It seems like every day I read about how government wastes money so I thought I would record them. Since I began this blog, I have been stunned by the amount of waste, fraud, and mismanagement I have found. I recognize that some government is necessary for any society to exist but without the "profit incentive" that we have in private enterprise, government continues to grow like a cancer and along with it the potential for abuse. If you ever needed a reason to limit government, just read some of the following posts.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

$3.4 Billion Tax Credit Fraud

A tax credit that is supposed to help Americans pay for college has been abused by millions of taxpayers not attending school, including at least 250 prisoners, according to theI nspector General (IG) in charge of monitoring tax collection. This year, the scam may cost the country $3.2 billion.

The IG’s analysis of 2.1 million claims for the credit found 1.7 million filers have received the credit for students even though they provided “no supporting documentation that they attended an educational institution.” Among those improperly receiving the credit were over 63,000 students double-counted as dependents or spouses, 250 prisoners, and 84,754 students who did not have valid Social Security numbers (SSN). The Inspector General said to receive federal education aid, students generally must have valid SSNs, but for this tax credit, they did not. Unfortunately, the IRS has no effective process in place to identify false claims.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

IRS Loses $3.9 Billion To Identity Thieves

This year, identity thieves will collect an estimated $3.9 billion in tax refunds on fraudulent returns they will file using stolen Social Security numbers (SSN). The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) released an investigation this year outlining what the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) needs to do more to prevent rampant tax fraud. Over five years, taxpayers could lose more than $20 billion to crooks. These losses are largely preventable with better anti-fraud measures.

Friday, December 21, 2012

$7.3 Million Wasted On School Grant

In the last three years, schools across the nation received $1.6 billion dollars in School Improvement Grants (SIG) from the U.S. Department of Education to improve student performance. An evaluation of the program in the state of Washington has revealed the program resulted in little to no improvement. Washington public schools will use $7.3 million from the program in 2012 and have gathered over $60 million in the past three years.

A report by the Center on Reinventing Public Education found most Washington schools receiving SIGs made only marginal changes. Not one of the schools outpaced the state average in reading and math standardized tests. “The majority of schools studied show little evidence of the type of bold and transformative changes the SIGs were intended to produce,” the report states. One district SIG director interviewed about the program asked the researchers “how to successfully turn around a failing school…He went on to explain that he was at a loss as to how to do this.”

Thursday, December 6, 2012

War on Drugs a Trillion-dollar Failure

Richard Branson has written an excellent article on the failure and cost of our country's "war on drugs". Here are some excerpts:

In 1925, H. L. Mencken wrote an impassioned plea: "Prohibition has not only failed in its promises but actually created additional serious and disturbing social problems throughout society. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic but more. There is not less crime, but more. ... The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished."

We could learn a thing or two by looking at what Prohibition brought to the United States: an increase in consumption of hard liquor, organized crime taking over legal production and distribution and widespread anger with the federal government.

In business, if one of our companies is failing, we take steps to identify and solve the problem. What we don't do is continue failing strategies that cost huge sums of money and exacerbate the problem. Rather than continuing on the disastrous path of the war on drugs, we need to look at what works and what doesn't in terms of real evidence and data.

In the United States, if illegal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco, they would yield $46.7 billion in tax revenue. A Cato study says legalizing drugs would save the U.S. about $41 billion a year in enforcing the drug laws.

Have U.S. drug laws reduced drug use? No. The U.S. is the No. 1 nation in the world in illegal drug use. As with Prohibition, banning alcohol didn't stop people drinking -- it just stopped people obeying the law.

Friday, November 30, 2012

Federal & Military Personnel Owe $3.4 Billion In Unpaid Taxes

From postal workers to congressional staffers, federal workers failed to pay billions in taxes in 2010. According to records released by the Internal Revenue Service, active and retired federal employees and military personnel combined owed $3,420,168,684 in unpaid taxes for 2010, an increase of more than 3 percent over the previous year.

As has been the case in past years, the agency with employees who owe the most in unpaid taxes is the U.S. Postal Service, where 25,640 employees owe nearly $270 million. Employees in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives owe more the $10 million. Active duty military owe more than $100 million.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

$78,000 Per Bus Shelter

The city of Grants Pass, Oregon, will spend $388,000 in federal money, $77,600 apiece, for five bus shelters along its small, four-route bus system.

“Around here, that’s enough to build a three bedroom house,” commented Grants Pass Councilman Dan de Young, “What we should do is build a house at each station, and if you miss your last bus, you can stay there overnight."

Federal restrictions were one of the reasons for the sharp cost increase. According to the specialist, “Those involved with the project at the time [local and federal authorities] underestimated the complexities of a seemingly simple project.”  For example, due to federal rules, the city found it was not eligible to directly administer federal highway funds which prevented it from doing in-house design work, bidding, purchasing, and construction. This restriction added costs for private consulting fees.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

$35.6 Million Streetcar

St. Louis is receiving more than $35 million in federal funds for “an old-fashioned style-trolley system” that will run on a 2.2-mile line from the Missouri History Museum to the University City Library. The federal funds for the project include a $25 million Federal Transit Administration Urban Circulator grant, a $3.5 million New Markets Tax Credit, and $7.1 million in other federal transportation grants. The federal amount will pay more than half of the project’s $44 million construction cost.

Some residents say the trolley is a poor use of federal money and others question its financial viability. Others note the library and museum to be connected by the trolley already have nearby MetroLink light-rail stops and bus service. “It’s duplicating public transit,” said Tom Sullivan, who lives in University City and opposes the project. “I can’t see what type of benefit that would bring.”

The project’s supporters are “vague about what happens if the trolleys don’t make enough money” to cover the administration budget, but have suggested “the difference could be made up by increasing revenues from the sales tax.”

Saturday, November 17, 2012

$697,177 Musical

The Civilians, a New York City-based theatre company, received $697,177 from the National Science Foundation to create a musical about climate change and biodiversity. The musical opened this year at the Kansas City Repertory Theater.

Unfortunately, taxpayer dollars did not go very far in advancing any sort of scientific dialogue. One reviewer, who was eager to see the play, quickly dismissed the musical as a waste of money.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Facts About America's "Poor"

For two decades, census officials have announced in most years that more than 35 million Americans were poor. Last year’s number was 43.5 million. But there is a wide chasm between the public’s concept of poverty and “poverty” as it is defined by the Census Bureau.

The public generally thinks of poverty as substantial material hardship such as homelessness, or malnutrition and chronic hunger. In reality, the vast majority of those identified as poor by the annual census report did not experience significant material deprivation.

Here are some surprising facts about Americans defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau, all taken from various government reports:

  • Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
  • Fully 92 percent of poor households have a microwave; two-thirds have at least one DVD player and 70 percent have a VCR.
  • Nearly 75 percent have a car or truck; 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.
  • Four out of five poor adults assert they were never hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money for food.
  • Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television.
  • Half have a personal computer; one in seven have two or more computers.
  • More than half of poor families with children have a video game system such as Xbox or PlayStation.
  • Just under half — 43 percent — have Internet access.
  • A third have a widescreen plasma or LCD TV.
  • One in every four has a digital video recorder such as TiVo. 

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Another Bridge To Nowhere

More than ten percent of the bridges in Dayton, Ohio, are deficient as 13 cars drive over one of Dayton’s 184 deficient bridges every second. Yet, mere miles away from the city, the federal government is spending $520,000 to restore an unused bridge that is not even connected to a road or trail.

Fixing Stevenson Road Covered Bridge in Greene County, Ohio, will cost $650,000. The National Historic Covered Bridge Preservation (NHCBP) program is providing $520,000 and the county is paying $130,000.

Controversy surrounds accepting the federal money “because the bridge is not on a road, is in a fairly remote area, doesn’t carry vehicles anymore, and isn’t tied to any park, tourist attraction or walk/bike trail.”  On one side of the bridge, “No Trespassing signs warn people away.” 

“I don’t know why they would do that, because nobody uses it,” said Dorothy Pitzer, who has lived uphill from the bridge for 40 years. “It sits over there by itself."

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Emergency Broadcast System

Here are some excerpts from a John Stossel article:

"The Emergency Broadcast System, mandatory for all TV and radio stations and cell phone services, costs hundreds of millions (they won't give us the exact number but "modernizing" it for cell phones alone cost $106 million). Yet the emergency warning has never been activated nationwide. Two times it was tested and both were failures. On 9/11, it wasn't even activated!

Did this put Americans in extra danger? No, because fortunately, we still have a private sector. After the World Trade Center was hit, a thousand radio and TV stations broadcast information about the attack with speed and thoroughness that federal bureaucrats could never match.

Did the Feds then sheepishly apologize, and announce that there was no longer a need for an expensive government warning system, given our myriad of radio and TV stations, not to mention Facebook, Twitter, and other miracles of the Internet? No, of course not! The bureaucracy never shrinks."

Saturday, November 10, 2012

$1.3 Million For Snack Food Manufacturer

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Commerce are spending over $1.3 million to help the world’s largest snack food maker build a Greek yogurt factory in New York.

Last year, PepsiCo Inc. earned net revenues of $66 billion. Looking to expand their earnings, the corporation is now teaming up with the German company Theo Müller Group to sell “premium yogurt products in the U.S.

Considering the company’s billions of dollars in annual profits and the plentiful demand for the Greek yogurt nationally, Pepsico clearly does not need handouts from the government to subsidize its private business.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

$516,000 Video Game

Whatever feelings high school prom may elicit, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has provided taxpayers with a chance to relive the occasion. In 2012, the agency supported the creation of “Prom Week,” a video game simulating all the social interactions of the event. The project used part of a $516,000 grant from NSF.

Monday, November 5, 2012

$1.5 Billion For Free Phones

“It’s easy to get your free government cell phone service and a free mobile phone,” declares a website that offers phones on behalf of six wireless providers. “Fill out the form… You should receive your phone in just a few days. You’ll never receive a bill and your minutes will replenish every month.”

Thanks to Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), some Americans are entitled to free or reduced-price cell phone service, and the program is ballooning out of control. What began as an effort in the 1930s to ensure all Americans had access to telecommunications service has morphed into a massive entitlement.

Funding comes through the “universal service charge” tacked on to the phone bills of most Americans. As more people sign up for the subsidized phones, the charge increases, and for some cell phone users amounts to over $10 per year. Americans are now paying $1.5 billion annually for the subsidized cell phone program, called Lifeline. Just in the last year, enrollment grew 43 percent to 16.5 million participants.

With providers incentivized to maximize the number of phones they hand out, significant fraud and abuse have plagued the program in recent years. One of the most prominent flaws in the program has been the high number of people with more than one free cellphone. An audit of 3.6 million Lifeline subscribers discovered 269,000 duplicates — seven percent of the subscribers signed up for service with more than one carrier. In other instances, households had multiple people each with free phones. Some customers may have both subsidized landline service and cell phone service.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

NYC Tenured Teachers

In a defiant raspberry to the city Department of Education (DOE) — and taxpayers — disgraced teacher Alan Rosenfeld, 66, won’t retire. Deemed a danger to kids, the typing teacher with a $10 million real estate portfolio has not been allowed in a classroom for more than a decade, but still collects $100,049 a year in city salary — plus health benefits, a growing pension nest egg, vacation and sick pay.

Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo can call for better teacher evaluations until they’re blue-faced, but Rosenfeld and six peers with similar gigs costing about $650,000 a year in total salaries are untouchable. Under a system shackled by protections for tenured teachers, they cannot be fired, the DOE says.

Accused in 2001 of making lewd comments and ogling eighth-grade girls’ butts at IS 347 in Queens, Rosenfeld was slapped with a week off without pay after the DOE failed to produce enough witnesses at a hearing. But instead of returning Rosenfeld to the classroom, the DOE kept him in one of its notorious “rubber rooms,” where teachers in misconduct cases sat idle or napped. As The Post reported, Rosenfeld kept busy managing his many investment properties and working on his law practice. He’s a licensed attorney and real-estate broker.

Since the DOE closed the teacher holding pens in June 2010, those facing disciplinary charges were scattered to offices and given tasks such as answering phones, filing and photocopying.

But Rosenfeld and six others whose cases have long been closed are “permanently reassigned.” Rosenfeld reports to the Division of School Facilities, which maintains DOE buildings, in a warehouse in Long Island City.

Asked what work he does, Rosenfeld laughingly told his friend, “Oh, I Xeroxed something the other day.”

Rosenfeld could have retired four years ago at 62, but his pension grows by $1,700 for each year he stays — even without teaching. If he quit today, his annual pension would total an estimated $85,400.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Unused Grant Accounts

The government pays as much as $2 million annually in monthly service fees to maintain about 28,000 phantom grant accounts that are empty and have expired. Each of these accounts have a zero-dollar balance and their authority to operate has expired under law, yet because they have not been closed out, the federal government pays about $173,000 per month to maintain them.

The agency that maintains an expired or fully spent grant simply needs to submit a code to close out the account. To help users, system reports indicate accounts waiting to be closed with a special symbol. Until the accounts are closed, they continue to accumulate monthly service fees.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Bailed Out Tourist Boat Sinking Private Business

Over $9 million in federal money was earmarked to a failing for-profit ferry verging on bankruptcy, which very few people benefited from and a small town in Alaska did not want. To make matters worse, this project is threatening the economic health of once vibrant local tour and ferry operator businesses.

Operating about one hundred miles south of Anchorage, the federally funded ferry duplicates and threatens services offered by existing private businesses and the state’s own ferry service. The ferry, Kachemak Voyager - which is managed by the Seldovia VillageTribe - runs between Seldovia and Homer, towns 16 miles apart from one another across the bay.

Since 2010, the $3.3 million Kachemak Voyager has frustrated Seldovia’s two other private tour and ferry operators who had run successful businesses for years. The companies are unable to compete with the ferry’s millions in taxpayer support, which lowers Voyager’s ticket prices. “The tribe was supposed to build a ferry for moving people, cars and freight. Instead they took that money and bought a tour boat,” said Tim Cashman, owner of Alaska Coastal Marine Services, one of Seldovia’s two private tour operators. “It has taken a 30-40 percent bite out of my business - our losses are in the hundreds of thousands. The federal government has actually borrowed money from my children to put me out of business.” 

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

$300,000 To Promote Caviar

Many Americans are finding it difficult to afford to put just the basics on their family’s dinner table. Yet, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) spent $300,000 this year to promote caviar.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

$27 Million For Moroccan Pottery Classes

In 2009, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) began pursuing a four-year plan to improve the economic competitiveness of Morocco. A review by the agency’s Inspector General (IG) found the $27 million project “was not on track to achieve its goals".

A key part of the project involved training Moroccans to create and design pottery to sell in domestic and international markets. To accomplish this, an American pottery instructor was contracted to provide several weeks of training classes to local artists to improve their methods and teach them how to successfully make pottery that could be brought to market. Unfortunately, the translator hired for the sessions was not fluent in English and was unable to transmit large portions of the lectures to the participants.

Participants in the program were also frustrated by the choice of materials. The colored dyes and clay the instructor used during the class are unavailable for purchase in Morocco, making it impossible for the trainees to replicate the methods they had learned. Trainees also claimed the instructor would frequently forget to bring the right materials to class.

In one class, organizers reported 56 participants, but a trainee stated many of her classmates only signed in so they could receive the provided lunch, and estimated only around ten potters attended her class with any regularity.

Project managers agreed with the IG’s comments on the pottery training, admitting the training was “ineffective and poorly implemented.”

Moroccans have been making pottery since at least the fifth century B.C., with the earliest urban pottery made after 800 A.D. Perhaps, USAID could learn a thing or two about pottery making from Moroccans, who have been passing knowledge of the ancient craft from one generation to another for centuries.

Monday, October 29, 2012

$450,000 For Unused Airport

The Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission (OAC) voted this year to keep a rarely used Lake Murray State Park Airport open simply to land more federal funds. The airport averages just one flight per month, has no planes based there, and is situated mere miles from two more heavily used airports.

Yet, the airport lands an automatic $150,000 from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) every year. Much of that money is eventually used elsewhere in the state, making the Lake Murray State Park Airport a layover to land government money.

In the last five years, Lake Murray State Park Airport has received $750,000 through the FAA program, of which the commission has spent only $5,546 on the airport itself – less than one percent! The rest of the funds were transferred to projects at other state airports or remain unspent. Just this year, OAC sent $150,000 to two other projects across the state, both of which have already benefited from millions of federal dollars. The commission is now sitting on $450,000.

Besides its ability to land federal funds, there is no other apparent reason to justify the airport’s existence. Closing it would not inconvenience travelers or pilots and would allow for better use of the property. If this layover boondoggle is happening in Oklahoma, is it happening elsewhere?

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Government Funding of PBS

The following is from an article by John Stossel...

The left screams because Romney says he'll cut PBS. A Huffington Post writer says that would be "a cultural and spiritual disaster for the nation."

Please. America is going broke! If we can't cut PBS, what can we cut?

Public broadcasting costs taxpayers "only" $420 million per year, but that's real money, and even if it weren't, the price is not the point. Government should not fund any broadcast networks.

As far as children's programming, Big Bird doesn't need the money! Sesame Street has assets of $355,858,257! Sesame Workshop makes $46M in licensing fees. The company is such a gold mine, it paid its recent president $929,629. Big Bird will do fine without taxpayer subsidies.

PBS once asked, "If not PBS, then who?" Cato's David Boaz points out that now the answer is: HBO, Bravo, Discovery, History, Science, C-SPAN, The Learning Channel ... and so on. I'm told that kids' programs like Noggin (Nick Jr.) are like pre-school on TV.

Yes, you have to pay for cable, but 63.7% of people below the poverty line have cable or satellite TV. Those who don't have cable still get education programs on free TV. NBC alone has The Wiggles, Noodle and Doodle, and LazyTown (get up & go, eat healthy).

Funding public broadcasting is welfare for rich people. PBS viewers are richer than average Americans. NPR even bragged about its listeners' wealth to potential advertisers: "152% more likely to have a home valued at half a million or more ... 194% more likely to travel to France." It's fine that they appeal to rich people. But you shouldn't have to fund it.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Recipes For Mars - $947,000

NASA has spent $947,000 on developing recipes for food that could be served on Mars. Close to a million dollars was awarded to researchers at Cornell University for the study, despite the fact that NASA has scrapped its manned flights and it could be decades before anything but the mechanical space probe Curiosity spends any time on the red planet.

Friday, October 26, 2012

More Examples of Government Waste

Here are a few more examples of government waste from Senator Coburn's Wastebook:
  • Instead of working to close the massive hole in our federal budget, our government spent $350,000 through the National Science Foundation to study how golfers are better when they imagine a larger golf hole.
  • While millions of Americans are struggling to put enough food on the table for their families, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) spent $300,000 to tell Americans to eat caviar, one of the world’s most expensive delicacies.
  • At the same time, USDA and the Department of Commerce are spending more than $1.3 million to help PepsiCo Inc., the world’s largest snack food maker, build a Greek yogurt factory in New York.
  • As members of Congress complain about defense cuts, Congress split a new line of Navy littoral (near shore) ships between two completely different designs, needlessly increasing costs by $740 million while undermining the Navy’s capabilities.
  • The biggest waste of taxpayer dollars of all, however, was Congress itself, which I listed as the #1 waste of taxpayer dollars this year. With 23 million Americans unemployed and millions of others struggling to live within a budget, the Senate didn’t even bother to pass a budget for the third straight year.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

$100,000/Year "Invitations Coordinator"

In the midst of the administration’s efforts to drastically reduce the nation’s military personnel and hike pay for government employees comes this gem: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is prepared to pay a salary of more than $100,000 for an employee to assist in planning bureau events.

According to a job listing on USAJobs.com, the federal government’s official employment classifieds site, the CFPB is seeking an “invitations coordinator” to “support management of CFPB’s participation in external events by developing and maintaining databases and event calendar and providing advice and guidance on consideration of invitations.”

The position will pay up to $102,900, and carries lavish benefits, including comprehensive health, vision, dental, life, and long-term care insurance programs, a federal retirement plan, and 10 paid holidays, 13 sick days, and up to 26 vacation days per year.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Mr. Johnson Goes to Washington

I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal about Senator Ron Johnson's frustrations in his first two years in office. Here are some excerpts:

Sounding like he's channeling the spirit of Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, he adds: "The government isn't here to solve our problems. We need government. It's necessary. But by and large, it's something to fear because as it grows, our freedoms recede. And as a result, way too many are trading their freedoms . . . for a false sense of economic security."

First up is a line graph that illustrates how federal spending has exploded to 24% of GDP from 2% a century ago. Next, a chart that plots spending and revenue over the past 50 years. Spending has averaged about 20.2% while revenue has trended around 18.1%—regardless of whether the top marginal tax rate was 90% or 28%. "The variation around that mean is tight. We've only gone above that mean [on revenue] four times," he notes.

Then come slides dispelling Democratic myths such as the ones about how Bush tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan blew up the deficit. The tax cuts and war budgets account for just $1.2 trillion of the $5.3 trillion in deficits the Obama administration has run in four years. Republicans during the Bush administration might have been "spending like banshees," he says, but "they did get the deficit down to $162 billion. Far too high for me, but quaint in comparison to Obama's record."

As for the "draconian cuts" that Republicans now supposedly want to inflict, spending even under Rep. Paul Ryan's budget would be $1 trillion higher in 2022 than it is today.

And the idea that asking the wealthy to "pay their fair share," whatever that is, can solve the deficit? The president's so-called Buffett Rule to establish a minimum tax rate of 30% for millionaires would raise about $5 billion a year, while allowing the Bush rates to expire for the wealthy might bring in an additional $67 billion. ("I would like to do a Buffett Rule," Mr. Johnson deadpans. "Just for Buffett.")

The tax revenue would be a pittance, given that the deficit this year is $1.1 trillion and the national debt is $16 trillion—which, Mr. Johnson notes, will explode under ObamaCare. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the health law will cost $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years. The senator says that's a lowball estimate and that the gnomes at the CBO are underestimating the incentive for employers to drop their workers onto government-subsidized exchanges.

"Do I pay $15,000 and try to comply with 15,000 pages of law and regulations? Or do I pay the two- or three-thousand-dollar penalty" and make workers eligible for a generous subsidy?

The senator flips to another couple of slides that show how wildly unsuccessful the Obama administration's economic policies have been. Since the president took office, middle-class incomes have dropped by an average of $4,520 while health-care premiums have risen by about $3,000.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Why is there so much government waste?

I came across an article titled "Why is there so much government waste?". Here are a few excerpts:

The one thing that these ridiculous expenditures all have in common is that they are a direct result of people being able to spend other people’s money. In Congress’s case, we have 535 people with trillions of other people’s dollars to spend. That they’re content to fritter billions away on toys for special interests shouldn’t be shocking.

Countless Americans will express their indignation after learning of some of the details in the Coburn report. But after a couple of minutes the anger will subside and most folks will go about their business. There’s a good chance that come November they’ll pull the voting lever for a candidate who had a hand in the waste. There’s also a good chance that while they’re upset with a particular expenditure, they’re okay with the general mission of the program responsible for the waste.

Take the numerous examples in the Coburn report of federal money being wasted on subsidies to state and local government. Every year the Department of Transportation gives Oklahoma $150,000 for an airport that receives one flight a month. Beverly Hills, California received $180,000 from a HUD program that’s supposed to help spur economic development in lower-income locales. The Department of Commerce and the USDA teamed up to provide over $1 million to help a county in New York build a new yogurt factory for PepsiCo, Inc.

There are two problems with this mindset. First, so long as the federal government can spend money on anything it wants, politicians are going to spend money on anything they want. Second, contrary to what we’re taught in school, policymakers generally allocate money on the basis of political and parochial concerns — not on the basis of sound economics or even the so-called “public interest.”

So long as the federal government can give handouts to state and local politicians to spend on economic development, there is going to be waste. And as we have documented at Cato’s website, www.DownsizingGovernment.org, even when there isn’t de facto waste, federal programs are fraught with countless other shortcomings.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

National Debt

In the wake of the Treasury Department’s newly released summary of federal spending for 2012, it’s now possible to detail just how bad government spending has been.  Here’s the upshot:  For every $7 we had, we spent nearly $11 (or, to be more exact, $10.95).  That’s like a family that makes $70,000 a year — and is already knee-deep in debt — blowing nearly $110,000 a year.

In fiscal year 2012 (which ended on September 30), the federal government acquired $2.449 trillion in tax revenue and other receipts.  It spent $3.538 trillion — 44 percent more than it had available to spend.  The resulting deficit was $1.089 trillion.

In fiscal year 2011, the federal government acquired $2.303 trillion in tax revenues and other receipts.  It spent $3.603 trillion — 56 percent more than it had available to spend.  The resulting deficit was $1.3 trillion.

In fiscal year 2010, the federal government acquired $2.163 trillion in tax revenues and other receipts.  It spent $3.456 trillion — 60 percent more than it had available to spend.  The resulting deficit was $1.293 trillion.

Our national debt is now over $16 trillion and I suspect that when the cost of the new national health card law kicks in will grow even larger.  We simply cannot afford larger government.  Our country is on the verge of bankruptcy.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Waste In 1998

  • $221,000 for lowbush blueberry research at the University of Maine in the state of Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME).
  • $150,000 added by the House for the National Center for Peanut Competitiveness.
  • $127,000 added by the Senate for global marketing support services in the state of Senate appropriator Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.). According to testimony, the goal of this research is to identify “potential foreign markets for Arkansas products….”
  • $32,000 added by the Senate for the Center for Rural Studies in the state of Senate appropriator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). A portion of this grant money is used for analytical reports to guide the development of Vermont retail shopping areas
  • $500,000 added by the House in the district of House appropriator Richard Durbin (D-IL) for the construction at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Illinois, of Chalres Corneau’s house, a neighbor and friend of Abraham Lincoln.
  • $10,912,000 added by the Senate for foreign language assistance.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Another Government "Green Energy" Failure

The troubled battery maker A123 Systems filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday, dealing a blow to the Obama administration’s program to jump-start a domestic battery industry and spur development of electric vehicles.

A123, based in Waltham, Mass., was once considered one of the most promising grant recipients under the administration’s $2 billion stimulus program for electric car development. The Department of Energy awarded the company a $249 million grant to establish battery manufacturing operations in Michigan, although A123 had received only about $132 million of the grant before its bankruptcy.

A123’s bankruptcy is yet another failure for the government's disastrous strategy of gambling away billions of taxpayer dollars on a plan that simply does not work. The bankruptcy raises the prospect that the taxpayers will get little or no return on their investment in A123 and will lose millions of dollars.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Wastebook 2012

In his "Wastebook 2012" report, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma pointed to 100 items including tax breaks to highly profitable sports leagues like the NFL, NASA funding to develop meals for a Mars mission that may not take place for decades and thousands of dollars for scientists to build a "robosquirrel" to see if rattlesnakes would try to eat it.

Coburn, a longtime crusader against waste, said better prioritizing and oversight could have saved taxpayers $18.9 billion on the programs included in the report, which was based largely on existing government studies, inspector generals' findings and media reports.

The report includes a National Science Foundation grant for $325,000 for university researchers in California to develop a robotic squirrel to observe how rattlesnakes react, to study the interaction between predators and prey.

The report cites $27 million spent by the U.S. Agency for International Development to train Moroccans to make and sell pottery around the world. But the report, which cited a USAID inspector general report, says the program was riddled with problems, including having a translator at classes who was not fluent in English, and by using dyes and clay not available in that country.

The study is critical of the continued production of the copper penny, which now costs more than two cents to make. It complains about $516,000 spent on a video game that simulates the social experience of attending a prom, $31,000 for Smokey Bear balloons to make appearances at balloon festivals, $300,000 to promote domestically produced caviar, and $268 million spent on a loophole for paper manufacturers that allows them to claim a waste byproduct is an alternative energy source.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Waste In 1997

  • $50,000 for the development of a Welcome Center Facility City for Enumclaw, Washington. 
  • $4,000,000 for the Gambling Impact Study Commission. 
  • $330,000 for Stellar Sea Lion research of the North Pacific Universities Marine Mammal Consortium. 
  • $785,000 for bluefish/striped bass research by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 
  • $2,700,000 added by the Senate for the Animal Resource Wing at South Dakota State University. 
  • $4,000,000 added in conference for the Discovery Center of Science and Technology. 
  • $19,600,000 added by the House for the International Fund for Ireland, a program that tries to aid the peace process in Ireland by paying for golf videos, pony trekking centers, and sweater exports. 
  • $16,369,000 added by the Senate for public library construction. 
  • $9,469,000 added in conference for Migrant Education programs including: $7,441,000 for the High School Equivalency Program; and $2,028,000 for the College Assistance Migrant Program. 
  • $3,100,000 added by the Senate for the National Writing Project.
  • $8,200,000 for a new classroom building at the Rowley Secret Service Training Center in Beltsville, Maryland, which is the district of House Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations subcommittee member Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and the state of Senate appropriator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.).

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Waste In 2002

  • $50,000 for a tattoo removal program in San Luis Obispo, California.
  • $400,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute to improve the profitability of the state's sheep industry.
  • $273,000 for the Blue Springs (Missouri) Youth Orchestra Outreach Unit for educational training to combat Goth culture.
  • $1,000,000 appropriation for the Center for Public Service and the Common Good (a think tank) at the University of San Francisco.
  • $400,000 for manure management research at the National Swine Research Center.
  • $1,100,000 for the MountainMade Foundation in Thomas, West Virginia for business development and the education of artists and craftspeople.
  • In 2002 the U.S. government spent $4,000,000 to implement the forest and fish report of the Washington State.
  • $500,000 for exhibits on the Sullivan brothers at the Grout Museum in Waterloo, Iowa.
  • $61,000 for the State Historical Society to archive the history of Iowa workers.
  • $1,200,000 for the Ohio Arts Council to expand international programs.
  • $2,900,000 for the Mountaineer Doctor Television program at West Virginia University.
  • $2,000,000 for an educational mall at the Raleigh County Commission in Beckley.
  • $2,000,000 for West Virginia University to establish a Center on Obesity.
  • $260,000 for asparagus technology in the stae of Washington.
  • $1,200,000 for music education at the GRAMMY Foundation

Monday, October 15, 2012

Tax Deadbeats Raking In Federal Cash

It has long been clear that, when monitoring the activities of the federal government, one must often suspend natural expectations for sanity and integrity. For example, anyone who fails to pay taxes should be last in line to collect benefits paid for by taxpayers. But if the results of four reports are any indication, tax deadbeats are raking in federal cash.

A report, released by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in July, 2012, found that Medicaid providers with tax debt had received an estimated $6.6 billion in Medicaid reimbursements in Florida, New York, and Texas alone. GAO investigated 40 Medicaid providers in those three states and found that they had received $235 million in Medicaid reimbursements, but owed approximately $26 million in taxes as of September, 2011. GAO extrapolated those numbers to arrive at a global estimate of $6.6 billion in those three states.  Worse, since it relies on the amount of unpaid taxes reported by individual providers or uncovered by Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audits, the report “likely understates the full extent of unpaid taxes owed by these or other businesses and individuals.”

 A similar GAO report released in May, 2012 found that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) had issued $1.44 billion in mortgage insurance for 6,327 borrowers with an average of $20,340 in tax debt. In that case, FHA issued insurance to thousands of borrowers who should have been ineligible, since many had not reached repayment agreements with the IRS. Despite the fact that borrowers with tax debt carry foreclosure risk “two to three times” greater than those without unpaid taxes, applicants for FHA mortgage insurance are not required to provide their federal debt status to FHA.

Finally, a February, 2012 IRS report found that about 98,000 federal employees owed the federal government $1.03 billion in 2010. That amount included $833,970 in unpaid taxes from 36 White House aides, an average of $23,156. While IRS employees – who presumably are more familiar with the tax code than most government workers – can be fired for tax delinquency, other federal employees cannot.

In all, it seems clear that tens of billions of dollars are doled out by the federal government to taxpayers who have shirked on their taxes each year. In a world where the fairness and shape of the federal tax system is fiercely debated, fixing such an obvious injustice must be a priority. After all, it might be the only issue in Washington on which everyone can agree.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Unsolicited Mail Should Not be Funded by Taxpayers

Members of Congress enjoy a benefit known as the franking privilege, which allows them to send mail to their constituents free of charge. This money comes from the near-bankrupt U.S. Postal Service, which in turn passes the cost on to taxpayers. Since its inception in the 18th century, the congressional franking privilege has spawned widespread criticism. Its detractors have long-argued that the privilege imposes a high cost on taxpayers, is susceptible to abuse, and undermines the democratic process by giving congressional incumbents an unfair advantage over their challengers.

Although lawmakers are expressly forbidden from using the franking privilege to mail non-informational materials to their constituents, they have found various means of circumventing this restriction. Craig Holman, a lobbyist at Public Citizen, told Bloomberg in a July 5, 2012 article, “Very, very rarely have I seen franked mail that’s just information to constituents about what Congress is doing.” Unsurprisingly, members of Congress typically make copious use of the frank during election years. For example, a March 30, 2012 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report points out that Congress spent $36.3 million on franked mail in FY 2010, prior to the 2010 midterm elections.

Congress’ ability to send unsolicited mail on the public’s dime is an anachronistic policy that lends itself to corruption and provides for incumbent politicians an unfair electoral advantage.  The policy also imposes a sizeable and unnecessary fiscal burden on taxpayers. Congress can take steps toward rooting out corruption, preserving the integrity of the democratic process, and saving public money by reforming the franking privilege.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

$380 Million For MEADS

Despite being rejected by three-out-of-four relevant congressional committees, funding for the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS), the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee on July 31, 2012 included in its version of the Department of Defense (DOD) spending bill $380 million for the widely-criticized missile defense system.  Previously, the House Armed Services Committee, the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, and the Senate Committee on Armed Services (SCAS) have zeroed out funding for MEADS.  Since no authorization exists for MEADS, the funding added by the Senate subcommittee qualifies as an earmark under Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CAGW) longstanding criteria.

MEADS’ troubles have been well-documented by CAGW.  The program has been plagued with cost overruns of nearly $2 billion and is 10 years behind schedule.  A March 9, 2010 Washington Post report quoted an internal U.S. Army memo asserting that the program “will not meet U.S. requirements or address the current and emerging threat without extensive and costly modifications.”  

After witnessing the tortured path of the MEADS project, it’s not hard to understand why Congress faces such gridlock when determining solutions to avoid the automatic DOD cuts posed by sequestration.  Members can’t even agree to rid taxpayers of a program that has encountered such massive cost overruns, delays, and poor performance.  Eliminating MEADS would serve as a fine example of a judicious approach to trimming DOD waste; the continuation of funding by the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee represents a squandered opportunity.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Government Regulation

The report, “License to Work”, published by the Institute for Justice (IJ) on May 8, 2012, documents the expansion of many ludicrous licensing laws.  These regulations, most of which were implemented at the state level in the name of protecting consumers, often amount to incumbent businesses raising barriers to entry.  For example, it is easier to make money as an electrician when potential competitors face higher hurdles to doing business in a particular area.

IJ studied 102 occupational licenses and found that they require, on average, “$209 in fees, one exam, and about nine months of education and training.”  Those amounts might not sound like much, especially in lucrative professions like engineering or law, but the IJ study reveals that licensing requirements rarely correspond with the apparent danger or required skill of an occupation.  Often, low-income occupations that might ordinarily represent a path out of poverty for workers with limited skills are among the most onerously regulated occupations.  For example, an average cosmetologist spends 372 days in training, while the average Emergency Medical Technician can become licensed in just 33 days.  For preschool teachers, all but five states require at least five years of education and training, and 31 states require at least two exams.

The second report, authored by the staff of House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), “Job Creators Still Buried by Red Tape,” reveals a mountain of paperwork at the federal level that is expanding at an accelerating rate.  Published on July 19, 2012, the Issa report pointed out that the number of final rules issued by federal agencies climbed by 6.5 percent from 2010 to 2011 alone, exactly as the economy was struggling to recover from a brutal 2009.

The Issa report also noted that the “published regulatory burden,” as measured by the American Action Forum (AAF), may top $105 billion in 2012 alone, and the amount of time spent on paperwork as a result of those regulations has already risen by 114 million hours.  There were 123.6 million paperwork hours added by federal regulations in all of 2011.  For context, the Burj Khalifa, the tallest manmade structure in the world, took 22 million hours to build.  To make matters worse, employers are still waiting to absorb the full impact of the Dodd-Frank Act, for which “only about 36 percent of the roughly 400 rulemakings [it] requires have been implemented,” and Obamacare, which does not take full effect until 2014.  

In short, the regulatory burden faced by businesses and workers is bizarre, heavy, and mounting.  Reform should be at the forefront of any congressional jobs agenda, for although regulation and licensing may not be what caused the 2009 recession, they are unquestionably dragging down the recovery.  Further, as the examples above make clear, regulatory reform, rather than being “a transfer of power from the trodden to the treading,” as The Guardian’s George Monbiot called it in 2010, is essential to a just and equitable economy.  For those in favor of increased regulation are often not the trodden, but the treading themselves.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

The Waste Continues

In 1999 the U.S. government spent:
  • $1,000,000 for the "eradication of Brown Tree Snakes" (Hawaii)
  • $1,000,000 to "develop and train Alaska natives for employment in the petroleum industry"
  • $500,000 for water taxis in Savannah (Georgia)
  • $200,000 for a transit center for the Toledo Mud Hens minor league baseball team
  • $1,200,000 million to subsidize a park on the Galapagos Islands

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

$500,000 For Manure Handling & Disposal

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $500,000 for a Mississippi research project on "manure handling and disposal".

Monday, October 8, 2012

$340 Million For PBS

Congress appropriated $340,000,000 in federal tax dollars to PBS (Public Broadcasting Services).

Sunday, October 7, 2012

$5 Million Sea Lion Recovery Plan

Uncle Sam gave $5,000,000 to the University of Alaska, North Pacific University, and the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation to fund the "stellar sea lion recovery plan."

Saturday, October 6, 2012

$800,000 Coal Library

In 1998 more than $800,000 was approved for a coal library in Pennsylvania. Defenders stated that it would provide historical insight into a very important part of Pennsylvania and history.

Friday, October 5, 2012

$30 Million Tax Refund Notice

The IRS sent out a notice to every person advising them that they would be receiving a tax refund in 2001 - the estimated cost $30,000,000.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Jobs and the Welfare State

Please read John Stossel's article on Jobs and the Welfare State. He sends an intern, a college student, to various government agencies in NYC to look for a job.

Based on her experience, she concludes:

  • The government would rather sign me up for welfare than help me get a job.
  • The government makes it easier to sign up for welfare than to find work.
  • The NYC government creates a tax-payer funded bureaucracy to send people to the same websites people could find on their own.
  • The private market for jobs works better.

These "jobs" programs do not work. Yet, the government funds them and wants to expand them. Politicians want to continue institutionalizing welfare offices, and incentivizing people to take ‘free stuff' instead of to take initiative. This is a prime example of why we should not be spending billions of dollars on these programs.

Miscellaneous Government Expenditures

$469,000 for the National Wildlife Turkey Federation in South Carolina

$100,000 for the Punxsatawny Weather Discovery Center Museum

$350,000 for the Inner Harmony Foundation and Wellness Center in Scranton, PA

$1,430,000 for various Halls of Fame, including $250,000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, TN and $70,000 for the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame in Appleton, WI

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

$25,000 Grant To Study Bad Tennis Court Behavior

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided a $25,000 grant in 1977 to study why people cheat, lie and act rudely on local Virginia tennis courts.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

$1.2 Million Historical Monument Sewer

The Environmental Protection Agency spent $1.2 million in 1980 to preserve a Trenton, NJ sewer as a historical monument.

Monday, October 1, 2012

A Good Surfing Beach

The Department of Commerce gave the City and County of Honolulu $28,600 in 1981 to study how they could spend another $250,000 for a good surfing beach.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

$1.2 Trillion In Foreign Aid

Since World War II, the U.S. has spent $1.2 trillion on foreign aid to 70 countries – and all are worse off than they were in 1980, according to the U.N.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

$100 Million In Unused Airline Tickets

A recent audit revealed that between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department purchased and then left unused approximately 270,000 commercial airline tickets at a total cost of $100 million.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Earned Income Tax Credit

The earned income tax credit (EITC) provides $31 billion in refundable tax credits to 19 million low-income families. The IRS estimates that $8.5 billion to $9.9 billion of this amount—nearly one-third—is wasted in overpayments.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

$2 Million Charles B. Rangel Center

It looks like Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is going to get his wish – $2 million in taxpayer funding for a library commemorating his 37 years in the House of Representatives. The Charles B. Rangel Center for Public service will serve as a repository for his "papers," and the congressman will have his own office in the Harlem complex.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

$146 Million In First Class Air Travel

Federal employees wasted at least $146 million over a one-year period in business- or first-class airline tickets bought in violation of travel policies, congressional investigators say.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Postal Service Spending

The U.S. Postal Service spent more than $792,000 "without justification" on meals and events in one five-month period even as it reported losing $3.8 billion this year, the agency's inspector general says in a report. Among the purchases were crab cakes, beef Wellington and scallops at an installation ceremony for one of several postmasters in the United States, the report says.

Monday, September 24, 2012

State Watchdog Hires Double-dippers to Investigate Waste, Abuse in Government

The New Jersey State Comptroller, with a duty to expose waste in government, has yet to investigate the widespread occurrence of double-dipping by public officials. If he does, Comptroller Matthew Boxer could start with his own investigations division.

Investigator Rick Nuel receives $175,254 a year from the state — a $92,000 paycheck plus an $83,254 pension — New Jersey Watchdog found. In June 2011, Nuel retired at age 46 as a State Police captain.

One week later, Boxer hired Nuel as a special investigator for a unit “charged with detecting and uncovering fraud, abuse, waste and misconduct involving the management of public funds and the performance of government officers, employees and programs.”

It is another act in the follies of a state pension system that faces a $36-billion shortfall, yet allows Nuel and many other public workers to retire with fat pensions at relatively young ages, then return to the state payroll.

Nuel is slated to rake in $2.8 million from the State Police Retirement System by the time he reaches age 80, his statistical life expectancy. And for the foreseeable future, Nuel also will draw a near-six figure salary each year from the comptroller.

Former comptroller’s investigator David Stebbins enjoyed a similar deal. He received two state checks totaling $175,083 a year — $92,000 in salary plus an $83,083 pension. In January 2011, Boxer hired Stebbins 17 days after he retired as a State Police lieutenant at age 50. Earlier this year, Stebbins left the comptroller’s staff.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Where Borrowing $105 Million Will Cost $1 Billion

Last year the Poway Unified School District made a deal: It borrowed $105 million from investors to fund a final push in its decade-long effort to revamp aging schools.

In 2008, voters had given the district permission to borrow more money to finish its modernization, and they had received a big promise from the elected school board in return: No tax increases.

Without increasing taxes, the district couldn’t afford to borrow money in the conventional way. So, instead of borrowing from investors over 20 or 30 years and paying the debt down each year, like a mortgage, the district got creative.

With advice from an Orange County financial consultant, the district borrowed the money over 40 years in a controversial loan called a capital appreciation bond. The key point for the district: It won’t make any payments on the debt for 20 years. And that means the district’s debt will keep getting bigger and bigger as interest on the loan piles up.

The bottom line: For borrowing $105 million in 2011, taxpayers will end up paying investors more than $981 million by 2051, or almost 10 times what the district borrowed. That’s wildly more expensive than a typical school bond, in which a district pays back two or maybe three times what it borrowed.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Abusing Pension Law May Waste Millions

New Jersey local governments failed to remove hundreds of contractors such as lawyers and engineers from pension rolls, which may cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year in improper payouts, a state audit shows.

Auditors identified 202 contractors who work for 134 communities and 25 school districts and participate in the Public Employees’ Retirement System even after a 2007 ban on their participation. Hundreds more probably are still enrolled by more than 1,100 other local government units, according to a report today from Comptroller Matthew Boxer.

The comptroller’s audit found that many of the contractors boost pensions by working for multiple government units, a method called “tacking.” The audit cited an attorney who works for both the borough of Fairview and the Guttenberg school board, earning $241,654 a year combined and amassing credit for 22 years of service and an annual pension of $97,196 if he quit tomorrow. The amount could be cut by $29,420 if the lawyer’s eligibility had ended in 2008, it said.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Neon Sign Museum

The city of Las Vegas has received a $5.2 million federal grant to build the Neon Boneyard Park and Museum, including $1.8 million in 2010. With Nevada‘s high unemployment rates, would it be more popular to figure out a better place in the state to spend the money?

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Feds Spent $823,000 of Economic Stimulus on African Genital-Washing Program

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), spent $823,200 of economic stimulus funds in 2009 on a study by a UCLA research team to teach uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex.

The genitalia-washing program is part of a larger $12-million UCLA study examining how to better encourage Africans to undergo voluntary HIV testing and counseling – however, only the penis-washing study received money from the 2009 economic stimulus law. The washing portion of the study is set to end in 2011.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

$1.5 Million For Banjo Player Museum

Taxpayers may not quite get the twang for their buck from this project. A North Carolina county hopes a $1.5 million federal grant for a museum honoring a local bluegrass singer will provide an economic boost. The Earl Scruggs Center, which is not expected to open until the end of 2011, will contain exhibits paying tribute to the well-known banjo musician.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

$112 Million Bogus Tax Refunds for Prisoners

The Internal Revenue Service paid out $112 million in undeserved tax refunds to prisoners who filed fraudulent returns, according to the Treasury Department's Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). According to TIGTA, the IRS fails to screen most tax returns filed by prisoners - even when it knows it has no wage information for them. The inspector general's office first highlighted this lack of oversight in 2005, but the problem has persisted.

Monday, September 17, 2012

$125 Billion in Improper Payments Is Just the Beginning

There is a lot of waste in the federal government: It is documented, Congress holds hearings  about it, and each year the GAO issues a list of programs that are the most at risk for it . But very little changes - in fact, the waste might be getting worse.

Take a look at the trend in  improper payments in the funding of federal programs and activities. As this chart  shows, since the implementation of the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 reported wasteful payments have increased, which could mean that the amount of waste in the federal government has exploded or simply that federal reviewers have become more adept at documenting it. Either way, overt waste in the federal government represents a significant problem.


Of course, that waste pales in comparison to the waste that exists in current congressional spending patterns, and in the economic damage caused by the misallocation of capital and the creation of perverse incentives. Federal spending on functions that should be left to the states (e.g., education), federal spending on functions that should be left to the private sector (e.g., Amtrak, air-traffic control), and federal spending on things that government has no business doing in the first place (e.g., the stimulus bill’s shovel-ready projects) - all of that is waste, too.

What does the question of the proper role of the federal government have to do with oversight? A lot, actually. When lawmakers are busy running state, local, and private affairs, they have less time to focus on critical national issues. Also, they have less time to conduct proper oversight of federal programs.

The bottom line is that the federal government cannot and should not be the solution to every one of our problems. There are things that only the federal government can do, but when the federal government gets involved where it shouldn’t be, it wastes capital, time, and taxpayers’ money. Shrinking the size of the federal government would reduce wasteful spending dramatically, and shrinking the federal government will make oversight easier and more effective.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Omnibus Spending Bill

Items included in the bill:
  • $1 million for the Iowa historical Society for exhibits related to the world food prize;
  • $750,000 for the Baseball Hall of Fame;
  • $732,000 for the Center for Designing Foods at Iowa State;
  • $725,000 for the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia;
  • $500,000 for the Boat House Museum in St. Charles, Missouri;
  • $500,000 for Tongass Coast Aquarium in Alaska;
  • $350,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame;
  • $210,000 for swine hoop barn research in Iowa;
  • $200,000 for the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center;
  • $150,000 for new office space for the “King of Pork,” Sen. Robert Byrd;
  • $100,000 for the Sea Otter Commission in Alaska;
  • $90,000 for the Cowgirl Hall of Fame.
  • Additionally, CAGW’s List of Omnibus Earmarks includes
  • $560,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute in Bozeman
  • $350,000 for sweet potato research in Miss.
  • $50,000 to study mushrooms in Booneville, Ark
  • $900,000 for the renovation of the El Paso Plaza Theater
  • $300,000 Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, for Universal Kitchen Design project
  • $650,000 for Horseshoe Crab Research

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Federal Workers Fail To Pay Taxes

IRS records show that 340,000 federal government employees or retirees getting government pensions last year owed a total of $2.5 billion in unpaid taxes.  That number includes 2,975 federal workers who were employed by the IRS itself!

Friday, September 14, 2012

City Dwellers Got $394 Million in Farm Subsidies

An estimated 90,000 people living in 350 cities and towns across the country got nearly $400 million in taxpayer-funded crop subsidies last year says a top environmental watchdog group.

The Department of Agriculture no longer serves as a lifeline to millions of struggling homestead farmers. Instead it is a vast, self-perpetuating, postmodern bureaucracy with an amorphous budget of some $130 billion - a sum far greater than the nation’s net farm income this year. In fact, the more the Agriculture Department has pontificated about family farmers, the more they have vanished - comprising now only about 1% of the American population.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Anti-drug Ads Cost Almost $2 Billion

In the past five years the federal government has spent nearly $2 billion in anti-drug ads with apparently no effect in diminishing illegal substance use.  And a recent study suggests that the ads may have actually increased drug use among the young.  But at the same time wants Congress to continue funding the taxpayer money pit.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Even More Pork Barrel Spending

Congress passed a patriotic-sounding bill called the “U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health, and Iraq Accountability Act,” but the subtitle could be “And Don’t Forget Farmers, Shrimpers, NASA and Other Regulars at Uncle Sam’s Buffet.”  The final version worked out to about $742 million a page.

It includes…
  • $4 million for the Office of Women’s Health at the Food and Drug Administration.
  • $5 million for tropical fish breeders and transporters for losses from a virus last year.
  • $283 million for the Milk Income Loss Contract Program.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

More Pork Barrel Spending

 •  $10 million for attorneys of ILLEGAL immigrants
 •  $100,000 for a swimming pool in Ottawa, Kansas
 •  $1.5 million for the Rep. Richard Gephardt Archive
 •  $576,000 to manage weeds (no location specified)
 •  $700,000 for a bike trail in Minnesota
 •  $1 million for a river walk in Massachusetts
 •  $100,000 for signage in Los Angeles’ fashion district
 •  $250,000 for a wine and culinary center in Prosser, Washington
 •  $113,000 for rodent control in Alaska
 •  $213,000 for olive fruit fly research in FRANCE
 •  $200,000 for hunting and fishing museum in Pennsylvania
 •  $200,000 for post office museum in downtown Las Vegas

Monday, September 10, 2012

Pork Barrel Spending

  • $107,000 to study the sex life of the Japanese quail.
  • $1.2 million to study the breeding habits of the woodchuck.
  • $150,000 to study the Hatfield-McCoy feud.
  • $84,000 to find out why people fall in love.
  • $1 million to study why people don't ride bikes to work.
  • $19 million to examine gas emissions from cow flatulence.
  • $144,000 to see if pigeons follow human economic laws.
  • $219,000 to teach college students how to watch television.
  • $2 million to construct an ancient Hawaiian canoe.
  • $20 million for a demonstration project to build wooden bridges.
  • $160,000 to study if you can hex an opponent by drawing an X on his chest.
  • $800,000 for a restroom on Mt. McKinley.
  • $100,000 to study how to avoid falling spacecraft.
  • $16,000 to study the operation of the komungo, a Korean stringed instrument.
  • $1 million to preserve a sewer in Trenton, NJ, as a historic monument.
  • $6,000 for a document on Worcestershire sauce.
  • $10,000 to study the effect of naval communications on a bull's potency.
  • $100,000 to research soybean-based ink.
  • $1 million for a Seafood Consumer Center.
  • $57,000 spent by the Executive Branch for gold-embossed playing cards on Air Force Two.
Total: $ 45,980,000

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Arlington Cemetery Missing $12 million

Arlington National Cemetery is trying to account for $12 million - about a quarter of its current annual budget - that was allocated to the cemetery between 2004 and 2010 but apparently was never spent.

Congressional leaders and federal investigators who have been probing the cemetery’s operations said at a Senate hearing Wednesday that there was no documentation detailing where the funds are or how such a large amount of taxpayer money could have gone missing. Click here for complete article.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Overlapping Programs

The federal government hosts 47 job-training programs, 44 of which overlap. It runs 80 programs for the "transportation disadvantaged". Another 82 programs spread across 10 separate agencies endeavor to improve teacher quality - something hundreds of local school districts are already focused on.

These are just a few of the findings in a blockbuster report  on government waste and inefficiencies released by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. The report identifies billions of dollars in potential savings if Congress just had the will to streamline initiatives that target politically popular causes.

The study found 33 areas with "overlap and fragmentation" in the federal government. Among them, it found:
  • Fifty-six programs across 20 agencies dealing with financial literacy. 
  • More than 2,100 data centers - up from 432 a little more than a decade ago across 24 federal agencies. GAO estimated the government could save up to $200 billion over the next decade by consolidating them. 
  • Twenty programs across seven agencies dealing with homelessness. The report found $2.9 billion spent on the programs in 2009. "Congress is often to blame" for fragmentation, GAO wrote in this section, explaining that the duplicative programs in multiple agencies cause access problems for potential participants. 
  • Eighty-two "distinct" teacher-quality programs across 10 agencies. Many of them have "duplicate sub-goals," GAO said. Nine of them address teacher quality in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. 
  • Fifteen agencies administering 30 food-related laws. "Some of the oversight doesn't make any sense" the report stated bluntly. 
  • Eighty economic development programs. 
In some cases, the programs in question struggled to account for what they did. Take, for instance, domestic food assistance initiatives. According to GAO, 18 such programs are administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services -- with GAO estimating $62.5 billion spent on them. But "little is known about the effectiveness" of 11 of those programs, the report states. 

Similarly, of the 47 job-training programs run out of the federal government, only five could provide an "impact study" since 2004 looking at "outcomes." About half of them provided no performance review at all since 2004. 

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Miscellaneous Spending Projects

More examples of wasteful spending by the federal government:
  • $1.9 million for a water taxi to Pleasure Beach, Conn.
  • $3.8 million for an urban art trail in Rochester, N.Y.
  • $3.1 million for upgrades to an 88-year-old canal boat museum in New York
  • $3 million for bicycle racks in Washington, D.C.'s Georgetown area
  • $1.5 million for a streetscape project around a Detroit casino
  • $578,000 to fight homelessness in Union, N.Y., a town that reportedly has no homeless people
  • $550,000 for a skateboard park in Pawtucket, R.I.
  • $500,000 for fish food for Missouri fish farmers
  • $400,000 to renovate a vacant building in Jal, N.M.
  • $380,350 to encourage West Virginia landowners to grow ginseng and shiitake mushrooms
  • $90,000 for a shared kitchen for food service entrepreneurs

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Hunger Champion Awards

Through the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), a USDA agency, the Hunger Champion awards are handed out annually to local government agencies for increasing participation in food stamps or Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP). Yes, a taxpayer funded agency is purposefully encouraging individuals to depend on food stamps and then being awarded for doing so.

These “Gold” award winners are sent to the annual conference for State SNAP directors. No matter what part of the country the event or winners are located, taxpayers foot the bill for these trips. These winners are sent to explain their tactics for garnering more SNAP participants and then given a slap on the back for their "great work".

Taxpayer-funded Sex Change

Robert Kosilek was married to a woman. Then he murdered her and went to prison, where he changed his name to Michelle and began identifying as a woman.

Now a federal judge in Boston has ruled that Kosilek is entitled to a taxpayer-funded sex-change operation because he has “gender-identity disorder.”

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

2012 Tennessee Pork Report

The Beacon Center of Tennessee today released its 2012 Tennessee Pork Report, exposing the fact that state and local governments across Tennessee wasted $468 million over the past year. Examples of wasteful spending outlined in the 2012 Pork Report include:
  • $1.5 million blown on a mansion and lavish furnishings by the head of the Upper Cumberland Development District, taking Beacon’s “Pork of the Year” prize;
  • A handout worth $500,000 to build a country music museum in a different state;
  • Another $1.5 million in corporate welfare to General Motors, even after its historic $50 billion federal bailout;
  • $266,000 to a second car company, Volkswagen, to construct a massive sign atop its Chattanooga plant, visible only from the air;
  • $50,000 to haul off dead cows in Columbia; and
  • $1.3 million wasted yet again on state-owned golf courses.

Monday, September 3, 2012

$73K On Superhero Campaign

In a flagrant example of how the government wastes taxpayer dollars, a federally-funded job center in Florida has financed a costly public relations campaign that is distributing thousands of superhero capes to the unemployed.The story would almost be funny if it didn’t involve such an idiotic act with increasingly scarce public funds.

The job agency, Worforce Central Florida, is supposed to help the area’s 100,000-plus unemployed residents find work. Instead, it spent $73,000 on a corny publicity campaign titled “Cape-A-Bility Challenge.” The idea is to “generate awareness” of the agency’s programs, according to an official quoted in the Orlando newspaper that broke the story last week. A cartoon character named “Dr. Evil Unemployment” is the campaign’s star character and 6,000 red satin superhero capes are being distributed to jobless central Floridians who care to participate. The capes cost the government $14, 200 and foam cutouts of “Dr. Evil Unemployment” an additional $2,300.

Apparently, the idea behind the capes is to elevate the self-esteem of the unemployed. The innovative campaign will also raffle gift cards and purchase media spots as well as billboard space. An advertising agency hired to run the promotion will collect $7,500. Ads feature videos of employers, job seekers and the public job agency’s chairman in a cape posing as superman. It’s all part of a brilliant “Everyday Superheroes” theme that the ad agency created for the campaign.

On a bit of a positive note, the media coverage has led state labor officials to request an investigation into the matter. This doesn’t mean that anyone will be punished for such a ridiculous waste of public resources, but at least it will give the agency’s inspector general the opportunity to compile details of how it all went down and whose brilliant idea it was.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

$125 Billion In “Improper Payments”

With the national debt and federal spending at an all-time high several U.S. government agencies joined forces to make an outlandish $125 billion in “improper payments” last year, an increase of more than $16 billion from the previous year. This sort of government waste and corruption is hardly an earth-shattering development. Congressional investigators have for years documented the growing crisis of federal agencies making fraudulent payments to those who don’t qualify yet little has been done to correct the situation. In fact, this month’s audit containing the latest figures stresses that previous investigations have “highlighted long-standing, widespread and significant problems with improper payments in the federal government.”

The impropriety is so pervasive that President Obama issued a much-ballyhooed order last summer commanding federal agencies to create a “Do Not Pay List” to protect taxpayer resources and stem abuse. It has done nothing to protect increasingly scarce taxpayer dollars, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress. In its latest report the GAO reveals that federal agencies made $125.4 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2010, marking a substantial increase from the $109.2 billion it dished out in fiscal 2009. The biggest chunk of the fraudulent payments—more than 90%—was made by social spending programs, mainly Medicare (health coverage for the elderly), Medicaid (health coverage for the poor) and the Labor Department’s unemployment insurance. Improper income tax credits, Social Security and disability payments, free school lunches and food stamps round off the top 10.

Incredibly, just a few weeks ago the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched a $5 million campaign to recruit more food-stamp recipients, even though the GAO reveals that the agency doled out nearly $4.8 billion in improper benefits last year due to “incorrect computations, misapplication of an income or resource exclusion and inadequate verification of accounts and wages”. "There seems to be no end in site to the waste", according to GAO investigators, who diplomatically state that “challenges” remain in “determining the full extent of improper payments across the federal government and in reasonably assuring that effective actions are taken to reduce improper payments.” Some agencies don’t even bother reporting improper payments, the GAO says, so the full extent of the problem will never really be known.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

$4 Million To House 12 Homeless People

Government officials in Bethesda, Maryland, have decided to spend $4 million dollars to provide housing for 12 homeless people for one year. That’s right. The taxpayer will be providing free housing to a dozen folks in Maryland at the rate of $330,000 per person a year.

Judicial Watch reported on this pricey, taxpayer financed arrangement, which will allow Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission to operate a three-story apartment building in Bethesda for 12 homeless adults. According to the Washington Examiner, the facility will have six studio and six one-bedroom apartments as well as a gym and computer center.

About $1 million of funding for the project will come from Obama’s stimulus fund. Montgomery County’s new homeless housing project will also receive $944,829 in county housing funds and $2.1 million in state low-income housing tax credits. All so twelve people can live in a very high average income suburb of Washington, D.C.

Friday, August 31, 2012

$10 Million To Train Asian Call Center Workers

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is blowing $10 million to train Filipinos to work in Asian call centers that serve the very U.S. businesses the president threatened to strip of tax deductions for moving jobs and profits abroad.

This latest project is training 3,000 Philippine students to man the phones in areas ranging from healthcare to travel, for domestic call centers from Asia. It’s called Job Enabling English Proficiency (JEEP) and graduates get placed with outsourcing vendors that provide U.S. companies with profitable offshore perks, including Asia’s cheap labor costs. The U.S. program includes 400 hours of training over two years and 23,000 students are currently enrolled in the Philippines.

Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation

Nearly half a million dollars went to the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation, which no president has supported since its creation two decades ago, to promote activities “for the benefit of mankind.”

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Billions For Overseas Ads

Uncle Sam has spent north of $2 billion to subsidize the advertising costs of wealthy private American companies and trade groups overseas. Under a little-known initiative called Market Access Program (MAP) the U.S. government uses tax dollars to help them promote their private market goods to foreign buyers.

Sunkist Growers with annual sales exceeding $1.2 billion, has received $34.1 million since 1999 for overseas advertising. California raisin growers got $31.7 million since 1998 to promote their product internationally and Blue Diamond Growers, the world’s largest almond producer, got more than $28 million during the same period. A reality television fashion and design show in India got $20 million to promote cotton.

The National Confectioners Association, which includes Hershey’s, Godiva and Mars (Snickers, M&Ms) has received more than $14 million in the past decade, including $1.3 million in 2012. The country’s liquor trade group, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), gets around $200,000 annually to court importers, nightclub owners and bartenders in Russia, the Czech Republic, China, India, South Korea and Brazil.

$130,000 Website

The National Science Foundation gave PBS $130,000 to redesign the website for one of its shows.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

$102 Million To Catch $19 Million In Medicaid Fraud

In a shameful - and costly - example of government incompetence, a special program created to combat Medicaid fraud has cost American taxpayers more than five times the amount of overpayments it has identified. That means the anti-fraud project, known as National Medicaid Audit Program, has cost the U.S. government $102 million to operate since 2008 while identifying only $19.4 million in overpayments. It seems like a bad joke, but unfortunately it’s not. Instead it’s one of many examples of government inefficiency that ends up sticking it to the people.

Medicaid has the second-highest (Medicare, the government’s health insurance program for the elderly is first) estimated improper payments of any federal program. In fact, the feds say that $21.9 billion of Medicaid’s federal expenditures of $270 billion in fiscal year 2011 involved improper payments.

Waste In Rural Housing Program

The Rural Housing Service (RHS) is responsible for providing safe, sanitary and affordable housing for very-low-income, low-income and moderate-income rural families. The publicly-financed services are delivered through a wide range of housing programs, including those that support single-family home ownership, multi-family rental housing and farm labor housing. This ends up costing U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars annually for rent subsidies and guaranteed, low-interest home loans for residents of rural areas who otherwise couldn’t afford it.

The idea is to improve the economic stability of rural communities, businesses, residents, farmers and ranchers and improve the quality of life in rural America. That’s why Uncle Sam has invested north of $170 billion in the RHS program, which includes a national network of state and local offices. It sounds like a noble cause but it’s rife with fraud and corruption that’s so deep-rooted, the magnitude may never really be known.

At least that’s what the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan agency that conducts congressional probes, seems to indicate. In a lengthy report made public this week, the GAO identifies tens of millions of dollars in “improper rental assistance payments” within the RHS program during a three-year period sampled. The cause appears to be “inaccurate calculations of tenant subsidies and incomplete supporting documents.”

Actually, these figures are just a sort of guesstimate because congressional investigators admit they have no real way of knowing the true magnitude of the “improper payments.” Therefore, they logically conclude in their report that the “figures may be understated” and taxpayers could very well be getting cheated out of much more.

$83,000 For Planter Boxes Upgrade

The Federal Highway Administration gave Washington, D.C. $83,000 to upgrade planter boxes in the median of a major street.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Simpsons Stamps Wasted $1.2 Million For Postal Service

Someone at the U.S. Postal Service guessed that commemorative stamps featuring TV cartoon character Homer Simpson would be twice as popular as those of Elvis Presley. In a move that wasted $1.2 million in printing costs, the Postal Service produced 1 billion of “The Simpsons” stamps. It sold 318 million. Click here for complete article.

$742,907 Weed Study

The Agriculture Department devoted $742,907 to study using “targeted sheep grazing” against weeds.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Icelandic Textile Industry

The never idle National Science Foundation gave $338,998 for researchers to study the impact of women on the Icelandic textile industry.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Steamboat Overlook Interpretive Center

The Transportation Department gave Louisiana $5.18 million to build the Steamboat Overlook Interpretive Center.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

$15 Million U.S. AID

U.S. AID spent $15 million in a program permeated by waste and fraud to help Afghan war victims.

Friday, August 24, 2012

$25,000 Maldives Love Ballad

Washington devoted $25,000 to transcribe a traditional love ballad in the Maldives.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Veterans Affairs Conference Spending

It turns out the General Services Administration isn’t the only government agency throwing opulent events on the taxpayer’s dime.

Expenditures at two conferences held in Orlando last year for Human Resources employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs totaled up to $9 million, according to an investigation by the House Veterans Affairs Committee. Among these expenditures were $84,000 for branded promotional items, such as pens, $3,000 for two event photographers, and a whopping $52,000 to produce a pair of eight-minute videos spoofing the film “Patton” that were shown at the conferences.

This profligate spending may be the tip of the iceberg. The congressmen cite committee testimony from VA Chief Financial Officer W. Todd Grams last year indicating that conference spending for Fiscal 2011 topped $100 million, despite a rough $20 million having been budgeted for such events.

The investigation comes as the VA battles a runaway backlog in veterans’ disability claims that has kept many veterans waiting a year or more to get disability benefits from service-related illnesses and injuries.

$68 Million For Appalachian Regional Commission

The Appalachian Regional Commission, one of four “economic development” agencies, spent $68 million despite having no measurable effect on economic development.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Government 'Horseshoer'

Despite having no horses, the water and sewerage department for the city of Detroit employs a horseshoer. Yet even with a department so bloated that it has a horseshoer and no horses, the local union president said it is "not possible" to eliminate positions. The horseshoer costs the city $56,245 (including benefits.)

Despite the absurdity of the bankrupt city paying a horseshoer, John Riehl of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 207 told the Detroit Free Press that the department needs more workers. "They don't have enough people as it is right now," Riehl said.

Only a government would spend money on a horseshoer with no horses. Only a government workers' union would then complain about not having enough workers. Click here for complete article.

$74,470 To Teach Puppetry

Uncle Sam gave $74,470 to a Utah museum to teach puppetry.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

$606,000 Online Dating Study

Columbia University collected $606,000 for a study of online dating.

Monday, August 20, 2012

$306,000 For Civic Activism

The Department of State paid $306,000 to bring European college students to America to learn civic activism.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Rail Line Relocation Program

The Rail Line Relocation Program was given $10.5 million despite President Obama’s attempt to end the outlay.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Professors To Rome

The National Endowment for Humanities paid $159,865 to send 16 university professors to Rome for five weeks.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Federal Retirees Collect Six-Figure Pensions

More than 21,000 retired federal workers receive lifetime government pensions of $100,000 or more per year, a USA TODAY/Gannett analysis finds. Of these, nearly 2,000 have federal pensions that pay $125,000 or more annually, and 151 take home $150,000 or more. Six federal retirees get more than $200,000 a year. Click here for complete article.

$300,000 Transportation Exhibit

A Missouri museum collected $300,000 for an exhibit on the history of transportation.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

$425,642 Study

The National Science Foundation provided $425,642 to study information dissemination and Indian politicians.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

$50 Million Retrofitting Diesels

Some $50 million went for retrofitting diesel engines as part of an Environmental Protection Agency program which even the Obama administration wanted to kill.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

$50,000 Film Festival

The National Education Association provided $50,000 to underwrite an international film festival in San Francisco.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Butter Packing Machine

The Rural Business Enterprise Grant program gave the Kriemhild Dairy Farms $55,660 to buy a new butter packing machine.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Why the Government Should Have Seen the Solyndra Collapse Coming

The Monday Morning website has an excellent article on "Why the Government Should Have Seen the Solyndra Collapse Coming". Here are a few excerpts:

If you knew of a company that had high manufacturing costs, was in a highly competitive market, and was hemorrhaging money, would you invest in it? Well, the federal government did - using taxpayer money. And now that company, Solyndra LLC, is bankrupt, and the $535 million loan it secured from the government stands little chance of being repaid.

Although the Obama administration has blamed the Solyndra collapse on poor luck and stiff competition from Chinese solar companies, many warning signs were apparent even before the loan guarantee was approved. The evidence includes:
  • E-mails between DOE staff members in Aug. 2009 acknowledged that a credit rating agency had predicted Solyndra would run out of money in September 2011.
  • Based on securities filings, Solyndra's average sales price for the first nine months of 2009 was $3.24 per watt, while its manufacturing costs were $4 per watt. Worse yet, manufacturing costs for rival First Solar Inc. (Nasdaq: FSLR), which makes silicon-based solar panels, were far lower -- just under $1 per watt (they're now about 75 cents per watt).
  • Industry experts had predicted the sharp declines in the cost of silicon as far back as 2008. High-grade silicon was $1,000 per pound in early 2008, but fell to just $100 per pound by September 2009.
  • Solyndra lost $172.5 million in 2009 on revenue of $100.5 million. Its cumulative losses at that point totaled $373 million.

Repairing Private Property

The Agriculture Department - yet again! - devoted $15 million to repairing privately-owned rental property for low income people.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Making Earmarks Pay

For members of Congress, the only thing better than getting "pork" for the folks back home is getting a slice of that pork for themselves. Pork, also known as earmarks, describes the long-standing Congressional practice of steering tax money back to home districts to pay for expensive, constituent-pleasing projects.

But in recent years lawmakers started taking pork a step further. Instead of just using earmarks to keep voters happy, some members of Congress have found ways to benefit personally. Some arranged for improvements to areas near property they owned; others sent money to organizations they would later go to work for after leaving office.

Of course, none of this is illegal. Congress literally makes its own rules regarding the ethics of earmarks. Still, much of what goes on looks bad.

Take the case of former Rep. William Delahunt, D-MA. The seven-term Congressman retired last year and launched his own lobbying firm in Boston. Before long the small coastal town of Hull had hired Delahunt for $15,000 a month to help out with a wind energy project. Coincidentally, Delahunt had set aside a $1.7 million earmark for the Hull project back in 2009. The bulk of his fee - 80% - is being paid from the same earmark money.

And that's not all. The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe has paid Delahunt's firm at least $40,000 to lobby for a casino. As a congressman, Delahunt sent the tribe earmarks worth $400,000. Delahunt also has done work for Quincy, MA, lobbying for a downtown redevelopment project. Back in 2008, he was sending Quincy $2.4 million in earmarks.

American Museum of Magic

Did you know there is an American Museum of Magic in Marshall, MI? Well, the magic museum made $147,000 of your tax dollars disappear last year. The purpose of the federal largesse was to help the museum "better understand its various audiences and their potential interest in the history of magic entertainment."

$12 Million On Energy Assistance Program

The Department of Agriculture spent $12 million on a duplicative energy assistance program which both the Bush and Obama administrations proposed closing.

Friday, August 10, 2012

$468 Million In Government Waste In Tennessee

A new Pork Report by the watchdog group, Beacon Center, has been released and estimated that over $468 million dollars is being wasted by government leaders in Tennessee. In the report the group took aim at several questionable spending projects in the state.

New this year, the group created the "Pork Of The Year" award. The 2012 winner was announced as Wendy Askins, the leader of the Upper Cumberland Development District and the focus of a News Channel 5 Investigation. "She purchased a high definition TV, a $25,000 custom staircase, a steam shower and sauna at $3,000 a pop, a crystal chandelier, two massive fountains totaling $9,000. Fortunately she no longer has her job and she's under criminal investigation" said Justin Owens with the Beacon Center.

$17.8 Million To China

The Chinese economy is second only to that of the United States. And China holds billions of dollars in U.S. debt. So the U.S. government sent $17.8 million in aid to China last year to improve the Asian giant's social services and clean up its environment.

$500,000 Information Dissemination Study

The National Science Foundation devoted a half million dollars to studying “information dissemination” on the Web.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Hookah Smoking Study

The Virginia Commonwealth University received $55,000 in 2011 (part of a larger $170,000 grant) to study changes in the hookah smoking habits of students in the nation of Jordan. Among other things, the study sought to answer the question: "How many Jordanian students believe that water pipe tobacco smoking is more harmful than cigarettes smoking?" (Answer: 62.2 percent).

$30,000 For Dance Company

The Department of State spent $30,000 to send a New York City dance company to Indonesia.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Jobs for Barbados

The mixed success the government has had creating jobs here in America did not discourage the U.S. Agency for International Development from spending $1.35 million on an "entrepreneurship initiative" for the Caribbean island nation of Barbados. The U.S. unemployment rate has been over 8% for three years.

$45 Million Subsidizing Research

The Technology Innovation Program spent $45 million subsidizing the research of numerous large, profit-making corporations.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Art for Italians

The State Department contributed $350,000 for the United States to be part of the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy. No word on how much the exhibit enhanced U.S. international relations.

$50,000 Self-guided Tour

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) provided $50,000 for a self-guided art tour in Wisconsin.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Environmental Groups Collecting Millions

While the economy limps along, one industry is thriving: Environmental lawsuits against the federal government are moving ahead at a steady pace and taxpayers are picking up the tab for the expensive litigation.

Environmental groups are using a little-known 1980 law called the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) to sue the federal government on a wide range of fronts and then collect millions of dollars in legal fees from the very federal agencies they are suing. Not only that but, according to a recent study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the government is not even tracking in any organized fashion how much it’s paying out to these groups.

For example, only 10 of 75 agencies with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Interior could provide the GAO with data on attorney fee reimbursements. The government agencies that do keep track of their attorney fee reimbursements signed some $44.4 million worth of checks between 2001 and 2010. Click here for additional information.

Foreign Aid To India

The National Science Foundation wants to help politicians in India do a better job. So it is awarded a $426,000 grant for research to determine the effectiveness of communications to citizens from officeholders. The U.S. sent $126 million in aid to India last year, even though it is one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

$610,908 Survey

The National Institute for Aging paid researchers $610,908 to survey well-being around the world