Money  Down  the  Drain

It is a challenge for most people to pay the bills, buy a house, put the kids through college, or generally make ends meet.  People expect to see a certain amount of money deducted from their paychecks for a pension plan, health insurance, or 401(k).  (You will probably never see that Social Security money again.)  But it really hurts to see huge sums of money taken out of a check to pay federal income tax, especially when you know that a lot of that money will be wasted on some of the nonsense shown below.

Additionally, some of your money will be given to people who are too lazy to work.  In 2002, the federal government spent $522 billion on low-income assistance programs.*  That's half a trillion dollars per year.  But the issues of poverty and perpetual dependency in America are discussed on another page.

Updated 9/17/2006:
 All the material about Amtrak has been moved to this page.

Related subjects discussed on separate pages:

Pork products in the stimulus bill
Taxpayers' money spent on sports stadiums
PBS and National Public Radio
The Socialized Medicine Page
Wasteful Wartime Spending
Wasteful Spending in Public Education
Pork Barrel Projects, the biggest of which is NASA.
The Endless and Ineffective War on Poverty


L.A. County rings up $1.5 million for unused phones.  Los Angeles County government has more than 8,000 phones that never ring.  The annual cost to taxpayers?  At least $1.5 million and climbing.  Officials worry that some lines may have never served a county purpose. ... Auditors, who are only halfway through their search, say the number of abandoned phone lines may top 16,000, totaling $3 million a year in phone bills.

Dr. Coburn Releases Stimulus Oversight Report.  Ten examples of wasteful stimulus projects in the report include:
[#7] $1.15 million for installation of a new guard rail for the non-existent Optima Lake in Oklahoma.
[#8] Nearly $10 million to renovate an abandoned train station that hasn't been used in 30 years.
[#9] 10,000 dead people get stimulus checks, but the Social Security Administration blames a tough deadline.

Selective Sacrifice.  The average salary of a federal worker in 2007 was $77,143.  This was more than 60 percent higher than the average in the private sector, which stood at $48,035.  When the benefits are added, the total compensation of an average federal worker comes to an eye-popping $116,450.  This is more than twice the private sector average.

Tax dollars wasted on construction of stimulus signs.  Gov. Jennifer Granholm and her staff see little, if any, harm in spending tax dollars to construct and display metal road signs informing motorists that federal stimulus funds are being spent on road improvements throughout Michigan.  Two Macomb County state House representatives, however, are leading a Republican charge against the signs.

700 NYC teachers are paid to do nothing.  Hundreds of New York City public school teachers accused of offenses ranging from insubordination to sexual misconduct are being paid their full salaries to sit around all day playing Scrabble, surfing the Internet or just staring at the wall, if that's what they want to do.  Because their union contract makes it extremely difficult to fire them, the teachers have been banished by the school system to its "rubber rooms" — off-campus office space where they wait months, even years, for their disciplinary hearings.

76% Say Government Likely To Waste Stimulus Money.  Seventy-six percent (76%) of Americans say it is at least somewhat likely that a large amount of money in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan will be wasted due to inadequate government oversight.  Nearly half (46%) say it is very likely, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.  Only 18% say it is not likely that taxpayer money will be wasted.

State Department Says China to Get U.S. Aid under New Climate Deal.  U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern said that there was "no question" that China would receive both financial and technological assistance from the United States as part of upcoming climate change talks to be conducted in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Stimulus program fraught with waste, report says.  A report due to be released today by a Republican senator contends the Obama administration's stimulus program is fraught with waste and incompetence — evidenced by a turtle crossing in northern Florida that will cost more than $3 million and a snafu in which thousands of Social Security checks went out to people who had died.

Son of Stimulus.  A second stimulus?  As risible as it sounds, Pres. Barack Obama entertains the idea.  When asked at a press conference Tuesday [6/23/2009] if another stimulus bill might be necessary, Obama replied, "Not yet."  How about not ever?  People seem to forget that the $787 billion stimulus package enacted last February was the second stimulus — the Bush administration enacted a $168 billion stimulus bill in February of 2008. ... Above all, it is important to remember that Obama's stimulus was not designed to maximize job creation.  The administration's primary goal was to give frustrated Democrats an all-purpose vehicle for pent-up spending desires that the Bush administration had repressed.  Obama removed the lid and out came $87 billion in additional funds for Medicaid, $15 billion for Pell Grant scholarships, $3 billion for public-housing improvements, and $2 billion for renewable-energy research.

Giving Failure a Pass.  The Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest in California, spends $10 million a year to "house," with full pay and benefits, about 160 teachers deemed unsuitable for the classroom, according to "Failure Gets a Pass," a recent series in the Los Angeles Times.  "If I had my way, I would fire [all of them], and they would not get another d----- penny," LAUSD superintendent Ramon C. Cortines told the Times.  "They're milking the system."

Taxpayer Cash for Environmental Clunkers.  The "clunkers" program would direct dealers to scrap or shred traded-in vehicles with fuel economy of 18 miles per gallon or less.  The buyer, in turn, would get an incentive towards the price of a new vehicle with fuel economy of 22 miles per gallon or better.  Environmental groups, the auto industry and unions support the plan, which also has its critics.  "Taxpayers should not see their hard-earned money used to buy their neighbor a new car," explained Representative Tom Price, a Georgia Republican.  Yet, the clunker concept is just one of many programs for which taxpayers will foot the bill.

Critics say 'cash for clunkers' bill is a lemon.  Congress is about to approve a new federal program to pay car owners up to $4,500 for trading in gas-guzzling automobiles for more fuel-efficient cars, to the applause of the struggling auto industry. ... Critics contend that the "cash for clunkers" bill, which has auto industry backing, was designed more to boost auto sales than to reduce global warming.

Congress OKs 'cash for clunkers'.  Last-minute intervention from the White House on Thursday [6/18/2009] swayed a crucial Democratic senator to rescue a $1 billion "cash for clunkers" plan to boost battered auto sales.  Sixty senators — the bare minimum needed — voted to reject an attempt to strip the program from a wartime spending bill.

E-Verify works, so, of course, let's not use it.  With billions of your federal tax dollars gushing forth from Washington — as part of President Barack Obama's stimulus bill to put Americans back to work — wouldn't it be nice if someone invented a special magic faucet?  A magic faucet to compel those federal contractors doing all the hiring with all that federal money to make certain the jobs go to people who are legally entitled to work in the United States.  Is that kind of magic too much for a beleaguered taxpayer to expect?  Actually, the faucet has already been invented.  It's called E-Verify.  And it works.

Who Pays For Your Vacation?  We've written several times about Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison's hajj to Mecca... A spokesman for Ellison, the first Muslim Congressman, first claimed that he paid for the pilgrimage himself.  Later it was reported that the Muslim American Society paid for the trip, which MAS spokesman Mahdi Bray heatedly denied, describing the report as a "myth" and "urban legend" that couldn't possibly be true because "that would be a breach of congressional ethics."  Bray's denial, however, quietly became inoperative.

US govt hydrogen highway runs out of road.  The original hydrogen plan was announced by then President Bush in 2003 and, to date, the US government has spent around $500m (£328m/€367m) on the project.  There's not much to show for it other than some Honda FCX Claritys and Chevrolet Equinoxes running around California, and 70-odd hydrogen filling stations nationwide.  Not so much a case of hydrogen tech being put on the back burner but rather being wrapped in cling film and shoved to the rear of the freezer.

DOE to slash fuel cell vehicle research.  The Department of Energy's proposed budget boosts research on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources but makes cuts in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles because the technology is many years from being practical.  The DOE published details of its $26.4 billion fiscal 2010 budget request on Thursday [5/7/2009], and Energy Secretary Steven Chu held a news briefing to cover the highlights.

The Editor says...
 The Department of Energy is a complete waste of money.  The most obviously practical and affordable sources of energy for U.S. consumers are petroleum, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy.  The Obama administration is opposed to all of them.  Therefore the only apparent purpose of the Department of Energy is to come up with expensive, unreliable alternatives.

NYC Turns Luxury Units Into Shelters For Homeless.  There's controversy swirling around how much New York City is paying to rent luxury condos for homeless families. ... By all accounts it's the nicest homeless shelter in the city and some non-homeless neighbors are feeling pretty inhospitable.  "The apartments are beautiful.  They're living better than a lot of people around here and they don't have to pay for it," neighbor Maria Brown said.  When the building went up the idea was to sell the units, some of them for more than $300,000.  But now, even though apartments sit empty, you can't even rent them.

Con games and stimulus cash.  Remember how all those billions in "stimulus" money allocated in Washington last year were reserved for "shovel-ready" projects, creating new construction jobs and additionally re-building our infrastructure — roads, piers, bridges, stuff like that? ... As it turns out, most of that money is going where government always puts most of its money — into fat paychecks for social service bureaucrats. ... Two-thirds of recovery money that flows directly to states will go toward health care.  Not hiring new doctors or nurses, mind you.  Just paying medical bills for poor people — and the salaries of those who handle this redistribution of your hard-earned cash.

Renovating Parking Garages Will Cost Taxpayers $156,322 Per Congressman.  As it is considering legislation that would cap carbon emissions and significanyly increase energy prices of U.S. consumers in the name of controlling global warming, the U.S. House of Representatives is also considering spending $68 million to renovate two parking garages that are used exclusively by members of Congress and their staff.  Given that there are only 435 members of the House, the renovation of these exclusive garages would cost $156,322 per congressman.

Presidential Fundraising Trips Leave Taxpayers With Hefty Tab.  President Obama has the star power to raise millions of dollars for the candidates and organizations he graces with his stump speech.  But when the president hit the road Tuesday for a two-day fundraising tour to pack the party coffers, he also was racking up a $265,000 partisan bill for just one leg of the trip, according to a watchdog group — part of which taxpayers, regardless of party affiliation, will have to pay.

Lawmakers Bill Taxpayers For TVs, Cameras, Lexus.  Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings spent $24,730 in taxpayer money last year to lease a 2008 luxury Lexus hybrid sedan.  Ohio Rep. Michael Turner expensed a $1,435 digital camera.  Eni Faleomavaega, the House delegate from American Samoa, bought two 46-inch Sony TVs.  The expenditures were legal, properly accounted for and drawn from allowances the U.S. government grants to lawmakers.

Tunnel's cost may fool us all.  [Scroll down]  A professor at Oxford University in England has done a compelling series of studies trying to get at why big public-works projects such as bridges, tunnels and light-rail systems almost always turn out to be far more costly than estimated.  "It cannot be explained by error," sums up one of his papers, matter-of-factly.  "It is best explained by strategic misrepresentation — that is, lying."

Surprise!  Some TARP recipients are cooking the books.  First, isn't it an odd attitude for a an overseer to "hope" that he doesn't find a single bank who's been cheating?  One would hope that someone in charge of looking over the shoulder of the banks would pray for the opportunity to catch one of them trying to steal tax payer monies.  Beyond that, isn't it swell that our tax dollars may be used by banks to back fraudulent mortgages?

I'd Like My Money Back.  Please refund the taxes collected fraudulently for services never provided.

Taxpayers are tired of fraud.  Thousands of people gathered in cities and towns across the nation this past week to hold "tea parties" and protest high taxes.  But millions more Americas are not as upset about the amount of taxes they pay as the way their money is spent.  Another prime example came recently with a report from the Government Accountability Office showing that millions of public dollars are going to fraudulent companies under the guise of helping "small businesses" to serve "needy communities."

Dead Woman Gets Federal Stimulus Check.  Millions of Americans on Social Security are receiving $250 checks as part of the president's stimulus plan — including an Anne Arundel woman who died more than 40 years ago.  The woman's son, 83-year-old James Hagner, said he got the surprise when he checked his mailbox late last week.

Dead People Get Stimulus Checks.  This week, thousands of people are getting stimulus checks in the mail.  The problem is that a lot of them are dead.  A Long Island woman was shocked when she checked the mail and received a letter from the U.S. Treasury — but it wasn't for her.  Antoniette Santopadre of Valley Stream was expecting a $250 stimulus check.  But when her son finally opened it, they saw that the check was made out to her father, Romolo Romonini, who died in Italy 34 years ago.

Stimulus Checks On Their Way — to Dead People.  Millions of people are getting a Social Security check in the mail this week.  But there's a slight problem:  Thousands of them are dead.  Part of the $787 billion stimulus package Congress passed included a $250 payment to Social Security recipients who aren't working.

Miami-Dade doctor pleads guilty — again — to Medicare fraud.  A Miami-Dade physician pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in a Medicare racket with four other doctors accused of prescribing $19.5 million in obsolete infusion drugs for HIV patients who generally didn't need or receive the therapy.

Murtha's Earmarks Keep Airport Aloft.  The John Murtha airport sits on a windy mountain two hours east of Pittsburgh, a 650-acre expanse of smooth tarmac, spacious buildings, a helicopter hangar and a National Guard training center.  Inside the terminal on a recent weekday, four passengers lined up to board a flight, outnumbered by seven security staff members and supervisors, all suited up in gloves and uniforms to screen six pieces of luggage.

Murtha Airport Got Military Upgrades.  At the behest of Rep. John P. Murtha (D), chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, the Pentagon has spent about $30 million equipping the little-used airport named for him so it can handle behemoth military aircraft and store combat equipment for rapid deployment to foreign battlefields.  Most of the improvements, funded through appropriations approved by Murtha's panel, have not been used for their intended purpose.  The projects delighted National Guard and reserve units based in Murtha's Pennsylvania district that have seen budget cuts, but critics charge that the expenditures have been a waste of taxpayer dollars.

State Paid for Dental Cleanings for Toothless People.  Auditors say the state Medicaid program may have overpaid $2.9 million for services like teeth cleaning for toothless patients.  Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says auditors found the state health department's Medicaid claims processing system lacks necessary controls.

Why secretly funded DEA surveillance planes aren't flying.  The first sign of trouble with the Drug Enforcement Administration's new surveillance planes surfaced almost immediately.  On the way from the manufacturer to the agency's aviation headquarters, one of them veered off a runway during a fuel stop.  The malfunction last spring was only the beginning. ... The story behind why the DEA sought out the three planes, only to become the second federal agency to give them up, illustrates the pitfalls of "black," or classified, budgeting in which Congress approves tens of billions of dollars for intelligence agencies outside the public's view.

Where Stimulus Is Not Necessary:  President Bill Clinton announced in 1996 that the era of Big Government was over.  Yet 13 years later, more Americans are at work in the public sector than in manufacturing and construction combined.

Obama offers extra $1.4B for lunar missions.  Efforts to return to the moon are supported by the Obama White House, and NASA will receive $1.4 billion extra next fiscal year for a variety of lunar missions, a preview of the new administration's first federal budget showed Thursday.  The White House released a bare outline for the $3.55 trillion federal spending plan that includes a recommendation of $18.7 billion for NASA.

Coburn Highlights Billions of Wasteful Spending.  President Obama campaigned on the fact that we ought to live within our means; that every program ought to be reviewed; that those that are not effective, those that have waste, those that have high fraud rates, those that are low priority ought to be eliminated.  There is not one penny of effort placed in this bill that will get rid of less important Federal programs today.  We know there is at least $300 billion a year that is inefficiently, erroneously, and fraudulently spent by the Federal Government.  We ask our children and our grandchildren to choke down $1.1 trillion more of debt when we have not done anything — not one thing — to lessen the waste, fraud, and abuse, the inefficiency, and to make choices on what is more important.

Las Vegas City Hall — A Terrible Waste of Money.  Oscar Goodman's Taj Mahal city hall proposal is idiotic.  Our present city hall was expanded less than ten years ago, and the LV Metro Police plan to vacate tens of thousands of square feet of space in the existing building in the near future.

California School Spends $10G a Year to Teach AP Spanish to Kids Who Speak Spanish.  A middle school in Southern California is spending $10,000 a year to teach Advanced Placement Spanish to 35 of its 650 students — and all but one of them are already fluent in Spanish.  Thirty-four of the kids in the AP class are from Mexico or are the children of Mexican immigrants.  They all grew up speaking Spanish at home.

Unseen Enemy.  Besides sending more troops to Afghanistan, President Obama plans to send billions more in aid to Pakistan, despite evidence that our money is used to kill troops in Afghanistan.

Handout sure to stimulate a lot of scams.  This so-called economic stimulus act is going to spur more crime than anything Congress has passed since the Volstead Act. ... Take the weatherization plan. ... Low-income homeowners will soon be getting grants of up to $5,000 to weatherize their homes and thus reduce our dependence on foreign oil, wink wink, nudge, nudge.  Soon "contractors" will be setting up shop in the inner cities, recruiting marks, doing the paperwork that allows them to apply for a grant.  The first $500 will go to the program supervisor, to get him to sign off on a patently fraudulent project.  Then the homeowner will get $1,000 cash, to keep his mouth shut when nothing is actually done.  And finally, another $500 cash will be duked to the inspector who signs off on the, ahem, work.  Profit per job:  $3,000.  You don't think this will happen?  It already does — every time there's a disaster.

State employee:  I get $93,803 for no work.  As he tells it, Randall Hinton is paid $93,803 a year to do nothing.  He spends much of his workday at the State Insurance Fund donning headphones, listening to rock 'n' roll, blues or classical tunes and his superiors are cool with that.  His work agenda involves placing his feet up on his desk, staring out his office window and counting cars on the New York State Thruway.

Oklahoma, Utah lead in cell-only households.  Step aside high-tech California and uber-hip New York.  If you're looking for the states that lead the nation in ditching landline telephones for wireless, you're looking for Oklahoma and Utah.  At least 26 percent of households are now cell-only in Oklahoma and Utah, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in a report released Wednesday [3/11/2009].

The Editor says...
 That's all very interesting, but what does that have to do with disease control and prevention?

Obama speaks the truth.  Our President has a habit of saying what he means when he doesn't mean to say what he means. ... This week, while telling us about his plan to limit earmarks in Congressional bills, he once again did it by telling us his true feeling about public-versus-private entities. ... Mr. Obama's Stimulus Bill hands the Detroit school system $355 million with no strings attached even though recent audits have shown millions of dollars missing.  No, Mr. Obama was defining his basic philosophy from his inner core — business is bad; government is good.

The cost of supporting a president:  Taxpayers are supporting our former presidents to the tune of more than $2.9 million.  Their yearly salary pension is $191,000.  Aside from that, each gets a staff; that staff costs you, the taxpayer, $96,000 per president.  Among the amenities we pay for is rent for their office space — President Clinton's rent in Harlem is $516,000 a year, while the first President Bush spends $69,000 a year on "equipment" and President Jimmy Carter spends $83,000 a year on "other services".  The spending doesn't stop there.

Dollars for Hate.  Dollar bills don't put out a fire, not even the $4.5 billion that nations pledged for the West Bank and Gaza in 2009.  If financial aid could cure what is ailing those two spots, the Palestinians would replace the Norwegians in the Global Peace Index as the most peaceful people in the world.  In fact, the Palestinians are the top per-capita aid recipients in the history of the planet.

Is Bernard Madoff Running the Federal Government?  [Bernard] Madoff is only accused of a $50 billion heist.  That's peanuts compared to what the politicians have done to us.  On Monday, December 15, in a story that went unnoticed, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the federal government has failed another financial audit.  It was the 12th year in a row that the federal government has been unable to accurately report on its fiscal condition.  Frankly, nobody knows precisely where the money is going.

America's dystopian future?  Federal spending (in inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars) has gone from $600 billion in 1965 to $3 trillion today.  The Heritage Foundation put it in a convenient graph:  It's pretty much a straight line across four decades, up, up, up.  Doesn't make any difference who controls Congress, who's in the White House.  The government just grows and grows, remorselessly.

Obama-Pelosi Stimulus May Fail to Reignite Economy.  President-elect Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may throw as much as half a trillion dollars worth of stimulus at the economy — and have little or no growth to show for it.  The forces arrayed against recovery, including the credit contraction and cutbacks by consumers, are so powerful that they may overwhelm the record sums of spending and tax cuts being discussed in Washington.  The only consolation, economists say, is that without the stimulus, things would be even worse.

How Your Government Wastes Your Money:  Investigators randomly sampled 300 Department of Agriculture (USDA) employee credit cards.  They found that, over six months, 15 percent of them charged a total $5.8 million in personal expenses that included Ozzy Osbourne concert tickets, tattoos, lingerie, bartender school tuition, car payments and cash advances.

TVA employees charge $75M on expense cards.  Televisions, X-Boxes, alcohol, Internet software and tuition.  Inspector General auditors say those are just some of the questionable purchases made by Tennessee Valley Authority employees on their government charge cards.

Let's 'Restructure' Washington While We're at It.  [Scroll down]  The federal government employs about 2.5 million civilians (including the Post Office), about 10 times the number directly employed in the U.S. by Detroit.  The bloat is legendary.  In his study on "thickening government," NYU Prof. Paul Light found that some government agencies have 32 layers of management, compared to five layers in most well-run companies.  Civil-service rules make hiring an ordeal and firing practically impossible.

Parties of Corruption.  Which party is more corrupt?  Maybe you've seen lists.  The National Taxpayer's Union has a pretty good list.  The NTU's gripe, though, is not which party is more corrupt, but that Congressmen who are convicted felons continue to collect their very generous congressional pensions.

Here is the NTU's report — somewhat lengthy but worth a scan, at least.
 Congressional Perks:  How the Trappings of Office Trap Taxpayers.  Since the founding of the Republic, Americans have had a healthy skepticism of the concentration of power.  The Framers of the Constitution established a system they hoped would prevent not only the disproportionate accumulation of influence in one branch of government, but also the disproportionate accumulation of privilege.  Today, Members of the United States Congress enjoy a vast web of perquisites that benefit them personally as well as professionally.

You might ask, Which party has a "culture of corruption?"

7 hospitals in NY accused of $50M Medicaid fraud.  Four hospitals in New York state paid kickbacks to get more patients into their drug treatment programs, which billed Medicaid for services that weren't standard or necessary and lacked state certification, lawsuits allege.

Sizing Up Civil Service:  Washington, D.C., is considered "recession proof" because so many civil servants can't be fired except in extraordinary circumstances.  But in the years ahead, our country is going to face just such circumstances.  The looming entitlement crisis will have to be paid for, as will the hundreds of billions of dollars the government is currently borrowing to bail out everyone from investment banks to automakers.  These days other businesses are slashing jobs.  Why shouldn't the government be able to do so when it finds itself overstaffed and over budget?

Science Foundation's Funding Eyed Amid Porn Claims.  The ranking GOP member of the Senate Finance Committee wants Congress to reconsider new funding to the National Science Foundation amid allegations that top staffers spent long stretches of their day surfing the Internet for pornography.

Terrorists' Restless Leg Syndrome.  After being captured fighting with Taliban forces against Americans in 2001, Abdullah Massoud was sent to Guantanamo, where the one-legged terrorist was fitted with a special prosthetic leg, at a cost of $50,000-$75,000 to the U.S. taxpayer.  Under the Americans With Disabilities Act, Massoud would now be able to park his car bomb in a handicapped parking space! ... Upon his release in March 2004, Massoud hippity-hopped back to Afghanistan and quickly resumed his war against the U.S.

The Loophole Factory:  [Scroll down] Oh, and while they were at it, the Senators voted 88-8 to add $6 billion in tax deductions for renewable energy producers.  (If you wonder what this has to do with the mortgage "crisis," you just arrived off the turnip truck.)  This industry is already teed up to get nearly $10 billion in tax breaks in the energy bill, including subsidies for wind and solar power producers, hybrid vehicles and biodiesel.  Much of this social engineering comes from the same people on Capitol Hill who insist that taxes don't change industry or personal behavior.

New Jersey, Oregon Residents Pay Dearly for Solar Street Signs and Lights.  Citizens in New Jersey and Oregon are paying a steep price for solar-powered street signs and street lights as city and state officials divert scarce taxpayer dollars to the expensive "green" luxuries.  Paterson, New Jersey has announced plans to install solar-powered street signs at 25 intersections.  The signs will cost as much as $30,000 per intersection.

We have enough federal programs.  [Scroll down]  Another example is the U.S. Department of Energy.  It was created in the Carter administration to make the nation less dependent on foreign oil.  We have doubled our dependence since that time, and the nation actually produces less oil than it did 30 years ago.  This is called failure.  It now costs taxpayers $30 billion a year to keep this failure going.  Let's get rid of it.

Head Start costs $7.1 billion per year.
 Government Says Head Start Made Millions in Improper Payments.  A House Appropriations subcommittee has proposed $7.1 billion in funding for the Head Start program for Fiscal Year 2009, even though the program has made over $400 million in improper payments since 2005, according to government audits. ... Head Start's improper payments seem minor compared to the Medicaid program, which made improper payments of $12.9 billion in FY 2007, the GAO said.

'Center-right' America lurches further left.  [Scroll down]  Even in America, federal spending (in inflation-adjusted 2007 dollars) has gone from $600 billion in 1965 to $3 trillion today.  The Heritage Foundation put it in a convenient graph:  It's pretty much a straight line across four decades, up, up, up.  Doesn't make any difference who controls Congress, who's in the White House.  The government just grows and grows, remorselessly.

Report: IRS Issued $1B in Fraudulent Refunds in 2007.  The government sent out more than $1 billion in fraudulent refunds last year and offered this explanation Thursday [10/30/2008] for the bad checks in the mail:  The Internal Revenue Service has too few resources to pursue every tax fraud case.

D.C. Housing Authority Paid More Than $300K for Vacant Units.  The District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) paid $322,389 in housing assistance payments for units where no one was living, according to a July 30, 2008 audit by the Philadelphia Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  According to the audit, the DCHA did not "adequately implement controls" to prevent its Moving to Work (MTW) program "from making assistance payments on vacant units."

Treasury Office Faults IRS Computer Security.  Two new IRS computer systems that will eventually cost taxpayers almost $2 billion are being put into service despite known security and privacy vulnerabilities, a Treasury watchdog said in a report coming out Thursday [10/16/2008].  The office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said Internal Revenue Service officials failed to ensure that identified weaknesses had been addressed before putting the new systems into use.

Federal Transit Benefits Program.  After investigating just 3 days of sales, GAO confirmed that at least 20 federal employees were fraudulently selling their Metrocheks on eBay.  Most of the employees GAO interviewed admitted to falsifying their transit benefit applications and fraudulently selling their benefits.  One GS-14 Department of the Treasury employee drove to work, parked for free in agency-provided parking, and was still able to collect $105 per month in Metrocheks — most of which he sold on eBay.

An Obamanomics Preview.  If we may borrow a phrase, this is the triumph of hope over experience.  The one thing Washington hasn't failed to do in recent years is spend, yet the economy doesn't seem to have improved on the event.  Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the Heritage Foundation, has calculated that in 2008 Congress enacted $332 billion of "emergency" supplemental spending bills, only half of which was for the Iraq war.  Do you feel stimulated?

States throw out costly electronic voting machines.  The demise of touch-screen voting has produced a graveyard of expensive corpses:  Warehouses stacked with thousands of carefully wrapped voting machines that have been shelved because of doubts about vanishing votes and vulnerability to hackers.  What to do with this high-tech junkyard is a multimillion-dollar question.  One manufacturer offered $1 apiece to take back its ATM-like machines.

More information about touch-screen voting can be found on this page.

FBI Says the Military Had Bogus Computer Gear.  Over the two-year operation, 36 search warrants have been executed, resulting in the discovery of 3,500 counterfeit Cisco network components with an estimated retail value of more than $3.5 million, the F.B.I. said in a statement.  The F.B.I. is still not certain whether the ring's actions were for profit or part of a state-sponsored intelligence effort.

FBI, ATF Battle for Control Of Cases.  In the five years since the FBI and ATF were merged under the Justice Department to coordinate the fight against terrorism, the rival law enforcement agencies have fought each other for control, wasting time and money and causing duplication of effort, according to law enforcement sources and internal documents.  Their new boss, the attorney general, ordered them to merge their national bomb databases, but the FBI has refused.  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has long trained bomb-sniffing dogs; the FBI started a competing program.

Stealth Destroyer Largely Defenseless, Admiral Says.  Two weeks ago, the Navy canceled plans to build the rest of its hulking stealth destroyers.  At first, it looked like the DDG-1000s' $5-billion-a-copy price tag was to blame.  Now, it appears the real reason has slipped out:  The Navy's most advanced warship is all but defenseless against one of its best-known threats.

Taxpayers Oppose the "Billion-Dollar Fish Fry" Project.  Special interests are pushing S. 27 as a way to "settle" their two-decade-old lawsuit against the federal government (specifically, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) to restore the salmon population to the historical outlines of San Joaquin River.  Even though the targeted segment of riverbed has been dry for 75 years (thanks in part to a dam California voters approved in 1933), these same activists are prepared to spend considerable taxpayer resources in an attempt to bring back a minimum of 500 salmon to the area.

Alabama County Is On the Brink of Bankruptcy.  Alabama's largest county appears headed for the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, a $3.2 billion mess created by the nation's credit crunch and a colossal, corruption-riddled sewer project.

The $4 Billion Senator.  The federal takeover of IndyMac Bank over the weekend could cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. between $4 billion and $8 billion.  But Senator Chuck Schumer, who helped to precipitate the collapse by publicizing a letter to the bank's regulator last month, has no remorse.  He was, he says, just doing his job in telling regulators that the bank "could face a collapse," a prophecy that quickly proved to be self-fulfilling.

VA employees rack up $2.6 billion in credit card charges.  Veterans Affairs employees last year racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in government credit-card bills at casino and luxury hotels, movie theaters and high-end retailers such as Sharper Image and Franklin Covey — and government auditors are investigating, citing past spending abuses. … On at least six occasions, employees based at VA headquarters made credit card charges at Las Vegas casino hotels totaling $26,198.

Yet Another Federal Project Out of Fiscal Control.  The total cost for [The Capitol Visitors Center] originally was to be about $265 million.  It already is up to $554 million and counting.  The new grand opening was supposed to be September 2008 but now the Government Accountability Office is reporting it may be done in November with a final cost of $621 million. … There also is the largely overlooked question of whether the CVC should have been built in the first place.

Congress Unveils Stunning New Capitol Visitor Center -- Late and Over Budget.  Congress now has a $621 million welcome mat in the form of a new, grand visitor center that makes its public debut December 2.  The visitor center, the largest addition ever to the 215-year-old U.S. Capitol, is meant to inform, involve, and inspire, officials said Monday at a media preview.  It didn't take long for a reporter to fire back:  "How inspired will taxpayers be when you inform them of the cost?"

GPO profits go to bonuses and trips.  When the government's main printing agency booked $100 million in unexpected profit it went on a spending spree:  large bonuses to top managers, trips to Paris and Las Vegas, and an official photo of the boss that cost $10,000.  The bonuses, some nearly as high as $13,000, and travel are raising questions among congressional investigators and Government Printing Office officials about whether the agency is misusing its newfound wealth and whether it received the proper authority for some of the larger compensation payments from the Office of Budget and Management.

Census to scrap handheld computers for 2010 count.  The Census Bureau will tell a House panel today that it will drop plans to use handheld computers to help count Americans for the 2010 census, contributing to the increase in cost for the decennial census by as much as $3 billion, according to testimony the Commerce Department secretary plans to give this afternoon [4/3/2008].

Billion-dollar IT failure at Census Bureau:  The US Census Bureau faces cost overruns up to $2 billion on an IT initiative replacing paper-based data collection methods with specialized handheld devices for the upcoming 2010 census.  The Bureau has not implemented longstanding Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations and may therefore be forced to scrap the program.

Census Returns to Paper Count.  Technology problems will force the government to count all of the nation's 300 million residents the old-fashioned way in the 2010 census — with paper and pencil. … Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told a House subcommittee Thursday [4/3/2008] that the government will scrap plans to use handheld computers to collect information from the millions of Americans who don't return census forms mailed out by the government.  The decision is part of a package of changes that will add as much as $3 billion to the cost of the constitutionally mandated count, pushing the overall cost to more than $14 billion.  [That's $46.67 per capita.]

Remarks about the Census scrapping handheld computers for 2010 count:  What would be the likelihood that the handheld computers could be re-used for the 2020 Census?  Would the vendor still support the more than 10-year-old hardware at that time?  How many [of us] are still using 10+ year old computers?  [The Census is] spending gigantic wads of money on something that will be obsolete before it can be used even a second time.

The Editor says...
 Excuse me for pointing out the obvious, but shouldn't a whole bunch of people lose their pencil-pushing government jobs over this fiasco?

1.5 billion dollars down the drain.
 The Device NASA Is Leaving Behind:  The instrument, which would detect and measure cosmic rays in a new way, took 500 physicists from around the world 12 years to build.  But with room on the 10 remaining shuttle missions to the space station in short supply, many fear that it will remain forever warehoused on Earth, becoming the most sophisticated and costly white elephant of the space era.

Cities pay huge salaries despite fiscal crises.  A city nurse earned $350,000.  A fire department battalion chief pulled in more than twice as much as the mayor.  And a municipal park ranger took home $188,000 in overtime on top of his $71,000 salary.  Such generous payouts were criticized for hastening the fiscal downfall of the city of Vallejo, which narrowly averted bankruptcy this month.

Seattle to Remove Automated Toilets.  After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits.  In the end, the restrooms, installed in early 2004, had become so filthy, so overrun with drug abusers and prostitutes, that although use was free of charge, even some of the city's most destitute people refused to step inside them.

Seattle ditches hi-tech toilets.  City officials have finally gotten rid of five hi-tech, self-cleaning toilets that cost Seattle $5 m[illion]  — but sold online for just $12,549.  The city installed the modernistic stand-alone toilets four years ago, hoping they would provide tourists and the homeless a place to do their business while downtown.  But they became better known for drug use and prostitution than for relief.

Taxpayers fund Bill Clinton spending.  The Clintons have made a $100-million fortune since leaving the White House, but a Politico analysis found that hasn't kept Bill Clinton from taking full advantage of the publicly funded perks offered to ex-presidents.  In fact, his presidential retirement benefits cost taxpayers almost as much as those of the other two living ex-presidents combined.

Homeland Security Scrapping, Replacing Sub-Par Virtual Fence Along Arizona-Mexico Border.  The government will replace its highly touted "virtual fence" on the Arizona-Mexico border with new towers, radars, cameras and computer software, scrapping the brand-new $20 million system because it doesn't work sufficiently, officials said.

Bailout Bullies:  Entitlement Culture Gone Mad.  Last week, a mob of screeching protesters invaded the Bear Stearns headquarters in Manhattan demanding more aid for homeowners.  As you know, I oppose federal bailouts of every make and model — and that includes both the Bear Stearns deal and the bipartisan stimulus-palooza in Washington.

Bear with Me:  The mother of all government bailouts.  In order to avert or postpone the possible economic consequences of Bear's demise, the Federal Reserve Bank is conducting an unusual bailout -- so unusual that a new Congressional report, quietly released last Thursday, says it is unlike anything the government has done in the last 70 years.  Yet few members of Congress have even questioned the decision since the Fed's opaque processes produced it last month.

Bacon Saving:  The Government Shouldn't Be In The Bailout Business.  The government shouldn't have save the airlines after 9/11.  The government shouldn't save the S-n-L's back in the day.  The government shouldn't save the banks and greedy homeowners now.  The government shouldn't bail out Detroit and the car companies, either.

Congress Brushes Off $20 Billion as 'Table Scraps'.  Before leaving town for Christmas [2007], Congress went on another budget-busting spending spree and charged all the goodies to the taxpayers.  And the bill actually is a lot higher — $20 billion more — than lawmakers would have you believe.

$19 Billion in Gimmicks.  Much has been made of the omnibus bill fitting within the President's $933 billion discretionary spending cap.  However, the bill contains at least $13.2 billion in additional gimmicks.  Adding to the $6.4 billion in "emergency" spending added to the Defense appropriations bill signed a month ago, the total overage comes to $19.6 billion.  The new $13.2 billion breaks down as follows:
 •  $2.0 billion in advanced appropriations in the Labor-HHS-Education bill;
 •  $3.7 billion in "emergency" veterans health funding in the Milcon/VA bill;
 •  $2.9 billion for "emergency" border security in the Homeland Security bill;
 •  $2.4 billion for various "emergency" provisions in the State/Foreign Ops bill;
 •  $1.0 billion for "emergency" drought relief (despite record farm incomes), wildfires, and others in the agriculture bill;
 •  $100 million in unprecedented "emergency" security spending for the GOP and Democratic national conventions, in the Commerce-Justice-Science bill; and
 •  $1.1 billion in other "emergencies"

The Editor says...
 Please note:  The word emergency is not in the Constitution.  It carries no weight as a justification for this (or any other) kind of spending.

The Public Trough Is Bigger Than Ever.  Government is so big today that more than half the population gets a major part of its income from the state.  One out of five Americans works for some level of government or for a firm that depends on taxpayer financing.  One in five also draws Social Security or a federal pension. … Nine million are on food stamps, 2 million received housing subsidies, and 5 million go to school on the federal taxpayer.

Audit says Dallas Housing Authority subsidized deceased clients.  The Dallas Housing Authority has spent nearly $20 million on questionable rental assistance payments, including money for 45 people who had died, according to a new federal audit of the agency.  Most of the questionable spending involved ineligible clients, clients not reported to the federal government, and duplicate payments to landlords, according to a draft report on an audit by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General.

U.S. pledges extra $320 million for bird flu fight.  The United States pledged an additional $320 million to the global fight against bird flu and warned on Saturday [10/25/2008] against complacency in combating the virus, which could mutate and cause a deadly pandemic.

The Editor says...
 We're spending $320 million to solve a problem in some other country — which is bad enough — but it isn't even a real problem.  The "bird flu" is just one of many environmental false alarms.

Army Spends Billions on Helicopters With Crucial Flaw:  They Overheat.  The Army is spending $2.6 billion on hundreds of European-designed helicopters for homeland security and disaster relief that turn out to have a crucial flaw:  They aren't safe to fly on hot days, according to an internal report obtained by The Associated Press.  While the Army scrambles to fix the problem — adding millions to the taxpayer cost — at least one high-ranking lawmaker is calling for the whole deal to be scrapped.

Pentagon Paid $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers.  A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas, U.S. officials said.  The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon records show.

U.S. is out $51M for flying 64,000 illegals to Mexico.  The U.S. government has spent more than $51 million over the past four summers flying nearly 64,000 illegal immigrants home to Mexico City.  The flights are intended to break the smuggling cycle and reduce the desert death count.  But evidence shows the binational Interior Repatriation Program has not made any substantial difference in border smuggling or desert deaths.  And the principal beneficiary is a Mexican airline contracted to operate the twice-daily flights out of Tucson, critics say.

The Editor says...
 It seems to me that $796.87 is a very high price for a one-way ticket to Mexico City, especially at the group rate you could get by purchasing 64,000 tickets.  All that aside, the deported individuals will come back to the U.S. as soon as they can, so perhaps Mexico City is too convenient.  Here's my suggestion:  Fly the deportees to the most remote corner of Mexico.  Or better yet, Guatemala or Panama.  Or Venezuela.  Or Argentina.

It's no mystery why taxpayers are so fed up.  Last week it was the 40-something state trooper retirees with their pensions of $100,000-plus.  Then it was the ex-principal of King Philip Regional High and his healthcare-for-life-deal, which Massachusetts taxpayers are still funding, though Michael Levine now works in Rhode Island. … Yesterday [9/26/2007] we also learned that drowning-in-debt Randolph, so broke it canceled most school buses, bought out the contract of a superintendent — for $580,000.

DWP bid to hire lactation specialist draws howls.  The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power came under fire Thursday [2/14/2008] for paying specialists to show new and expectant mothers at the utility how to properly breast-feed their children.  The plan to issue another DWP-funded "lactation services" contract drew howls from taxpayer advocate Walter Moore, who pointed out that the utility's five-member board voted just last week for a package of new water and electrical rate hikes.  "You couldn't make this up," he said.  "This is such a rip-off.  You've got to wonder if somebody's cousin runs the lactation business."

Cops Await Raises While City Spends on Fish.  Two huge fish tanks that cost $750,000 were unveiled February 19 at the Staten Island ferry terminal by Mayor Bloomberg, who joked, "I really don't think people have a reason to carp about this."  Why am I not laughing at this colossal waste of taxpayer money that will cost nearly $100,000 a year to upkeep?

Mayor's climate aide gets $160,000 a year.  In his quest to make San Francisco the greenest city in the nation, Mayor Gavin Newsom recently created a $160,000-a-year job for a senior aide and gave him the ambitious-sounding title of director of climate protection initiatives. … San Francisco has at least two dozen other city employees already working directly on climate issues at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

$27M Woodpecker Habitat Plan Unveiled.  Federal wildlife officials say spending more than $27 million to research the suspected habitat of the ivory-billed woodpecker is worth the cost, despite conflicting views on whether the elusive bird even exists. … The agency this week released a 185-page draft plan aimed at preventing the extinction of the bird.

Read more about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Theme Park Subsidies Take Taxpayers for a Ride.  Axiom Entertainment of Rochester, Michigan is eyeing 1,800 acres of state-owned land near Grayling, in north-central Michigan, for a $160 million theme park.  Axiom is also reportedly seeking $25 million in infrastructure improvements from the state.  The site, in Crawford County, currently lacks sewer and water service and would likely require improved highway access as well.

The $400 Million Helicopter:  After 9/11, the White House sought to build a new fleet of "Marine Ones" that would be able to withstand the rigors of a terrorism age, including missile jammers, sophisticated communications equipment, and even protection from a nuclear blast. … The cost of the 28 helicopter fleet was originally contracted out for $6.1 billion.  But today the Washington Post reports that the cost has jumped to $11.2 billion — or approximately $400 million per helicopter.  That's more expensive than the Boeing 747 jet that serves as Air Force One!

A D.C. case for RICO.  The recently exposed embezzlement of some $20 million from the coffers of the District of Columbia represents another humiliation for a city whose public corruption is legendary.  Starting in 2004, two long-term employees of the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue (OTR), Harriette Walters and Diane Gustus, allegedly issued millions of dollars worth of phony tax refunds to front businesses owned by friends and relatives.  Those two employees clearly did not act alone.

D.C. Official Accused in $20M Scheme.  The courthouse files look like the Christmas list of a high-society fashion maven with a purse fetish:  mink coats, jewelry, Faberge eggs, a Mercedes Benz and more than 100 handbags and wallets with designer names like Chanel, Hermes and Louis Vuitton.  Those are among the items the FBI found at the Washington home of Harriette Walters, who until recently was an $81,000-a-year city tax official.

To Live and Take in D.C.:  Incredibly, one woman alone is said to have masterminded a scheme in which she and others allegedly stole at least $20 million from the city — and the city never noticed. … Those accused are all bureaucrats and their alleged accessories — prominently, a mid-level manager in the Office of Tax and Revenue.  All they did was allegedly issue tax refunds to dummy corporations and then cash the checks themselves.  They are accused of having done this for years.  A [Washington] Post analysis said the total could be up to $44 million.

Report Shows Millions Wasted on Government Travel.  Federal employees wasted at least $146 million over a one-year period on business- and first-class airline tickets, in some cases simply because they felt entitled to the perk, congressional investigators say. … The review of travel spending by more than a dozen agencies from July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2006, found 67 percent of premium-class travel by executives or their employees, worth at least $146 million, was unauthorized or otherwise unjustified.

Local Budgets Reel Under Arsenic Mandates.  The citizens of Middlefield, Ohio are being hammered by a staggering cost of $7,400 per household after water testing showed the community is very slightly above new, stringent federal standards regarding arsenic in water. … With arsenic measuring 12 parts per billion in community water supplies — just two parts per billion over the new federal standards — Middlefield's 1,000 households must foot the bill for a new $7.4 million water treatment plant.

The Budget Graph  shows the relative size of various government departments (in dollars) as well as some of their largest projects.

Eligibility in New Jersey for 'poor' program includes families of four making $72,000.  President George W. Bush dismissed an agreement reached yesterday [9/21/2007] by congressional leaders to expand the government's children's health insurance program and said he will veto the measure.  "Members of Congress are risking health coverage for poor children purely to make a political point," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

Lockheed Martin wins NASA moon contract.  NASA on Thursday [8/31/2006] gave a multibillion-dollar contract to build a manned lunar spaceship to Lockheed Martin Corp., the aerospace leader that usually builds unmanned rockets.  The nation's space agency plans to use the Orion crew exploration vehicle to replace the space shuttle fleet, take astronauts to the moon and perhaps to Mars.  Unlike Apollo and earlier spacecraft perched atop rockets, it will be reusable.  NASA estimated the cost at $7.5 billion through 2019 for likely eight separate spaceships.

The Editor says...
 My general opposition to manned space flight is expressed here and here.  We have already been to the moon, and there's nothing there but rocks and lifeless dirt.  There is no reason to spend billions of dollars on additional moon missions or on manned missions to Mars, just to prove that it can be done.  This is pork barrel politics at its worst.

Fed-Sponsored Program Allows Immigrants Without Social Security Numbers to Wire Money Home Cheap.  A federal program designed to help legal immigrant Mexican workers wire their earnings back to families in Mexico also is providing a "fast, safe, and low-cost way" for illegal workers without Social Security cards to funnel money out of the U.S.

California bill would give newborns $500.  Happy birthday, baby, here's $500, courtesy of California taxpayers.  The state's Legislature is considering a plan for taxpayers to provide a tax-free, long-term investment account to every baby born in California, regardless of his or her parents' financial or immigration status.

Highest bidder chosen to rebuild I-35W bridge.  A team with the highest price tag and the longest build time has been chosen to build the Interstate 35W Bridge.  Minnesota transportation officials tapped a joint team from Colorado and Seattle to build a replacement for the collapsed Interstate 35W bridge, a rich contract that could be worth millions more if the bridge is finished ahead of schedule.

Farm Subsidies:  More Obsolete Than Your Grandpa's Tractor.  Robert Samuelson discusses the history of federal farm subsidies, and the massive money pit they have become.  In the 37 years since 1970, the federal government has spent $578 billion on farm subsidies.  Samuelson says that, even though incredible amounts are spent on farming, its not doing much good.

Millions In Subsidies For Profitable Corn?  Even dried-out corn is money in the bank for a farmer who sells it to an ethanol plant.  But what really has critics angry is that corn farmers are also still getting automatic subsidy payments from the federal government.  Many get tens of thousands of dollars every year whether they need it or not.  The total cost to taxpayers is $2 billion a year.

Ethanol:  The Other Energy Scandal.  If only taxpayers could get some of their money back from a far bigger corporate energy fraud that continues unabated in Washington.

Did someone mention Ethanol?

Subprime bailouts would get costly.  Want to pick up the check for every homeowner who got saddled with a risky mortgage?  It's a big one — on the order of $120 billion.  Lawmakers and consumer groups in recent weeks have been calling for assistance for those at risk of defaulting on their mortgage.

Is The Era Of Small Government Over?  In January 1996, Democratic President Bill Clinton declared the era of big government over.  Eleven years later, government is larger than it ever has been:  The federal budget for 2007 is $2.8 trillion, the highest in history; one in six Americans relies on government assistance; we spend $586.5 billion on Social Security, $372.3 billion on Medicare, $268.5 billion on health care, and $93 billion on education, training, employment and social services.

Ex-presidents' big payday:  For fiscal year 2007, [Former President] Clinton will receive approximately $1.16 million from the US Treasury -- his telephone stipend alone will come to $77,000.  All former presidents are also entitled to free, round-the-clock Secret Service protection for themselves and their families.  The cost of providing security for previous "first families" is estimated at $20 million a year.

Americans Pay Millions To Clean Mexican Sewage.  [Scroll down] The project was controversial from the start because a group of politically-connected executives created a company in 1996 solely to get the lucrative no-bid government contract to treat the waste.

The White Elephant Fleet.  Even as the Air Force is struggling to find money for new fighters, bombers, tankers and cargo planes, it estimates it will spend close to $1.6 billion over the next five years just to maintain aircraft it wants to jettison.  It can't get rid of them — and free up money for new aircraft — because often the older aircraft have been given special protections by Congress.

Funding Continues for an Illness Scientists Dismiss.  Fifteen years after the end of the 1991 war with Iraq, a Texas researcher is in line to get as much as $75 million in federal funding to press his studies of "Gulf War syndrome," even though most other scientists long ago discounted his theories.

"Booty Call":  The CDC and Your Tax Dollars.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is asking for more of your money but using it for purposes anathema to the majority of the American people. … CDC is sponsoring events that foment the spreading of disease rather than those that prevent disease.  It is a blatant conflict of interest to fund a beauty pageant that promotes transgender behavior which — despite tremendous political pressure by the transgender lobby — is still considered a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association.

A new entitlement for illegals:  Never say Ken Boehm didn't warn you. … As absurd as this story line surely must seem to rational people, Mr. Boehm worries that someday taxpayers actually could be forced to pay for lawyers representing illegal aliens in the U.S. who want amnesty and citizenship.  Boehm is co-founder and chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a Virginia nonpartisan foundation promoting ethics in public life.  He also is not delusional.

Did someone mention the high cost of Illegal immigration?

Paying to be coerced.  Would you be outraged if you knew your taxpayer dollars were being used to lobby for more government subsidies and higher taxes?  Well you should be, because that is exactly what is happening.  Over the years there have been many cases of government agencies lobbying Congress for more funds and/or higher taxes.

Have you driven a Freedom CAR lately?  After approximately one billion dollars of government funding, there is no car, no hope of one and only continued bureaucratic double talk.  The program was good for the politicians, especially for the titular head of the program, Vice President Al Gore.  Gore and his buddies could proudly point to how much they were doing to make the world a better place. … Taxpayers are the one group that is clearly worse off.

Singing CAIR's Tune, On Your Dime.  On a weekend when the Bush administration achieved a new CAIR-friendly low, a prominent Democrat, following the lead of other prominent Democrats, distanced herself very publicly from the unsavory Council on American-Islamic Relations.  The Transportation Security Administration is the executive agency created after 9/11 to protect American travelers.  Yet, Americans viewing its website this weekend could not have felt very protected.

How do you kill a government agency?  Monorail officials are feeling their way in the dark as they try to find how to kill the government agency that once planned a monorail line through West Seattle.  Apparently there are no instruction books explaining the procedure for terminating the Seattle Monorail Project.  Usually the work done by a doomed agency is merely transferred to another department.  But after voters killed the project last fall, no monorails are being planned.

World Trade Towers:  a Socialist Fiasco.  We can count on government planners to produce the most inefficient projects conceivable by the human mind.  Manhattan's Freedom Tower, intended to rise on the site of 9/11 destruction, is an egregious example. … New York City, the nation's most socialistically ingrained municipality, in the nation's premier socialist state, has a long history of public works boondoggles, of which the Freedom Tower is just the latest.

Fed dollars proposed for La Raza.  Tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars soon could be flowing into the National Council of La Raza, an organization that advocates for civil rights for Hispanics and has connections to groups that advocate the separation of several southwestern states from the rest of the nation.

$2 Trillion on Foreign Aid.  "After fifty years and more than $2 trillion in aid, the West has strikingly little to show for its efforts in alleviating poverty."  This was the blurb advertising an April 25 event at the American Enterprise Institute entitled, "Why Foreign Aid Has Failed-And How to Fix It."  However, the Los Angeles Times on April 13 ran an editorial accusing the U.S. of being stingy in dispersing foreign aid.  For the Times, $2 trillion still isn't enough.

Foreign aid to Africa:  British Prime Minister Tony Blair, along with other G-8 leaders, have called for the doubling of foreign aid to African nations by 2010.  The idea that foreign aid is a route out of poverty and political instability is not only bankrupted but a cruel and evil hoax as well.  Nearly every sub-Saharan African nation is poorer now than when they became independent during the '60s and '70s.

Poverty That Defies Aid:  The link between foreign aid and economic development seems quite tenuous.  Foreign aid to Africa has also enabled government officials to embezzle large amounts of money and misspend much on loss-making projects.  In total, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo estimated, "Corrupt African leaders have stolen at least $140 billion from their people in the [four] decades since independence."  Large debt is all most Africans have been left.

Capitalism Is the Cure for Africa's Problems.  The current plan of George Bush and Tony Blair to send billions more in aid to Africa is futile.  History demonstrates that brutal dictatorships and savage tribes engaged in internecine warfare are not transformed by handouts.  After all, billions of dollars have already been poured into Africa.  What Africa needs is freedom, not welfare.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is Costing the Government Plenty.  How much does it cost to throw homosexuals out of the military?  Don't ask, don't tell.  Actually, the policy that carries that name is proving costly to the government … nearly twice as much as a Congressional panel estimated last year.

The great wage gap.  As the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported this month, federal civil servants receive far, far more in wages and benefits than workers in the private sector.  Indeed, twice as much.  Average compensation for federal civilian workers last year came to $106,579 — which Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute notes is "exactly twice the average compensation paid in the U.S. private sector."

Does government stupidity know any bounds?  After the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed a compassionate piece of legislation called the Supplemental Terrorist Relief Act.  It was to give low-interest loans to small businesses disrupted by the attacks, allowing them to rebuild. … But, as usual, the government passed your money out everywhere.  Terrorist Relief Act loans went to Dunkin' Donuts shops in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Vermont, and Ohio.

B-2 Stealth Bomber Crashes in Guam; Pilots Eject Safely.  A B-2 stealth bomber plunged to the ground shortly after taking off from an air base in Guam on Saturday [2/23/2008], the first time one crashed, but both pilots ejected safely, Air Force officials said. … Each B-2 bomber costs about $1.2 billion to build.

Update:
 Sensor moisture to blame for 1st B-2 bomber crash.  The Air Force says the first crash of a B-2 stealth bomber was caused by moisture in sensors.  The military said Thursday [6/5/2008] that the moisture created bad readings on the February flight.  The flight control computer forced the aircraft to pitch up on takeoff.

Upgrade drags Stealth Bomber IT systems into the 90s.  US aerospace heavyweight Northrop Grumman has revealed some details of a planned upgrade to the computing system of the famous B-2 Stealth Bomber, one of the most expensive and unusual aircraft in the world.  According to reports, the well-known but seldom seen ghost bomber will be finally moving up to Pentium processors and code written in C.  The B-2 will also get a new disk drive.

Congress Contemplates Giving Cash to Foreigners.  Why are Republicans in Congress trying to help Barack Obama?  Republicans allowed a bill that carries his name, among nine others, to pass the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by voice vote last week — without any hearings.  That means there was no roll-call vote so no member can be held accountable.  The same bill passed the House by voice vote last year. … Obama's costly, dangerous and altogether bad bill (S. 2433), which could come up in the Senate any day, is called the Global Poverty Act.  It would commit U.S. taxpayers to spend 0.7 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on foreign handouts, which is at least $30 billion over and above the exorbitant and wasted sums we already give away overseas.


Hurricane Katrina is one of the greatest examples of government waste and reckless spending.

The Big Easy's Billion Dollar Boondoggle.  How much money has Uncle Sam spent on New Orleans and the Gulf region since Hurricane Katrina ripped the place apart? ... The grand total is $127 billion (including tax relief). ... Perhaps all this money should've been directly deposited in the bank accounts of the 300,000 people living in New Orleans.  All divvied up, that $127 billion would come to $425,000 per person!

Tancredo:  High time to shut off 'runaway' Katrina spending.  Republican presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo says it's time to stop "runaway government spending" on post-Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.  "Enough is enough," the Colorado congressman said in a statement today, aiming to head off requests for more money to help New Orleans recover from the hurricane that ravaged the city and much of the Gulf coast two years ago this week.

FEMA's folly:  Of the $6.3 billion that FEMA handed out, as much as $1.4 billion — nearly a quarter of the total — went to crooks and con artists.  According to the Government Accountability Office, FEMA paid millions of dollars to prison inmates, to people who listed cemeteries or post office boxes as their damaged homes, and for property that its own inspectors reported was nonexistent.  Some people collected thousands of dollars in rent assistance even though they were staying in hotels paid for by FEMA.

Katrina Aid Used for Luxury Condos.  With large swaths of the Gulf Coast still in ruins from Hurricane Katrina, rich federal tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding are flowing hundreds of miles inland to investors who are buying up luxury condos near the University of Alabama's football stadium.

The Tragedy of New Orleans.  The post-Katrina spend-fest in Louisiana will be remembered as one of the greatest taxpayer wastes in U.S. history.  First came the FEMA $2,000 debit-cards fiasco intended to pay for necessities that were used for things like flat-panel TVs and tattoos.  Then came the purchase of thousands of mobile homes that cost as much as $400,000 per family housed; the $200 million for renting the Carnival Cruise Ship; millions more in payments that went for season football tickets, luxury vacation resorts, even divorce lawyers.  Federal flood insurance policies surely will encourage many to rebuild in the same flood plains and at the same height as before.

NBC 15 confronts Speaker Nancy Pelosi on FEMA spending.  When NBC 15 News first met Gwenester Malone a month ago, she was receiving three catered meals a day, while housekeepers made sure her hotel room stayed clean.  None of it was costing her a dime.  "Since the storm, I haven't had any energy or pep to go get a job," Malone said, "but when push comes to shove, I will."  That shove may not come until March 2009.

Millions of Katrina aid wasted, review finds.  FEMA paid $438 a night for New York hotel rooms.

Much more about waste and fraud connected to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina can be found here.


The National Endowment for the Arts  gave $10,000 to support conservation and restoration of the Beer Can House, a work by self-taught artist John Milkovisch.  The Houston landmark, consisting of a house and grounds decorated with methodically trimmed cans, will be used as an artist-in-residence project space.

[There's another great euphemism.  "Self-taught artist" is another way of saying, "A crazy man in our neighborhood has a huge pile of beer cans in his front yard."  By all means, let's be sure there's money available if it needs "restoration".]

A sweet deal for 'official' felons.  James A. Traficant Jr., the former Democratic congressman convicted of racketeering and taking bribes, is wiling away prison time painting colorful pictures but also able to collect a congressional pension of nearly $40,000 a year.  He is one of about 20 former senators and congressmen with felony rap sheets who can receive the taxpayer-financed benefit.

Poverty That Defies Aid.  Between 1960 and 2005, foreign aid worth more than $450 billion, inflation adjusted, poured into Africa.  Result?  Between 1975 and 2000, African gross domestic product per capita declined at an average annual 0.59 percent rate. … Foreign aid to Africa has also enabled government officials to embezzle large amounts of money and misspend much on loss-making projects.

Exposing the myth of Third World aid:  Perhaps the most important question of our time is why the West's efforts to help the world's poorest people have been so disappointing and even counterproductive.  In the past 50 years, we have spent $2.3 trillion on foreign aid, to disturbingly little effect.  An important new book suggests this has had a lot to do with the arrogance of the "big push" approach favored by many development economists and organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations.

Waste, Fraud and UN Headquarters:  The UN is embarking on a multi-billion construction project and the timing could not be better for those who like to waste taxpayer dollars. … The project is the renovation of the United Nations headquarters in New York City and the building is a metaphor for the UN itself.  It is outdated, falling apart, and no longer useful.  It has never had a major renovation, is full of asbestos, and is energy inefficient.  And while it won't pass a fire inspection, it is one of the only buildings in New York where smokers are still allowed to light up.

NASA Employs a Performance Artist with a $20,000 Taxpayer-Funded Stipend.  For two years, NASA paid Laurie Anderson as the agency's "artist in residence."  The performing artist was commissioned to perform a theatrical story-telling piece in theaters across the nation, as part of a NASA outreach effort.  The artist in residence position was not specifically authorized by Congress. … Her job Description:  Create and tour a theatrical piece, educating theater-goers about NASA; and "…to produce a film on the moons of the solar system" for the 2005 World Expo.

The Food Stamp Program:  Waste, Fraud and Abuse.  In 2003, the food stamp program spent $1.1 billion in "overpayments" to program beneficiaries.  This is money that is not refunded to the government and is counted as a "program loss" on the budget books.

Give Us the Spending Database.  The idea of a transparency website — replete with search engines that include subcontractors — was born in May 2005 at a hearing on U.S. efforts to combat malaria.  Officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) squirmed as [Senator Tom] Coburn revealed that 93% of the agency's 2004 funding to eradicate malaria had been spent on administrative and advice-giving services.  In addition, not enough of these funds were spent overseas; too much was absorbed by high-paid U.S. consultants.

Homeless Alcoholics Receive a Permanent Place to Live, and Drink.  Rodney Littlebear was a homeless drunk who for 15 years ran up the public tab with trips to jail, homeless shelters and emergency rooms.  He now has a brand-new, government-financed apartment where he can drink as much as he wants.  It is part of a first-in-the-nation experiment to ease the torment of drug and alcohol addiction while saving taxpayers' money.

$1-Billion Affordable Housing Bond Measure May Go to Voters in L.A..  A $1-billion bond measure that would help provide housing for thousands of low-income residents and enable others to become first-time homeowners is likely to appear on the Los Angeles ballot in November.

More material about Poverty and Dependency in America.

Five days in Rio on Newark's credit card.  In the final week of his 20-year tenure as mayor of Newark, Sharpe James took a five-day trip to Rio de Janeiro, staying in a luxury hotel and dining at some of the city's finest restaurants.

Empty monuments to human ego.  Sitting in the middle of what used to be pasture in Fairmont, West Virginia, stands a brand-new office building that you helped pay for.  Knowing that you would insist on the best, its builders made sure to get all the options:  a swimming pool, sauna, and spa.  The price:  $103 million.  Oh yes, it's nearly empty and likely to stay that way for some time.  If you don't recall ordering a state-of-the-art office building in a cow pasture, you're not alone.  Nobody does.  But that's how the congressional process known as "earmarking" works.

Corporate gravy train is railroading rest of the country.  Two-thirds of farm subsidies go to the top 10 percent of subsidy recipients.  That means tens of millions of dollars for big agribusinesses and millions more for such "gentlemen farmers" as basketball star Scottie Pippen, newscaster Sam Donaldson and television mogul Ted Turner.  At least 12 Fortune 500 companies also have pocketed farm subsidies in recent years, including John Hancock and Caterpillar.  In addition, federal money funds critical programs such as barn restoration and paying farmers not to grow certain crops.

Federally Funded Flying Fish:  Congress appropriated $10 million in FY03 for the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board (AFMB), a non-profit organization, which since its inception has received $30 million in federal funding.  Out of its federal funds, the AFMB gave Alaska Airlines a $500,000 grant to paint a Boeing 737 to look like a Chinook salmon.

Senate GOP fails to get fiscally fit.  The wheels came off the Republican cart on Capitol Hill last week with abandonment of any pretense of loyalty to George W. Bush.  But while upbraiding the president, Republican members of Congress were adrift on a sea of unrestrained government spending.

[One reason they show no restraint is that the President won't veto anything.]

Homeland Goes Hollywood.  In October 2004, the Department of Homeland Security hired former actress Bobbie Faye Furgeson, as DHS' Hollywood Liaison.  In March 2004, DHS posted the opening for a "liaison to the entertainment industry," stating the salary could top $136,000, plus benefits.

Milk Matters and Bo Vine the Spokescow.  Milk Matters is a campaign coordinated by NIH's Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which features "Bo Vine the Spokescow" who encourages children to drink milk.  The campaign website, which costs approximately $175,000 per year to operate, contains games and activities, and offers free coloring books to children.

Energy Hog:  The Department of Energy spent approximately $325,000 to operate the "Energy Hog" Webgame for Kids.  The website contains games designed to teach children ages eight to 13 about energy efficiency.

Medicaid:  Waste, Fraud and Abuse.  A 2001 GAO report on Medicaid stated, "The magnitude of improper payments throughout Medicaid is unknown. … An even more difficult portion of improper payments to identify are those attributable to intentional fraud. … There are no reliable estimates of the extent of improper payments throughout the Medicaid program."

Legal Services Corporation Abuses Paid for with Taxpayer Dollars.  Legal Services Corporation (LSC) proponents contend the federally funded program creates a level legal playing ground for those in need, however, LSC has consistently used its federal resources to legally assault the very individuals whose taxpayer dollars fund the program.  Most recently, LSC has resorted to suing hard working Americans who are legally hiring seasonal immigrants for temporary help.  Critics charge the corporation brings vague, and usually unfounded, charges against farmers who can not afford an attorney and typically are forced to settle out of court.

Examples of Government Waste:  The federal government cannot account for $24.5 billion spent in 2003.  A White House review of just a sample of the federal budget identified $90 billion spent on programs deemed that were either ineffective, marginally adequate, or operating under a flawed purpose or design.

Welcome to Spend City.  It was the political equivalent of going on a shopping spree the same day you get a credit-line increase on your over-the-limit card.  In the morning, the senators increased the federal debt limit by $800 billion, to $9 trillion — that's with a T.  In the afternoon came the Vote-a-Rama, a carnival in which the lawmakers took turns pitching scores of amendments to the 2007 budget measure, most calling for more money for favorite programs.

Nine Trillion with a "T".  Most of us middle class slobs slugging it out in the trenches have a hard time comprehending $9 million or $9 billion, let alone $9 trillion, but $9 trillion is the amount the U.S. Senate just raised your debt ceiling and mine to:  Thirty grand apiece for every man, woman and child in the U.S.

Illinois County Will Borrow $200M.  For the first time in a decade, America's second largest county — Cook County, Illinois — has been forced to authorize a multimillion-dollar line of credit to pay current bills.  It's a reflection of what's happening across America as state and local governments slide deeper in debt despite growing revenues.

Spending obscenities:  Not so long ago, in a country that now seems far, far away, Ronald Reagan told the nation:  "we don't have deficits because people are taxed too little.  We have deficits because big government spends too much." … Last week, a Republican Senate voted to raise the debt ceiling to nearly $9 trillion.  Senators quickly passed a record $2.8 trillion budget.  What would Reagan say now?

Taxpayer$ pony up for pols' Tennessee trek.  At least ten [Massachusetts] Bay State lawmakers are hobnobbing with fellow pols, lobbyists and CEOs in Nashville this week at a conference that includes tours of Dollywood, Graceland and the Jack Daniels Distillery — all courtesy of state taxpayers, the [Boston] Herald has learned.

Spiffy new jail is too expensive to open.  A $59 million jail featuring art and flat screen TVs in Portland, Ore., has been sitting unused for more than a year as the city can't afford to open it. … The county spent more than $600,000 on art for the jail, including a sculpture out front by the circular driveway.  There are 30-foot vaulted ceilings and private showers.

The government junkets you fund.  $1,401,104,263.  That's how much of our hard-earned money has gone to subsidize the spring break-style trips and conferences of the federal government over the last five years.  Spending on bureaucracy boondoggles has increased some 70 percent in that time period.

Number, Cost of Government Workers Growing Fast, Study Says.  The nation's 16 million state and local government workers form a large, growing, and well-compensated class in society.  State and local workers earned $36 per hour in wages and benefits in 2005, on average, compared to $24 per hour for U.S. private-sector workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Employer Costs for Employee Compensation Summary, published December 9, 2005.

U.S. gives Mexico millions for security.  The U.S. government has sent more than $376 million to Mexico in the past decade for that country's military and police to help stop alien and drug smugglers, guard against terrorists and protect America's southern border, including $50 million due this year.

Statement on the So-Called "Deficit Reduction Act".  For all the passionate debate this bill has generated, its effect on the federal government and taxpayers are relatively minor.  HR 4241 does not even reduce federal expenditures!  That's right — if HR 4241 passes, the federal budget, including entitlement programs, will continue to grow.

Congress Adds $3 Trillion to Debt.  The U.S. Senate is preparing to vote to raise the federal debt ceiling this month [March 2006].  According to Treasury, the total debt held by the public combined with intra-governmental holdings, or securities held by government accounts, stood at $8.27 trillion as of the end of February.  The federal debt has increased $3 trillion since 2002.

Spending Inquiry for Top Official on Broadcasting.  Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, is the subject of an inquiry into accusations of misuse of federal money and the use of phantom or unqualified employees, officials involved in that examination said on Friday [11/04/2005].

The Missing $25 Billion:  Buried in the Department of the Treasury's 2003 Financial Report of the United States Government is a short section titled "Unreconciled Transactions Affecting the Change in Net Position," which explains that these unreconciled transactions totaled $24.5 billion in 2003.  The unreconciled transactions are funds for which auditors cannot account:  The government knows that $25 billion was spent by someone, somewhere, on something, but auditors do not know who spent it, where it was spent, or on what it was spent.

These are dangerous times for our wallets.  Tim Chapman, who has his ear to the Hill, predicts that the government will end up spending $100 billion in response to [Hurricane] Katrina.  That's the equivalent of 5 percent of the annual federal budget.  If you sent 5 percent of your annual budget to a charity for Katrina relief, would you do it without checking up on the charity and finding out exactly how they would spend the money?

Getting a bit carried away?  Keep in mind that $100 billion is one-eighteenth of the federal government's whole operating budget this year.  It is what we have been spending each year on the entire Iraqi war effort.  It is roughly twice as much as America spends each year to operate all its colleges and universities.  It is more than the total passenger revenue of all the major airlines in the United States.  This year.  It is a staggeringly huge amount of money.

U.S. paid $32M for Iraqi base that wasn't built.  The U.S. military paid a Florida company nearly $32 million to build barracks and offices for Iraqi army units even though nothing was ever built, Pentagon investigators reported.

Unbridled Pork:  In 1982, President Ronald Reagan established a panel of 161 senior business executives and more than 2,000 private sector volunteers to undertake a comprehensive review of the federal government.  The report of the President's Private Sector Survey on Cost Control — better known as the Grace Commission — made nearly 2,500 recommendations that would save taxpayers $424.4 billion during a three-year period by eliminating waste, mismanagement and inefficiency in Washington.

Dammable pork:  I'm embarrassed to admit I once built a house on a beach in Westhampton, N.Y., because government insurance guaranteed I couldn't lose.  When a storm washed my house away, government paid me for my loss.  It would have covered me again and again had I rebuilt.  (I sold the land.)  Government insurance is truly an insane policy.

Taxpayer Group Blasts Boeing/Lockheed Launch Vehicle Plan.  The pending Boeing/Lockheed "United Launch Alliance" to provide the Air Force with expendable rockets would unfairly strand taxpayers with a half-billion-dollar-a-year subsidy.

Time To Pull the Plug on Federally Subsidized Electricity.  There is plenty of federal spending on energy that does not deliver benefits worth the cost to taxpayers, and there are even a few provisions that contribute to our energy problems.  Many federal energy programs could be cut back or eliminated without any real loss.  Among the costliest and least justifiable of such endeavors are the numerous federal subsidies for electric power.

Getting rid of reckless spending.  We are less than one generation away from Congress being unable to pay for anything other than Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and interest on the federal debt — leaving not so much as a penny for defense or homeland security.

Feeding the kitty for Katrina.  Congress … must get serious about regulatory costs and stop passing a never-ending stream of dubious and often counterproductive regulatory requirements.  Nearly every adult in America who has had an encounter with almost any level of government knows wasteful spending is colossal, despite politicians' eternal whining they haven't enough money.  As long as governments can take an ever-increasing portion of the economic pie, this will never change.


And now a few words about Puerto Rico:

Pay to the Order of Puerto Rico:  The Cost of Dependence to the American Taxpayer.  American families pay $22 billion per year to maintain this dependent colony.

Background information:
 The United States seized Puerto Rico in the Spanish-American War.  Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens but cannot vote for U.S. president, have no voting representation in Congress and pay no federal taxes.*

Cash-Strapped Gov't Days From Shutdown in Puerto Rico.  Nearly 1,600 schools shuttered.  Some 205,000 public workers unpaid.  Most government offices closed.  The U.S. Caribbean territory is staggering under a nearly $740 million budget shortfall and heading toward a grim scenario Monday [4/24/2006], when it will run out of cash to pay salaries and provide public services if local lawmakers don't approve a bailout plan.

Puerto Rico Imposes Partial Shutdown.  Schools closed.  Building permits were on hold.  Renewing a driver's license was impossible.  Many basic functions of Puerto Rico's government were unavailable Monday [5/1/2006] as the U.S. commonwealth ran out of money and imposed a partial public-sector shutdown.


Pandering to the pandas:  One might expect the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to focus exclusively on advancing the health and development of humans.  But since 2001, NICHD, a subdivision of the National Institutes of Health, has provided $1,178,450 to a "Fisheries and Wildlife" professor for research focusing at least in part on "giant panda habitats" in China.

Head Start Needs to Clean House.  Some of the most alarming cases included:  the indictment of both a Maryland Head Start director on charges that she stole $335,777 and a South Dakota woman for embezzling $185,000 from a Head Start service provider; and a New Mexico program suspected of defrauding the program of $526,000.  The latter program received a $2 million federal grant while the fraud case was still pending.

What the Feds Say the Tax Lady Spent at Neiman's:  $1.4 million.  Too many of us still struggle with the idea that a person, even a thief, could have "spent over $1.4 million at Neiman Marcus, the retailer," in seven years' time.  Which is what the affidavit alleges that Harriette Walters, who worked for the D.C. government for 25 years (the last few as a manager in the city's Office of Tax and Revenue), did.  Prosecutors said Wednesday [11/7/2007] that Walters and her colleague Diane Gustus had been, for years, quietly helping themselves to $20 million from the city pile in the form of bogus refund checks.

Kill This Test.  Enacted in 1965, Head Start funds public and private groups that run local centers which provide what the Head Start Bureau calls "comprehensive child development services" for preschoolers from poor families.  In 1966, Head Start enrolled 733,000 children and spent $198.9 million.  By 2005, enrollment had increased modestly to 906,993, but spending had rocketed to $6.8 billion.

Taxpayers Asked to Subsidize Renewable Boondoggle.  U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Rep. Tim Matheson (D-CO) have proposed legislation requiring federal taxpayers to subsidize $300 million in renewable energy equipment purchases in six western states.  The bill aims to induce schools in the affected states to purchase expensive renewable energy equipment by making federal taxpayers pick up the tab.  The proposed legislation, the Renewable Schools Energy Act of 2006, would subsidize renewable energy equipment in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Utah.  Currently, schools in those states usually choose to purchase electricity from conventional power sources, which is significantly less expensive than electricity generated from renewable sources.

Proposed Massachusetts Wind Farm Generates Intense Criticism.  If energy-savvy private investors like [William] Koch are questioning Cape Wind's financing, why does the developer think he can succeed?  The answer lies with federal and state governments eager to subsidize alternative energy projects.  A study released in May by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University finds Cape Wind's wind farm would confer above-average profits on its developer thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies.

Windmill generators are one of those supposedly good ideas that may not be good at all.

D.C. government employees reward themselves.  The D.C. government employees tasked with providing care to the city's poor have taken home nearly half of the more than $1 million in bonus money awarded by the District during the first half of fiscal 2005.  Nearly 400 employees in the D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS) received approximately $479,000 in extra money in their paychecks from Oct. 1, 2004, to March 31, 2005, according to D.C. Office of Personnel records.

Federal Aid to the States Ripe for Cuts.  The federal grant structure is massive and complex … Grants range from the giant Medicaid to hundreds of obscure programs, such as $10 million for Nursing Workforce Diversity, $59 million for Boating Safety Financial Assistance, and a program that hands out grants of $25,000 to local governments for "raising awareness" about environmental issues.

Federal Government Should Increase Firing Rate.  The Bush administration is seeking the "freedom to manage," including greater ability to fire poorly performing workers.  Budget Director Mitch Daniels argues that federal managers "cannot hire whom they wish or fire whom they should."  Recent incidents of dangerously sloppy performance in the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the State Department, the FBI, and other agencies make it clear that far too much poor performance is currently tolerated.

"Sunsetting" to Reform and Abolish Federal Agencies:  Government agencies are the only organizations in society that can have immortality without good performance.  Government employees are the only workers with near guarantees of lifetime jobs regardless of performance.  In the private sector, poor performers are routinely weeded out and resources shifted to more productive activities.

Downsizing the Federal Government:  The $2.3 trillion federal government has simply become too big for Congress to oversee.  The good news is that Americans do not need such a big government.  Most federal programs are unconstitutional, unnecessary, actively damaging, or properly the responsibility of state governments or the private sector.  This study analyzes programs that could be cut to create annual budget savings of $300 billion.

Ron Paul Fights Overseas Pork Spending.  "Congress hardly should be sending $735 million to Colombia when we have a $600 billion single-year deficit here at home," Paul stated.  "Our meddling in Colombia not only is unconstitutional, it's absolutely useless.

It's Not Just the Spending.  Before leaving town earlier this month, Congress approved nearly $300 billion in increased spending.  But spending, supported through taxes, is not the only way the federal government diverts resources from the private sector to accomplish its goals.  The other is through regulation and, in recent years, that too has increased at an impressive rate.

Dying to be politically correct.  Each year, the U.S. government spends $200 million to help prevent malaria in the rest of the world, primarily in Africa and Asia.  That's mighty nice of us.  But none of the money goes for the inside residential spraying of DDT that allowed Americans to get a handle on the spread of the disease.  This summer President Bush announced a new five-year $1.2 billion effort to prevent malaria abroad.  But, again, no money for DDT.

Much more information about DDT can be found here.

Yoga and your tax dollars:  You might think it was a pretty good indicator the federal government was spending too much money on medical research when it started paying advocates of "alternative" medicine to study the impact of yoga on "generalized anxiety."  But then you are not Sen. Arlen Specter, the liberal Republican from Pennsylvania, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees funding for the National Institutes of Health, the federal agency that funds medical research.

Forest Service "misplaced" $215 million.  The U.S. Forest Service … "misplaced" about $215 million intended for wildfire management because of an accounting error, a watchdog group contends.  The agency says the money is being recovered.

$15 Billion Missing From Education Department.  The report, "Government at the Brink," issued in June [2001] by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, says that the Education Department reported in its financial statements that it had $7.5 billion in the bank when it actually owed that money to the U.S. Treasury.  This means that the department's books are off by $15 billion, about a third of what it spends annually.  But this isn't just a case of bad accounting.  Education department whistleblower John Gard suspects that "senior management officials" in the department had been "setting up the Agency to rip it off" and that millions of dollars or more have been embezzled.  Gard says there was no security over the system to prevent embezzlement and no audit trail to find out where the money was going.

IRS workers' online time not all work-related.  A sampling of Internal Revenue Service employees found that they used about half their online time at work to visit sex sites, gamble, trade stocks, participate in chat rooms and do other non-work-related activity, the Treasury Department's inspector general said.

$1 billion wasted on study of efficient cars.  American taxpayers have forked out more than $1 billion over the last nine years helping the Big Three automakers develop cars efficient enough to travel 80 miles on a single gallon of gas.

 Editor's Note:   Ask yourself this question:  What would an 80 mpg car look like?  It would probably make a Yugo look like a limousine by comparison.  Even the smallest motorcycle on the road today doesn't get that kind of mileage.  There is a finite amount of energy available from the combustion of one gallon of gasoline, even with pure oxygen fed into the air intake of an automobile engine.  Eighty mpg is an unreachable goal.

Fannie Mae's bailout tab:  Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored mortgage association, has been battling a mounting scandal since last year.  It has accounting errors of about $11 billion.  [That's Enron × 19.]  This is news — $30 billion worth of news — but only print reporters are out there covering it regularly.  TV news is out to lunch.

Feds Say $20 Billion Paid Out Erroneously.  The federal government doled out nearly $20 billion in health, housing, food and other benefits to people and companies that were not entitled to them, the White House said [May 31, 2002] in a report calling for tighter controls on spending while the nation is at war.  In many cases, fraudulent medical bills were paid.  In other instances, food stamps were improperly claimed, Social Security payments were sent to people long dead and welfare checks were cashed by prisoners, officials said.

Bureaucracy and Obesity:  The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has recently taken some hits for how it spends around $7 billion of federal taxpayer money, lacks a clearly defined mission.  In fact, it has too many missions and is still looking for more.

Up In Smoke:  ONDCP's Wasted Efforts In the War on Drugs.  Established in 1988 to oversee all aspects of America's war on drugs and to coordinate U.S. domestic and international anti-drug efforts, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has morphed into a federal wasteland, throwing taxpayer money toward numerous high-priced drug control programs that have failed to show results. ... Instead of curbing America's drug problem, ONDCP has wasted $4.2 billion since fiscal 1997 on media advertising, fighting state legislation, and deficient anti-drug trafficking programs.

Pricetag for Rebuilding Illinois Expressway Doubles.  In Illinois' own mini-version of Boston's Big Dig, the costs to rebuild Chicago's Dan Ryan Expressway have nearly doubled from original estimates, to about $1 billion.  Most taxpayers and state lawmakers were unaware of the soaring costs, run up in the first four years of the five-year project, until an enterprising transportation writer for the Chicago Tribune, Jon Hilkevitch, revealed them in a September 17 article.

Did someone mention the The Big Dig?

Highways to Porkville.  A lot of those billboards posted at public construction sites that say "Your Tax Dollars At Work" need to be replaced with signs that read "Wasting Your Money."  This is the sad but inescapable conclusion after thumbing through the 2,000-plus pages of the $286 billion transportation bill that President Bush signed [recently] — legislation that Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona correctly called "a monstrosity" stuffed with outrageous, waste-ridden pork barrel projects that often have nothing to do with roads.

None of your business.  If the 18.4-cent per gallon federal gas tax is any indication, the feds still have a firm grip on highway funding.  That explains why the 2004 highway bill was chock full of wasteful spending.  In Alaska, some $200 million was allocated for two bridges; one would link a small town with an island a mile offshore that has fifty total residents; another would run from Anchorage to a small port that has one regular tenant.  I live in California and so am already saddled with all sorts of taxes and fees.  The last thing in the world that I want to do is see my taxes used to pay for a Bridge to Nowhere.

Orange bicycles:  Some cities turn abandoned bicycles into "community bicycles" available to anyone for temporary use in downtown areas.  Community bicycles are all painted one loud color to help users distinguish them from private bikes.  Safety-orange was the color sprayed on by bureaucrats in Tampa, Florida.  It was a short-lived program.  The orange bicycles went unused until they were stolen and, it is hoped, repainted.  Local officials are inspired by programs like "community bicycles," even though they never ride the bikes, nor use government buses, nor government schools.

Taxpayers are footing bill for union work.  In the wake of a controversy over a police union official who received a city salary while working full time for the officers union, a survey of city government, Muni and BART unions reveals a handful of other officials with similar arrangements, including a San Francisco sheriff's union chief who earned $60,000 a year but worked as little as one shift a month.

Attention:  Deficit Disorder.  So what should President Bush do to deal with a potential economic problem and prevent a clever Democrat from outflanking him to the right on the deficit?  By all means, veto the monstrous transportation bill that is now worming its way through Congress.  It would be the President's first veto in four and a half years of office, and it would send a powerful message that the days of uncontrolled spending are over.  [He should also] revisit the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which has turned into a boondoggle even before it has become fully operational.  This entitlement program alone will add $700 billion to federal deficits over the next decade.

Disaster aid boondoggle  Hurricane Frances made landfall more than 100 miles north of Miami-Dade County [in 2004].  But that didn't stop thousands of residents there from getting nearly $28 million in federal disaster aid.  Top winds reached only 47 mph in Miami-Dade County during the Labor Day weekend storm, so damages were limited to some fallen power lines and uprooted trees, according to FEMA and other disaster-relief officials.  Yet residents used their relief checks to buy more than 5,000 televisions allegedly destroyed by Frances, as well as 1,440 air conditioners, 1,360 twin beds, 1,311 washers and dryers, and 831 dining sets.

Time to dispose of radical feminist pork.  It's a mystery why Republicans continue to put a billion dollars a year of taxpayers' money into the hands of radical feminists who use it to preach their anti-marriage and anti-male ideology, promote divorce, corrupt the family court system, and engage in liberal political advocacy.

How radical La Raza gets federal subsidies:  It's bad enough the White House lent its prestige to The Race's annual conference.  But did you know the Bush administration has forked over millions of federal tax dollars directly to The Race?

Keeping Taxpayer Dollars Grounded in Reality:  Sikorsky's Comanche helicopter had it all:  dazzling graphics, wide political support, great promises.  There was just one problem:  The helicopter literally never took off.  After 21 years and 8 billion taxpayer dollars, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld mercifully killed the program last February.

Is the U.S. in Slow Motion to Socialism?  Just the increase in the budget this year is equal to what it cost for NASA to put a man on the moon.  Republicans in Congress have become so enamored with big government that they now celebrate a budget with a $100-billion increase as a sign of progress.

The government helping out in the bedroom.  Government health insurance now includes trying to improve people's sex lives.  I'm all for improving folks' sex lives, but with our tax money?

Ten Environmental Organizations that are subsidized by Federal Tax Dollars:  The total subsidy for the ten organizations, some of who are key players targeting the destruction of Agriculture in the Klamath Basin received $17,411,643 from the United States Government for biodiversity and save the fish programs.

Useless Conventions.  Why should taxpayers be expected to pay for private political conventions?  There is nothing sacred or noble about political parties, nor do they serve any altruistic purpose.  Political parties per se have no basis in the Constitution, yet they hold tremendous power over our lives.  Today's modern two-party political process has narrowed voter choices and emasculated political courage.  The parties enjoy a virtual stranglehold on national politics, thanks to outrageously restrictive ballot access laws and campaign finance rules that reward status-quo incumbency.  They also receive millions in federal matching funds.

Why Municipal Wi-Fi Is a False Hope:  Government spending of taxpayer dollars in questionable ways is nothing new.  But today, a growing number of U.S. cities have discovered a new method for using money they probably don't have on a project that probably won't work.

The Cost of Municipal Wi-Fi is High.  A new report says that about half of the initiatives today to create city or county-backed wireless networks will not even break even, even if they charge end users as much as $25 per month in subscription fees.

Building Unwanted Schools in Illinois.  While taxpayers in Florida's Miami-Dade School District aren't getting the new schools they want and need, taxpayers in Jersey County, Illinois, are getting new schools they don't want and don't need, despite rejecting — by a 71–to–29 percent vote — a 1999 school district referendum to build two new schools.  School enrollment in Jersey County has been falling for the past eight years.

New FBI software not usable.  A new FBI computer system called Virtual Case File, designed to help agents share information to ward off terrorist attacks, may have to be discarded because it doesn't work as designed.

 Update:   FBI Pushed Ahead With Troubled Software.  Some FBI officials began raising doubts about the bureau's attempts to create a computerized case management system as early as 2003, two years before the $170 million project was abandoned altogether, according to a confidential report to the House Appropriations Committee. … The bureau went ahead with a $17 million testing program last December, even though it was clear by then that the software would have to be scrapped, according to the review.

CBO Forecast Shows Runaway Spending —  — Not Tax Cuts — Causing Deficits.  This surge of new tax revenues for the federal Treasury is having a limited effect on lowering the federal deficit because spending continues to grow at a relatively rapid pace.

Why Can't Congress Stop Spending?  Everybody complains about pork, but members of Congress keep spending because voters do not throw them out of office for doing so.  The rotten system in Congress will change only when the American people change their beliefs about the proper role of government in our society.  Too many members of Congress believe they can solve all economic problems, cure all social ills, and bring about worldwide peace and prosperity simply by creating new federal programs.  We must reject unlimited government and reassert the constitutional rule of law if we hope to halt the spending orgy.

Homosexual Group Fought Against the Marriage-Amendment, Gets $80,000 Federal Earmark.  Tucked deep inside the mammoth $388.4-billion spending bill that Congress approved last month is an $80,000 earmark for the San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center.  The money was allocated for counseling services, but the agency's active political support for gay causes and adamant opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment are raising questions about the earmark's appropriateness.

Tax Dollars for Terrorists:  Recent reports have revealed that during the last term of the Clinton administration, U.S. taxpayers inadvertently helped fund some of the world's largest terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda.  In October 2004, an FBI team procured documents of the Islamic American Relief Agency, a group suspected of having ties to terrorists.  The FBI team found evidence that at the same time the group was receiving millions of dollars from the U.S. Agency for International Development, its overseas partners were channeling a large chunk of funds directly to Osama bin Laden.

Does foreign aid do more harm than good?  A new study concludes that aid has failed to achieve its goals in the past 50 years.  Worse, in many cases aid has been counterproductive.

Most state money allocated for King-Chavez museum unaccounted for.  More than 80 percent of a $221,200 grant allocated to build a museum honoring civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and labor organizer Cesar Chavez is unaccounted for, said state Controller Steve Westly.  Westly began his investigation after it was reported that one group received $500,000 for a community center in San Francisco that was never built.

Teed off:  Federal funds for golf.  Where in the Constitution does Congress find the authority to fund golf?  Should the federal government force unwilling and sometimes financially strapped taxpayers to support charitable organizations they would not support if allowed a free choice?

Signature Disappointment:  Last week, Republican delegates objected to a draft platform that bragged about education spending increases worthy of LBJ.  A reference to the Great Society's architect was dropped in favor of boasting about the Bush administration's being responsible for the biggest boost in federal education spending in 40 years.  Although the 50 percent increase in federal spending over the past three years is far more than Democrats ever dreamed of committing to Jimmy Carter's Education Department, they complain that the expensive reform is under-funded.

 Read this:   Clinton gave 500,000 bureaucrats your charge card.  A General Accounting Office report released this month [June 2004] reveals that bureaucrats in the Veterans Health Administration have been using cards issued by Citibank to charge movie and baseball tickets, children's clothing, country club outings, expensive meals and even cases of beer to the taxpayers.

How Large Is the Federal Government's Debt?  If we confine our horizon to the next 75 years, as government actuaries have traditionally done, the unfunded liability is about $18 trillion in today's dollars — more than six times as much as the federal government's outstanding bonds.  If we focus only on people who are already participating in the system (either as beneficiaries or as taxpayers), the government's net debt is more than $24 trillion — more than twice our current gross domestic product.

David vs. Goliath:  We Must Slay the NEA.  Conduct a quick search on the Internet and you will find dozens of articles arguing against continued funding of the National Endowment [for] the Arts.

The Editor apologizes to the readers for the family-unfriendly nature of this article.
 College Displaying Crucifix in Rectum Got Millions in Tax Dollars.  Federal taxpayers are subsidizing a college in New York whose art school is currently displaying works that include a drawing of a man with a crucifix coming out of his rectum, a drawing of a man with a rosary coming out of his rectum, and rosaries decorated with penises. … Some of the money has come in the form of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

"Hi" Culture at an Even Higher Price:  A new magazine has been created by the State Department, at a cost of 4.2 million dollars, in its continuing effort to force the Middle East region into feelings of goodwill towards all things American.

 Update:   "Real men moisturize".  So begins an article on "Sharp Dressed Men" that appeared in a State Department funded magazine aimed at youth in the Arab world. … You cannot enhance understanding between one people and another by presenting a false version of one side.

Revolution in America:  "I am not an American.  There is nothing about me that is American.  I don't want to be an American, and I have just as much right to be here as any of you."  Thus spoke one individual identified as a "Latino activist" during a session of the "National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity," a $4 million project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Compromising Quality:  The High Cost of Government Drug Purchasing.  Recently revised estimates of the projected cost of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit have re-ignited congressional debate about the merits and design of the recently enacted Medicare legislation.  One particular argument that has received renewed attention, both in and out of Congress, is the contention that the new drug benefit will be unnecessarily costly because the legislation does not allow the government to use the "enormous market clout" of 41 million Medicare beneficiaries to drive down the cost of drugs.

$9 Trillion Didn't End Poverty — What to Do?  Nine Trillion dollars has been spent fighting the "war on poverty".  Yet, as the Census Bureau just reported, poverty in America is up.  So what do the candidates propose we do?  Isn't it time that one of the candidates admit we cannot spend our way out of poverty?

How to Get Federal Spending Under Control:  Spending cannot be restrained without reforming entitlements, which comprise two-thirds of all federal spending and threaten the country's long-term finances.  These programs are projected to grow by 6 percent annually for the next decade — a rate that would make it nearly impossible to balance the budget by 2014.  Lawmakers seeking to rein in spending should put all entitlement spending on the table, including the 2003 Medicare drug bill and the 2002 farm bill.

Army Ads and NASCAR:  Racing Away with Your Money.  When NASCAR fans pack the 20 racetracks to attend the 36 races that comprise the 2003 Winston Cup schedule, the tickets, parking, and t-shirts will not be the greatest costs assumed by those in attendance.  Before the green flag ever falls at a single event, these, and all other American taxpayers will have already paid over $16 million for the "Army of One" sponsorship on a Winston Cup stock car.

"PTO Palace":  A Bad Case of Government's Edifice Complex.  The proposed $1.3 billion Patent and Trademark Office headquarters building will set new records for extravagance.  "Interior build-out costs" — the price we pay for making the empty new building into a useable office — could, on a square foot basis, be more than double the standard rate for the rest of the federal government.  It's not hard to see why, given the project's lavish granite, hardwood and marble surfacing materials.  Other amenities include exercise facilities and trails, an in-house restaurant, expensive décor such as fountains and sculptures, and, true to form, open-air amphitheaters that would make Nero jealous.

The Bad, the Ugly, the NEA.  The National Endowment for the Arts was launched in 1965 supposedly to enhance appreciation of the arts, but a revealing indication of the trend in the opposite direction occurred in January 1968 when it was discovered that a painting had hung upside down for days in the White House itself.  Even when suspicions arose, it took another week of debate before its topsy-turvy status could be confirmed.

Taxpayers Forced to Fund Anti-Bush "Environmentalists".  Even though most environmental groups are determined to oust President Bush from office this November, those groups are benefiting from an unprecedented level of federal assistance, according to a Washington, D.C., research group.

Five Good Reasons to Close Down The Department of Commerce.  The Department's unacceptable strategic plan and a succession of negative GAO and IG reports all clearly indicate that Congress will simply waste more taxpayer money by continuing to fund this agency.

Homeland Security Funding Part I:  Money is Not Flowing to the Places in Danger.  Most of the homeland security money Congress has appropriated since Sept. 11, 2001, has failed to reach the local governments that need it most, while much of the funding has gone to places that face only a minimal threat from terrorism.

On the other hand...
 Mosques awarded Homeland Security grants.  While the European Union investigates mosques for ties to Islamic terrorism, the U.S. government is giving mosques security grants that are designed to protect churches, synagogues and other nonprofit groups from Islamic terror.

No Member of Congress Voted for a Net Reduction in Federal Spending ...for the third year running.  When it came to controlling deficit spending last year, words were abundant but deeds were in short supply on Capitol Hill.

A Lesson in Waste: Where Does All the Federal Education Money Go?  According to the Department of Education, its official mission is "to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the Nation," a mission broad enough to encompass almost anything.

 Editor's Note:   The chart below is an excerpt from this report.  These are just the top seven agencies spending our money on "education".

    2002 Federal Education Spending in the Top Seven Departments

    Department of Education                      $46,324,352,000
    Department of Health and Human Services      $22,858,490,000
    Department of Agriculture                    $11,896,064,000
    Department of Labor                           $6,364,200,000
    Department of Defense                         $4,749,222,000
    Department of Energy                          $3,625,124,000
    National Science Foundation                   $3,230,812,000

Corporate Welfare:  Many corporate welfare recipients are among the biggest companies in America, including the Big 3 automakers, Boeing, Archer Daniels Midland, and now-bankrupt Enron.  Most of the massive handouts to agricultural producers go to large farming businesses.  Once companies are successful in securing a stream of taxpayer goodies, they defend their stake year after year with the help of their state's congressional delegation.

FCC is on the Verge of Giving Away Billions.  The plan would circumvent FCC policy and federal law that requires new spectrum to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.  Last week, Verizon Wireless stated that it would start its bid at $5 billion if an auction for the 1.9 GHz spectrum was held.

Welfare Turns Into a Suite Deal:  The Bush administration and the Republican-led House have taken steps toward providing an unprecedented taxpayer-funded handout to private companies.  The energy bill, which passed the House and will be taken up again by the Senate in January, contains nearly $30 billion in such benefits, including $11.3 billion in subsidies for oil and gas companies that just had one of their most profitable years on record.

Bush's $5 trillion problem:  Rising deficit troubles GOP.  Even before President Bush's next budget hits Capitol Hill, lawmakers even in his own party are mounting barricades against what many see as a spending binge that's settling into a habit.

New Jersey's "Sex, Etc."— Your tax dollars at work.  "Sex, Etc." gives us Jerseyans something to be ashamed of besides the governor.  The cyber-version is available to anyone with a computer, while the monthly print version is found in many local schools and libraries.  It's hard to write about this X-rated publication, whose purpose seems to be to persuade "teens" — or anyone else who reads it, regardless of age — to practice sex unrestrained by morality.

GOP Senate rivals back away from Bush:  "Any government that makes its children pay the bills for what it wants to consume today is almost on its face immoral," Sen. Steve Rauschenberger said.  "It's one thing to experience short-term deficits in a time when you have both a recession and a war, but the Congress and the president both need to face up to financial discipline."

City pays out half a million to ask our opinions.  How long is too long to wait in line at the recycling center?  What do you think of Winterfest?  How long has it been since you replaced the flapper in your toilet?  During the past 18 months, the cash-strapped city of Seattle has spent more than a half-million dollars asking citizens those questions and others.

Blimp is Right.  The bureaucrats probably didn't realize what they were doing when they shelled out $600,000 this year to send a Medicare blimp touring around the country.  I don't mean just the money.  The blimp money is just part of the $30 million that Medicare spends annually to let Medicare recipients know they're on Medicare.

The Cost of Safety:  The Washington Post took a look at where our "homeland security" spending over the last two years has gone.  Our tax dollars have bought:
  • A boat for a volunteer fire department in Virginia ($350,000)
  • A computerized car-towing system for Washington, D.C. ($300,000)
  • Eight large-screen plasma televisions for an emergency operations center in suburban Maryland ($160,000)
The embarrassing GOP:  This Republican Congress, in addition to increasing spending on entitlements and expanding big government - like the Democrats they once criticized - also dished out $95 billion in tax breaks and pork-barrel projects.

How Washington Increased Spending by Nearly $800 Billion in just four years.
[Summary]  [Entire report]

"Most outrageous" ways feds spend money:  The Libertarian Party releases Washington's Top 10 expenditures.  For example, spending $3.6 million for "team-building" exercises for the Postal Service.  At a series of employee retreats, hundreds of Postal workers played children's games, sang 'We Are Family,' wrote Christmas carols, etc.

President Bush's $15 Billion Package to Fight AIDS in Africa:  Pardon my lack of enthusiasm.  It was only last year that this same president passed a gluttonous $246 billion farm subsidies bill, legislation that's loaded with political patronage, and that will wreak far more devastation on the African continent than this AIDS legislation could ever hope to make better.

The Long Trail of Sibel Edmonds at the FBI:  Sibel Edmonds, a Turkish-American, was hired by the FBI soon after Sept. 11 and given top-secret security clearance to translate some of the reams of documents seized by FBI agents who have been rounding up suspected terrorists across the United States and abroad.  Edmonds says that to her amazement, from the day she started the job, she was told repeatedly by one of her supervisors that there was no urgency - that she should take longer to translate documents so that the department would appear overworked and understaffed.  That way, it would receive a larger budget for the next year.

Foreigners hit jackpot at UN:  Perks make life lush for overseas workers.

Capital Offense:  The annual Cherry Festival in Traverse City, Michigan, costs 202,000 federal tax dollars even though numerous corporate sponsors are also funding it.

Privatize the Space Program:  The space shuttle was built and maintained to please clashing constituencies, not to do a clearly defined job for which there was an economic and technical need.

Challenger, Columbia … what next?  When NASA's environmental concerns resulted in the tragic deaths of the Columbia crew, it wasn't the first time a space shuttle crew was lost because of misguided regulations and fads.

Americans reject public transportation, choose autos.  The tens of billions of dollars invested in transit in recent years have done little but leave surface transportation funding highly unbalanced.  Though we travel nearly 100 times as much by auto as by transit, we spend less than four times as much on highways as on transit.

Welfare - Broadening the Reform:  Since President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty more than 30 years ago, the United States has "invested" some $7.95 trillion in programs that provide cash, food, housing, and medical and social services to poor and low-income Americans.  But while the nation was pouring this flood of resources into the War on Poverty most social problems got worse, not better.  A deluge of illegitimacy, crime, drug abuse, and welfare dependency besieged American communities.

[Part 1]  [Part 2]

Flying high on the public's dime:  Some public officials prefer to bypass freeway congestion by flying in government owned helicopters.

Why Buying Government Bonds is a Bad Investment for Yourself, and Our Future:  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spends 80% of its budget on administrative overhead, while private charities are prosecuted for fraud if more than 20-30% of donations goes for staff. In California, there are an average of 132 administrators for every 100 teachers in the public schools, while there are only 18 per 100 teachers in the parochial schools. Average cost per high-school student: $5200 public vs. $2200 private.

Get DSHS off the phone.  Does one government agency really need to operate over 400 different hotlines at a cost to taxpayers of more than $350,000 each year?

Reinventing government II:  Most people on the outside of government, looking in, will say that when they have to contact a government agency — from the IRS to the local DMV — they would prefer to visit the dentist. On a recent visit to a Cabinet-level department I found the halls filled with people who did not appear to be working.  Partially overheard conversations were about break time, vacations, sick leave and other benefits.

Senate spa gets "expensive" facelift:  Lawmakers are tight-lipped about this exclusive luxury facility, so the cost of the renovations is anyone's guess.

NYC Attack Relief Program Rife With Fraud.  A $100 million federal program to reimburse New Yorkers for air conditioners, filters, vacuums and other air-purifying tools after the World Trade Center collapse is rife with fraud and misuse, government officials say.

Washington's $782 Billion Spending Spree:  Politicians who want to spend even more money are telling taxpayers that it's time to sacrifice.  To which taxpayers should reply:  "You first."

Why are we paying for Planned Parenthood?  Planned Parenthood has received in the last two years — that they've reported — over $500 million in taxpayer money.  America needs to wake up to this disturbing fact!  On one hand, Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in America, is funded in large part by our hard-earned tax dollars.  This money is allocated from Congress.  Then Planned Parenthood turns around and sues Congress for passing a law banning partial-birth abortion.

Prisoner Lawsuits Take Bite Out of Taxpayer Funds:  With nothing but time on their hands and little to lose, prison inmates with access to taxpayer-funded law libraries and free legal advice are clogging up the court system.

Fugitive Felons Allowed to Collect Social Security Checks for Others:  Thousands of fugitive felons, from kidnappers to drug abusers, are being allowed by the government to cash Social Security checks and spend money for minors and disabled Americans who can't manage their own accounts, federal records show.

National Science Foundation squanders another $105,000 of your money studying mastodon tusks!  Of what use is this knowledge to your typical American taxpayer?

Report: Federal Agencies Wasted $19 Billion Last Year:  A half-dozen of the largest federal agencies squandered $19 billion through erroneous payments last year, and the total amount wasted is probably far greater, congressional auditors said Friday [9/6/2002].

The Economic Assault of the Welfare State on the Traditional American Family:  An unmarried mother, with or without a job, receives far higher total income entitlement than if married to a lower income husband.  AFDC, food stamps, Medicaid, housing, utilities, and WIC subsidies allow comfort without work.  Most of these benefits remain in whole or in part, even if she goes to work, along with the added entitlements of earned income tax credit, plus transportation and child care subsidies.

Kiss your money goodbye:  Never believe the Democrats when they say that the country cannot "afford" a tax cut.

Mouse-less FBI:  As the United States moves closer to a paperless society in which we communicate electronically with the other side of the world in seconds and where "snail mail" describes the U.S. Postal Service's glacial speed, one assumes the government's top agencies would be equipped with the latest available computer technology.  Not only is this far from true, the government cannot even keep track of the computers it does have.

FBI computer system turns into unproductive money pit:  The FBI spent millions of dollars on its massive computer systems without adequate assurance they could meet intended goals, were being developed on schedule or were within established budgets, the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General said yesterday [12/19/2002].

Happy 25th Birthday, Department of Energy.  Time to Retire!  The DOE has grown to a bloated $21 billion budget per year, with multiple missions and questionable priorities.  Its SynFuels program spent half a billion dollars on alternative fuel research before being abandoned.

America's Biggest Crooks:  Her Politicians.  The Enron case made headlines because fraud and deception of such magnitude is fairly unusual in the corporate world.  Washington fraud and deception of a much greater magnitude doesn't make the headlines because fraud and deception in government is standard practice.  That's what's so disgusting when politicians posture and demand that something be done to ensure honest corporate accounting practices.

Mass Transit Mess:  The "Feds," it seems, possess a kind of magical power — call it an inverted Midas touch — that ends up destroying nearly everything it comes into contact with.  They can't even give money away without attaching conditions that assure failure.  The federal government's role in "assisting" public transit has been variously described as inconsistent and ill-conceived, self-defeating, ineffective, a total failure.

Garbage In, Regulation Out:  When it comes to cooking books, the feds are gourmets.

Your wasted highway tax dollars at work:  Just south of Gainesville, Florida, along Highway 441 crossing Paynes Prairie, is a $3.6 million dollar project to protect frogs!  On both sides of the road they are building a 5 foot high frog wall with a frog-lip on the top designed to keep frogs from becoming road kill.

The Outrage Goes Camping!  The United States Forest Service has been using road "maintenance" funds not to "maintain" or build roads, but to destroy them.

Your Taxes Fund South American Bailout:  You may have seen minor media coverage last week focusing on the economic problems in South America, particularly Uruguay and Brazil.  The U.S. Treasury, acting through the Exchange Stabilization Fund and without congressional approval, gave Uruguay $1.5 billion to ease the impact of a bank shutdown.

NOW got federal tax dollars:  Feminist group received anti-tobacco money during Clinton years.

List of 562 Indian tribes  recognized and eligible for funding and services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Case against OSHA:  While safe workplaces and healthy workers are important, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has not contributed to the furtherance of either.  Businesses have spent over $100 billion attempting to meet OSHA mandates since the agency was created in 1970, but the number of serious accidents (those involving losing one or more day's work), has stayed at 4 per 100 workers during the past quarter century.  In other words, OSHA has been of little benefit to workers' safety.

Cronyism 101:  The Perks of Being "Disadvantaged".  The "Disadvantaged Business Enterprise" program, run by the U.S. Department of Transportation and adopted by states and cities across the country, is one of the most atrociously corrupt government endeavors in existence.  Opportunists of all colors have used the racial set-aside law to win billions of dollars worth of federal contracts for themselves and their friends under the guise of being "victims."

Senate Kills Multibillion-Dollar Workplace Rules:  The Senate late Tuesday (3/6/01) killed multibillion-dollar "worker protection" rules imposed in the final days of the Clinton administration.

The Environmental Propaganda Agency:  Seven years after the U.S. Congress ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the Clean Air Act, the EPA submitted a report greatly exaggerating its achievements.  The agency's 1999 follow-up study on air pollution continues to place bureaucratic imperatives above the search for truth.

OSHA's Ergonomics Rule:  A Costly Unfunded Mandate for the States:  The broadest and most costly workplace regulation ever published will now cost even more than OSHA had originally estimated; worse, this estimate of the total cost is at the low end when compared with forecasts prepared by other agencies and the private sector.

The Costs Of NAFTA Are Driving Home:  State politicians and federal judges are going the limit to protect us all from the horrendous highway hazards of talking on cell phones and not wearing seat belts.  How about manifesting an equal enthusiasm to protect us against an invasion of 4.5 million large trucks that have not passed U.S. safety inspections?

Clinton Gets Harlem Office for $354,000  per year.  For ten years.  At your expense.

Update:
 Harlem to Clinton:  you're ruining us.  Bill Clinton's decision to site his office in the largely black Manhattan neighbourhood of Harlem, as a gesture of solidarity with African-Americans, appears to have backfired.  Dozens of angry blacks demonstrated last week outside the building that houses the former president's staff, claiming that his move had led to the gentrification of the area and increased the price of homes beyond their reach.

Clinton Creates More Monuments: Showing no intention of remaining an idle lame duck, President Clinton acted unilaterally, placing another 1 million acres off limits to the public.

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While health insurance plans have long been cut back drastically all over the country, the self-funded insurance of the county employees of Niagara County, N.Y., reimbursed more than $1.25 million since 1999 for its workers' purely cosmetic face peels, breast implants and liposuction; taxpayers finally realized what was going on when property taxes shot up by 20 percent this year.
- Buffalo News, 6-2-02  
Quoted in News of the Weird  


"Social Security paid $31 million through the end of last year to deceased beneficiaries who were listed as dead in the agency's own electronic files, auditors estimate," the Associated Press reports. "One woman who died in November 1993 was still receiving benefit checks in May 2000, and auditors said more than $100,000 in benefits had been paid after her death.
Quoted from  Best of the Web Today  

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