Bipartisan Boondoggle: How the Bus Scam Bleeds Taxpayers and Feeds the Swamp

A $821 Million Scam No One’s Talking About

Let me break this down real simple: Congress is using your tax dollars to fund bus routes no one wants, no one rides, and that wouldn’t last two months if they had to stand on their own feet.

We’re talking about nearly a billion dollars a year poured into dead-end routes from Washington to Bristol, from Portland to Astoria, from Wilmington to Charlotte — all ghost routes engineered not to move people, but to move votes. These buses are mostly empty. Some carry fewer than ten passengers. Some carry zero.

And yet we subsidize them like they’re essential infrastructure.

Here’s the truth: This isn’t transportation. It’s transportation theater.

The American People Get the Bill, Elites Get the Control

These intercity bus subsidies are not about helping people. They’re about helping politicians.

The folks writing these checks don’t care about mobility. They care about power. They care about federal dollars flowing into their districts so they can cut ribbons and smile for the cameras. And in the process, they create unfair competition that destroys unsubsidized bus companies who are actually doing the job.

Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same con game the banks are running. Print the money, funnel it to friends, punish the productive, and call it “progress.”

The elites call it public service. I call it legalized theft.

Buses That Don’t Move People, But Move Money

Let’s talk numbers.

• Virginia flushed $19 million.
• North Carolina torched $34 million.
• Ohio dumped $30 million.
• Colorado tossed $16 million.

That’s over $100 million right there, and the list goes on. Where’s that money going?

• To insurance companies that jacked rates after the CERTS Act handed them billions.
• To bureaucrats who run the subsidy machine.
• To vehicle manufacturers protected by Buy America mandates, producing inferior buses with tanks too small for real long-distance travel.

And we wonder why bus maintenance now costs four times what it used to.

A Market That’s Already Solving the Problem — Until Government Shows Up

You know who’s actually succeeding in this space? FlixBus. A private company offering cheap, efficient travel that responds to demand — not politics.

FlixBus grew because they cut costs. They ditched expensive terminals. They used market signals instead of political favors.

So what does the government do? It steps in with subsidies to undercut them. Because if you let the market work, you don’t need bureaucrats. You don’t need lobbyists. And that’s the real threat to the system.

The free market reveals that the emperor has no clothes. And the emperor — in this case, Uncle Sam and his state-level vassals — can’t afford that kind of transparency.

Connecting Small Towns? Please.

The elites love to trot out the "rural access" excuse. “We need to connect small towns!” they shout, as if 1970s Greyhound routes are the key to economic development.

Let’s get real.

Nobody’s catching the midnight bus from Parkersburg to Columbus. Not unless it’s the only option left — which, ironically, it might be after all the subsidized nonsense drives out real competition.

If rural America needs transportation, let the free market deliver it. That means:

• Smaller coaches.
• Demand-based routes.
• Flexibility.
• Innovation.

But you won’t get any of that when politicians are picking winners and losers.

Another Chapter in the Book of Economic Tyranny

This entire mess is yet another example of how central planning always fails.

Like the banking system. Like the Federal Reserve’s digital currency pipe dreams. Like the COVID bailouts that fed the rich and choked the poor.

It's the same pattern every time:

1. Government sees a problem (real or invented).
2. Government throws taxpayer money at it.
3. Bureaucrats, cronies, and corporations profit.
4. The problem gets worse.
5. The taxpayer gets the bill.

This isn’t governance. It’s economic warfare against the middle class.

And the real kicker? The same corrupt politicians pushing this scheme are the ones telling you they care about climate change, equity, and access. All while burning fuel in empty buses on ghost routes to nowhere.

Stop Subsidizing Failure

The solution here isn’t more oversight. It isn’t reform. It isn’t audits or task forces or bipartisan commissions.

It’s ZERO. Cut the subsidies to zero.

Because until the money stops flowing, the corruption doesn’t end.

Every dollar sent to this bus boondoggle is a dollar stolen from your wallet. It’s money you could’ve saved, invested, or spent supporting a real business in your town.

But instead, it’s handed over to prop up failure — to make sure unelected bureaucrats and crooked politicians can keep playing transit tycoons on your dime.

Final Thoughts: Don’t Ride the Bus. Burn the Map.

This is about more than buses. This is about breaking the cycle of elite manipulation. It's about refusing to fund the machinery of our own oppression.

They’re stealing from us. It’s time to stop playing along.

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Stop subsidizing failure. Stop feeding the beast. It’s time to take our country back.