that to the formative document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence. In this document, the abuses of executive overreach by King George III of England are enumerated, including, “He has affected to render the Military independent and superior to the Civil power.”
The Supreme Court is currently reviewing the widespread tariff program established by the White House. The Declaration of Independence also refers to “cutting off our trade with all parts of the world,” and “imposing taxes on us without our consent” as elements of the “absolute Tyranny over these States” established by George III.
Voters
Like our Revolutionary forebears, voters are not happy. One bellwether is Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who resigned her seat as of Jan. 1. Once the President’s greatest cheerleader, after seeing the bungling of the Epstein files’ release, likely strain on our healthcare system with the current GOP agenda, and overall affordability issues for working people while the White House courts tech elites and billionaires, Greene is over it. She knows her constituents, she says. She also knows a lot of regular voters, it seems.
The Republican Party, who has knuckled over completely to the Trump Organization, is in shambles. After dumping free trade, global leadership and fiscal prudence, 2025 strained the new MAGA GOP. Is there an America First/MAGA split? Is Mike Pence growing influence with the Advancing American Freedom foundation (AAF has pulled every last sane conservative from the Heritage Foundation, it appears). Whatever is left of the GOP, it is not likely to gain a lot of Congressional seats.
But can the Democrats? Some important lessons were learned in November. Lesson one: affordability. This won the Democrats key seats and governorships in Virginia and New Jersey. The White House is trying to take that narrative back and has some time. The President is going back to what he does best – rallies.
It will be tough, though, for him to find the enemy that will galvanize 2026 voters. The economy belongs to the GOP now. So does immigration. The border is secure, but workplaces are open for raids, which are increasingly unpopular. And we may not be focused on nation building in Iraq or Afghanistan, but it sure looks like we are in the oil-producing nations of Venezuela and Nigeria.
After a violent and chaotic year, voters want stability. We haven’t seen much of that in 2025. Our biggest problem – the debt – is ignored, and more of us are tuning out the constant noise coming from the White House. Unfortunately, turning a deaf ear to the shouting won’t stop the tirade.
Americans are uniquely suited to tolerate trying times. Despite rapid inroads made against our constitutional federal republic by this administration, the Constitution, Congress, and the Supreme Court endure, and there will be nationwide elections in another 11 months. The major parties don’t have to be particularly competent and are unlikely to be.
Individual politicians who know their voters and successfully connect with them like the governors just sworn in in New Jersey and Virginia, or even Greene, stepping down in a surprising move, will decide the future of America more definitively than ponderous party platforms.
Merritt Hamilton Allen is a PR executive and former Navy officer. She appeared regularly as a panelist on NM PBS and is a frequent guest on News Radio KKOB. A Republican for 36 years, she became an independent upon reading the 2024 Republican platform. She lives amicably with her Democratic husband north of I-40 where they run one head of dog, and one of cat. She can be reached at news.ind.merritt@gmail.com.
