We pay for the constitutional violations.

We pay for the wars.

We pay for the lawsuits, the settlements, the cover-ups, the damage control, the reconstruction, the overreach, the incompetence and the corruption.

And when government officials are finally called to account for their misconduct, we pay for that, too.

That is the dirty little secret of government accountability in America: even when the government loses, the government does not really pay. "We the people" do.

This is not a problem invented by Donald Trump.

For decades, politicians, police officers, prosecutors, prison officials, federal agents and bureaucrats of both parties have violated rights, exceeded their authority, misused public power and left taxpayers to pick up the tab.

The wrongdoers rarely pay personally. They get to keep their pensions, promotions, pardons, security details and speaking fees. The government agencies involved in misconduct rarely suffer lasting consequences. The victims get a check drawn on taxpayer funds.

And the tax-paying populace gets to pay for the settlements, the legal fees, the court costs, the reconstruction costs and the long-term damage to trust in government.

The message is coming across loud and clear: the government can violate our rights in every way possible—using resources that we are forced to provide—and then it can turn right around and make us pay to clean up its many messes and right its many wrongs.

This is the Art of the Steal.

Trump, having taken to government corruption like a duck to water, has made ripping off the taxpayers the cornerstone of his governing philosophy.

For a man who has spent a lifetime grifting, it is the ultimate grift.

During his second term in office, Trump has established a track record of forcing the public to subsidize the consequences of his own recklessness: rewarding allies, funding unconstitutional crackdowns, rebuilding what he tears down, bankrolling vanity projects, and attempting to buy his way out of crises he helped create.