In January 2023, the federal government halted flight departures nationwide after the Federal Aviation Administration suffered a crippling computer outage. 

The snafu stemmed from a corrupted file in the FAA’s Air Missions system, interrupting crucial safety information to pilots. The FAA didn’t operate exactly as a well-oiled machine under former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. This week, we learned at least one reason why.

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In an exclusive story, the New York Post was told by air industry insiders that Buttigieg showed “little to no interest” in upgrading the FAA’s outdated air traffic control system and took “zero action” to improve operational reliability, despite warnings about various issues, including staffing shortfalls.

During one meeting with airline executives, Buttigieg reportedly questioned the value of improved air traffic control, saying it would enable airlines to fly more planes, and asking why such a result would be in his interest.

Such a self-centered statement might sound shocking to the average American, but it makes sense to anyone who’s studied public choice theory, which recognizes that government officials respond to incentives just like everyone else and often act in their own interest rather than the public’s.

For Buttigieg, flying more carbon-spewing airplanes was hardly a political win, especially for a Cabinet secretary positioning himself as a climate champion and considering a presidential run. Instead, the New York Post reported, Buttigieg focused on “shelling out tens of billions of dollars” on his diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda. Precisely how much money the DOT spent on DEI under Buttigieg is unclear. The New York Post claims Buttigieg spent $80 billion over four years while putting off much-needed improvements to the nation’s air traffic control infrastructure.

True, it’s unclear where the figure comes from. The newspaper links to a DOT page listing the department’s accomplishments, including various grants. But nothing indicates $80 billion in total DEI funding, and Buttigieg’s office contests the figure. Because the matter was contested, I decided to ask ChatGPT for assistance. This was the answer artificial intelligence gave me after scanning DOT grants: “Confirmed equity-focused and infrastructure programs under DOT are in the low tens of billions—not $80 billion dedicated solely to DEI.”

Whether DOT allocated $80 billion in DEI grants or “tens of billions” can be worked out in the future. What’s clear is that the DOT was spending billions of dollars advancing a political agenda when it should have been upgrading its aging infrastructure and modernizing systems critical to the nation’s transportation needs. 

Despite its veneer, DEI is little more than a cheap hustle (or, rather, an expensive one) prioritizing identity politics over genuine merit and results. It allows politicians to reward favored constituencies but comes with real opportunity costs. Every dollar DOT spends targeting “disadvantaged businesses” is money not being spent on modernizing critical federal infrastructure.

Bureaucracy is bad enough, but bureaucracy built around DEI is worse. Economists have long observed that bureaucracy is inherently inefficient because it lacks the market signals that drive competition, innovation, and accountability. “What must be realized is that the strait jacket of bureaucratic organization paralyzes the individual’s initiative, while within the capitalist market society an innovator still has a chance to succeed,” economist Ludwig von Mises noted in his masterpiece Bureaucracy. “The former makes for stagnation and preservation of inveterate methods, the latter makes for progress and improvement.”

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Mises was right about bureaucracy’s inefficiencies, but he never saw bureaucracy on DEI. By intentionally prioritizing politics over performance, the waste, misallocation, and stagnation typical of bureaucracies are not just tolerated — they’re institutionalized. 

Buttigieg’s multibillion-dollar DEI crusade wasn’t just costly; it’s a case study in how ideology can entrench dysfunction and cronyism, and divert scarce resources away from real problems.