“On its face, there’s nothing wrong with DHS buying a replacement for a 20-year-old plane per se, and it makes sense to fund replacements like this through the Coast Guard because they know how to buy planes. But this last-minute spending shift raises questions,” said Steve Ellis, president of the nonpartisan budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense and a former Coast Guard officer. “Was this a planned replacement for an aircraft at the end of its lifecycle, or was this a top-down decision to get Secretary Noem a fancy new jet ahead of schedule? The Coast Guard has a lot of aging equipment and money spent on an executive jet isn’t available for other asset needs. It’s a question of priorities.”