The loudest DOGE cuts get the most coverage. The quietest ones may matter more.

Everyone has heard about the high-profile reductions — agency headcounts, foreign aid freezes, federal contractor reviews. These generate headlines because they involve large numbers and familiar institutions. But buried in the actual budget documents are cuts that will reshape how the US government functions at a granular level, and most of them are not being discussed.

The TikTok situation in the US has become so legally and politically tangled that a clear summary is genuinely useful.

Congress passed a law requiring ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to divest its US operations or face a ban. The law survived a Supreme Court challenge. The deadline passed. TikTok went dark briefly in the US, then came back when the incoming Trump administration signaled it would not enforce the deadline immediately, seeking instead a negotiated outcome. The app has been operating in a legal grey zone since.

Most tariff coverage focuses on the geopolitics. Here is the part that affects you directly.

When the US imposes a 25% tariff on imported goods, the foreign country does not absorb the cost. The importer does. And the importer passes it to the retailer. And the retailer passes it to you. Tariffs are, in practical terms, a consumption tax paid by domestic buyers — not a penalty paid by foreign exporters.