After word got out from the US DOGE Service that taxpayers gave Politico $32 million last year in payments for subscriptions and other uses, the outlet took a beating on social media. Curiously, Politico didn't say much in response. David found this curious as well:

Has anyone else noticed that @politico is taking a pounding on X, and as far as I can tell, they have been silent about it? Anybody seen a statement about the government funneling money to them?

— David Strom (@DavidStrom) February 5, 2025

Perhaps they had to allocate their resources to customer service. One might imagine that operators for their subscription service got inundated by questions and cancellations, including from their biggest client segment ... bureaucrats. And at $12,000 a pop annually, that's an expensive deluge of transactions to manage.

We'll get back to that absurd price shortly. Today, Karoline Leavitt gave Politico notice that the taxpayer gravy train has come to an abrupt if long overdue end. In fact, Leavitt gave the outlet the notice in person, as one of their reporters was in the briefing room at the time:

.@PressSec on Legacy Media outlets receiving funding from USAID:

"The more than 8 million taxpayer dollars that have gone to essentially subsidizing subscriptions to @politico... will no longer be happening. The @DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now." pic.twitter.com/wjvSWWr1kA

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 5, 2025

As for the performative outrage over spending accountability from Democrats specifically -- and implicitly the media as well -- Leavitt delivered a final argument at the end of the presser:

.@PressSec closes out Wednesday's White House press briefing with a MIC DROP 🔥:

"Democrats are outraged that the American people want their taxpayer dollars going to good uses, not stuff like this, but then they're very quiet about the fact that there are still North… pic.twitter.com/txsYUlU6QJ

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 5, 2025

That has more to do with the overall outrage over the US DOGE Service and the way it has exposed waste and shut down those government operations funding it. The point about Politico and its absurd subscription fee deserves more scrutiny, however, because it clearly doesn't match value for cost. A Lexis-Nexis subscription that provides access to almost all significant media publications, as well as legal research data, runs somewhere around $160 a month -- about a sixth of what Politico apparently charges for its own paywalled material, or at least what the data show government agencies paid for each account. 

I have used my uncanny calculator skills to determine that Politico was selling Pro Subscriptions for $11,999.94 each. https://t.co/c1Dh5gMAPn

— FilmLadd (@FilmLadd) February 5, 2025

That prompts the question: why would anyone pay six times as much for this subscription for a tiny subset of information from Politico than they would for comprehensive access to all published material (and more) at Lexis-Nexis? The data can't be that valuable, so there has to be a better explanation. 

My friend Hugh Hewitt smells a rat too.  And he also isn't hearing much a defense from the stakeholders:

I don't know how to even begin to express my shock at the exposure of the amount of government money that went to @POLITICO. Many alums of the left-wing bulletin of talking points from the DNC who have defended it all these years may want to put out a statement as to why it was acceptable for the website to accept the money and an explanation on how that could possibly not have impacted coverage.

Lots of government organizations subscribe to legacy media. Lots of copies of Post, Times and Journal are delivered every day to most bureaucracies. That is SOP, but the revenue from those subscriptions was also an insignificant portion of total revenue to the publication.  That does not appear to be the case with @politico but it can publish its books if it wants to make that case. 

There is now at least there is one possible, obvious motive for the conduct described by @MarcACaputo to @tarapalmeri  recently: Politico was hooked on the federal money.  Between $5 and $30 million to a Beltway newsletter is a scandal.

Like Hugh, I also pay for some subscriptions, three of which my company allows me to expense. The New York Times costs $23 per month for full access, the Washington Post $17 per month, and the Wall Street Journal is $43 per month, although I bill that annually. I have also recently added the LA Times on a promotional rate to get access to their coverage of the wildfires, as well as to watch the evolution of the newspaper under the new direction that Patrick Soon-Shiong has taken it. I subscribe out of my own pocket to others, including Matt Taibbi's Substack and The Free Press, as I want to support their independent journalism -- and they produce excellent articles to boot.

All of these prices are for full-access subscriptions. Put together, the total add up to less than a tenth of what Politico charged government agencies -- even when selling those subscriptions in bulk. If the Politico Pro subscription price competed with these others, then no one would worry much about that level of payment from government agencies, even while we might wonder why the FDA needs 37 such subscriptions at a time. At this price point, it looks very much like the government signed up dozens or more of these absurdly priced subscriptions as a corrupt payoff for bureaucrat-friendly media. 

If it's not corrupt, then let's hear a better explanation. And so far, Politico isn't saying much.