Everyone in my generation grew up with stories of government waste. We were kids of the Reagan era, so it was part of the Republican routine. They pretended all the government did was spend your money, so you should shrink the size of government.

What that meant in practical terms, many of us wouldn’t learn until much later: By “smaller government,” they meant “fewer regulations.” That always hurts the underdog, and Republicans know it as well now as they did then.

Better, even. And it makes them hypocrites.

They told us stories of gold toilet seats and $10,000 wrenches, of “welfare queens” driving Cadillacs while Joe Everyman struggled to get potatoes and beans on the table. But it was all a lie.

The guy they’re about to nominate for president wasted so much money, it’s obscene.

Heck, the first time he was president, he spent $140 million just on golfing at his own resorts (the profits all going back to him, of course).

But now, Donald Trump isn’t even waiting for it to be taxpayer money before he wastes it. He’s actually spending small-donor campaign money to pay his lawyers. In fact, according to a Business Insider analysis of his “campaign” spending, he’s dropped $52 million in donations on legal fees.

But broken down, it gets even more gross: $40 million of that went to law firms for things completely unrelated to his campaign. It’s at this point I feel compelled to go back and tell you these are campaign donations. It’s money that the donors expressly thought was going toward getting Donald elected president again.

No such luck, Trumpers.

Turns out you bought Maseratis for the children of his lawyers. You bought vacations in the Maldives, which I challenge you to find on a map. You bought them $2,000 shoes.

You paid for an “expert witness” in his New York civil fraud trial that made more than three times the federal minimum wage every single minute that he “worked” for Trump.

Imagine the lady who cashiers at the Dollar General in Gulfport, Mississippi finding out that the money she sent to her cult leader ended up paying a witness in Trump’s fraud trial 180 times what she makes to try and prove Trump didn’t lie about the size of his apartment in Trump Tower.

She worked for 3 hours so that guy could get paid for ONE MINUTE.

Anyway, Donald Trump thanks you, MAGA faithful.