Pete’s Transportation Priorities: Spend $80 BILLION On DEI Grants

Pete Buttigieg never cared about transportation. His priorities certainly weren’t focused on East Palestine, Ohio after that horrific train wreck. Nor was he concerned about air traffic safety and air traffic control. Nope, his priorities were elsewhere. With DEI crap to be exact. $80 billion dollars worth.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg failed to replace outdated air traffic control systems while in office — with his agency instead shelling out tens of billions of dollars on a DEI agenda, according to federal spending records and airline industry insiders.

In one meeting, Buttigieg — who is said to be eyeing a 2028 presidential run — told industry executives that air traffic control upgrades would just allow them to fly more planes, “and so why would that be in his interest?,” sources said.

Stop and think about that arrogant statement for a moment. Air travel is one of the top methods available for people to not only move around the United States, but travel the world as well. Updating the systems ISN’T about “allowing” the airlines to fly more planes, it is about SAFETY you arrogant putz. 

But of course, as we’ve documented a number of times, Petey phoned it in constantly. Transportation safety was never his concern. Nope, he just kept the spigot of money flowing to projects like California’s high speed rail to nowhere. 

The U.S. Transportation Department announced it was pulling back $4 billion in funding for the project, weeks after signaling it would do so. Overall, a little less than a quarter of the project’s funding has come from the federal government. The rest has come from the state, mainly through a voter-approved bond and money from its cap-and-trade program.

President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy both have slammed the project as a “train to nowhere.”

“The Railroad we were promised still does not exist, and never will,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “This project was Severely Overpriced, Overregulated, and NEVER DELIVERED.”

Well, the good thing about that is that we now have $4 billion to use for East Palestine or air traffic control or both. Keep in mind, Pete also threw money at the EV battery stations that are, to this day, MIA. 

Instead, he took a huge chunk of the transportation budget and blew it on DEI projects and grants.

In an urgent letter to Buttigieg’s DOT in April 2024, air industry trade association officials warned that at the current rate of hiring, it could take as long as 90 years for the FAA to reach its targeted staffing levels in some of the critical New York air traffic control centers.

At the same time, the focus of the department under Buttigieg also shifted, with roughly 400 DEI-related grants approved, according to a review of federal spending between 2021 and 2024.

~Snip

Programs such as “Justice40” ended up shelling out 55% of around $150 billion in infrastructure investments to “disadvantaged communities,” pursuant to an executive order Biden signed to “advance equitable outcomes.”

Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure law in 2021 provided much of the funding, but some Democrats were critical of the outcomes — including a $5 billion equity effort to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations that resulted in just seven being built by June 2024.

Air traffic control under the FAA is critically understaffed. Yet instead of getting more funds directed to the FAA, Pete’s transportation priorities were focused on using nearly HALF the transportation budget on DEI grants while spending WAY less on air traffic control hiring or ATC systems.

Documents show Buttigieg’s DOT spent $40B on “Justice40” programs in 2022–23. Separate grants on top of that in FY23 totaled over $40 billion—many with equity criteria.

Buttigieg pushed Biden’s “Justice40 programs” that required a huge 40% of Biden’s federal spending must go to “underserved” communities. “DEI-related” transportation investments began with $12.8B in FY 2022, but then more than doubled to $27.2B in FY 2023. And that year in 2023, USDOT announced another, separate $40B in social justice grants like Safe Streets and Roads for All, also cleaning up industrial sites.

That $67.2B total is nearly half of the DOT’s 142B FY 2023 budget, and is quadruple the $16.9B spent that year on air traffic control.

Pete wants to be President. Or, at least some of the moderates in the Democrat party want him to run. Can he succeed? I doubt it unless the Democrats kick their far-left loons to the curb. Not only that, but his track record as Mayor and Transportation Secretary were epic and well-documented failures. 

This new info regarding $80 billion thrown at DEI grants instead of actual DOT needs absolutely should be made into ads if he does throw his hat in the ring.

Every day there’s another story highlighting why Pete Buttigieg will never be President.

Delaying air traffic updates because you were focused on DEI, transit equity day, multi-racial block parties to qualify for EV charging stations… https://t.co/mBahVrgNxv pic.twitter.com/E0tJIiqbNy

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) July 21, 2025

Pete’s making lots of Youtube videos and making the rounds of the late night hosts (until their show hits the skids that it) to blather on about the Trump Administration. 

I’d like to see him try to spin spending $80 billion on DEI crap instead of ensuring our roads, trains, and air travel are safe for the peasants to traverse. 

Feature Photo Credit: Original artwork by Victory Girls Darleen Click

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