Postal Service overprints commemorative stamps – $2 million

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) wastes $2 million in printing and manufacturing costs annually producing commemorative stamps that must later be destroyed. Several stamps series have been printed so excessively that had every person in the nation sent a piece of mail using them, there still would have been leftovers. The IG concluded the USPS has no “objective forecasting methodology and review process” to determine demand for special stamps.

Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)

As the government continues to release more information regarding the Affordable Health Care Act (I am beginning to think this is an oxymoron), the news just keeps getting worse...

• Click here to read the 21 page draft application that Americans would use to access the health law’s subsidized insurance coverage. In order to figure out how much Americans will pay, the federal government needs to collect lots of information, everything from the size of the family to its income to whether any family members are Alaska Natives (which would make them eligible for additional services through the Indian Health Service). It’s hard to collect all that data in a way that is not a bit complex. Most Americans will probably have to pay someone to fill out the form just as they pay someone to do their taxes. By the way, you will still have to pick a health plan.

• The Joint Committee on Taxation recently released a 96 page report on the tax provisions associated with Affordable Care Act. The report describes the 21 tax increases included in Obamacare, totaling $1.058 trillion – a steep increase from initial assessment, according to the Tax Prof Blog. The summer 2012 estimate is nearly twice the $569 billion estimate produced at the time of the passage of the law in March 2010. Government programs are always more expensive than anticipated. Click here for more information.

Pentagon Paid $998,798 to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers

A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to an Army base in Texas, U.S. officials said.

The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon records show.

The owners of C&D Distributors in Lexington, South Carolina -- twin sisters -- exploited a flaw in an automated Defense Department purchasing system: bills for shipping to combat areas or U.S. bases that were labeled "priority'' were usually paid automatically, said Cynthia Stroot, a Pentagon investigator.

C&D and two of its officials were barred in December from receiving federal contracts. Today, a federal judge in Columbia, South Carolina, accepted the guilty plea of the company and one sister, Charlene Corley, to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to launder money, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin McDonald said.

Number of Tax-Delinquent Government Workers Up 11.5%

The number of tax-delinquent federal workers and retirees increased by 11.5 percent in 2011, according to Internal Revenue Service data. The delinquency rate rose to 3.2 percent from 2.9 percent the previous year. The 311,566 delinquent taxpayers owe a total of $3.5 billion in federal taxes, according to the IRS data released today.

The House passed a bill last year that would require the government to fire federal workers who are “seriously delinquent” in paying their taxes. The bill, sponsored by Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, passed 263- 114, and didn’t advance in the Senate.

Time For Smart Budget Cuts

Here is an excellent article by Senator Tom Coburn on how and why to cut the federal budget. Some excerpts:

• Since 2002, total federal spending has increased nearly 89% while median household income has dropped 5%
• If the federal government stopped sending unemployment checks to millionaires, it could save $14.8 million a year (according to IRS data) and prevent 5,103 furloughs
• But if cabinet secretaries insist on using furloughs, they could start by furloughing employees who already don't bother to show up for work
• Taxpayers spend $3.1 billion on 209 separate science, technology, engineering and mathematics education programs across 13 agencies

Portraits

At a time when the government is running a $16 trillion deficit and furloughing employees due to the sequestration, the Environmental Protection Agency spent nearly $40,000 on a portrait of Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, the military spent $41,200 on a painting of Air Force Secretary Michael B. Donley, and the Agriculture Department $22,500 for a 3-by-4-foot oil portrait of Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack.

Scooter Store Caught Cheating the Government Out of Millions

The Scooter Store received up to $87 million dollars in Medicare overpayments over the last several years for causing doctors to write prescriptions for these power wheelchairs that were not medically necessary.  Apparently, The Scooter Store is not alone in this activity.  Many of its competitors have behaved similarly in facilitating these types of overpayments.  Indeed, a 2011 report released by the Department of Health and Human Services said that an astounding 80 percent of power wheelchair claims did not meet Medicare’s coverage requirements. Medicare and its beneficiaries paid four times the average amount paid by suppliers for standard power wheelchairs.

Games for Change Festival - $50,000

The National Endowment for the Arts gave $50,000 to fund the 9th Annual Games for Change Festival, a conference focused on “the creation and distribution of social impact games that serve as critical tools in humanitarian and educational efforts.” One featured game, Zombie Yoga, “uses Yoga and visualization to empower the player emotionally.” Another game puts players through life situations that would increase someone’s risk for HIV.

Workshops, networking, and speakers discussed how to design video games for the common good. One workshop, “Yourturn!: Designing a music game for social impact,”focused on using “social interaction and identity construction among youth minority groups in Vienna, Austria.” “Game-o-matic: A tool for generating journalistic games on the fly” helped journalists think about news “as systems rather than as stories.” Another workshop featured Deepak Chopra, a popular public speaker on spirituality who discussed his Nintendo Wii video game designed to connect people to “their own internal power to be happy.”

Though its goals are laudable, the federal funding directed to this festival would have been better spent providing direct help to the poor, such as antiretroviral drugs for many HIV patients on waiting lists for drugs from the Ryan White program

Healthy Food Financing Initiative pursues ineffective strategy – $32 million

Tens of millions of federal dollars are being spent to increase access to healthy foods in low-income communities. Motivating the initiative is the idea that access to healthy food leads to healthier eating. Unfortunately, a number of recent studies and investigations yielded no evidence that the strategy actually works. A review by the Washington Post found: “Multiple studies have scoured local, state and national data looking for a causal relationship between weight and access to healthy food. None have found it.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) itself has questioned the value of such programs to promote access to health foods: “Increasing access to specific foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat milk alone may not make a dent in the obesity problem… Without also changing the dietary behaviors of consumers, interventions aimed at increasing access to healthy foods may not be successful in addressing obesity.”

Electric vehicle tax credit increases the deficit without decreasing emissions – $74 million

A federal income tax credit created to encourage the purchases of electric vehicles will have “little or no impact on the total gasoline use and greenhouse gas emissions of the nation’s vehicle fleet” in coming years, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Through 2019, the credit may cost taxpayers $2 billion, including $74 million this year. So while the new tax credit will increase the deficit, it will most likely do little if anything to decrease emissions. CBO projects there may be benefits but is unsure how cost-effective they would be.

The CBO also found the credit has a limited impact on electric car sales. “CBO estimates that about 30 percent of current and future sales will be attributable to the tax credits, and 70 percent would have occurred even without the credits.”

The CBO noted the incentive may “effectively subsidize the release of additional greenhouse gas emissions” in some situations. For example, a person may buy an electric car instead of a traditional hybrid and live in an area where electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants. In that case, “more emissions are released per mile traveled on electric power than per mile traveled on gasoline.”

More Government Waste

Lost green energy equipment. A 2012 Department of Energy Inspector General audit found that the agency cannot locate $500,000 worth of green energy manufacturing equipment it purchased with stimulus money.

$2 million internship program. From 2010 through 2011, the Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Chief Information Officer funded a $2 million intern program intended to enhance the agency’s IT security workforce. Only one intern was hired full time.

Broke U.S. Postal Service paying $2M for conference, golf, party

Four hundred U.S. Postal Service executives are heading to San Francisco next month for workshops, meetings — and a dance party. And a golf tournament. And a dinner event. The trip is expected to cost the flailing agency — which is pushing to stop Saturday letter delivery due to revenue issues — more than $2 million. An estimated $220,000 is going to be spent on exhibit space. Area hotel costs are ~$300 a night.

DHS Purchases 21.6 Million More Rounds of Ammunition

The Department of Homeland Security is set to purchase a further 21.6 million rounds of ammunition to add to the 1.6 billion bullets it has already obtained over the course of the last 10 months alone. To put that in perspective, during the height of active battle operations in Iraq, US soldiers used 5.5 million rounds of ammunition a month. Extrapolating the figures, the DHS has purchased enough bullets over the last 10 months to wage a full scale war for almost 30 years.

While Americans are being browbeaten with rhetoric about the necessity to give up semi-automatic firearms in the name of preventing school shootings, the federal government is arming itself to the teeth with both ammunition and guns. Last September, the DHS purchased no less than 7,000 fully automatic assault rifles, labeling them “Personal Defense Weapons.”

Obamacare strikes again

Interesting Chicago Tribune article on Obamacare. Some excerpts:

• If a medical device helps folks, the tax on every sale just went up 2.3 percent.
• ... the surest way to make something scarcer is to tax it.
• The payroll tax just went up by 2 percent for every American who draws a paycheck.
• Since so much of Obamacare's small print has yet to be revealed, or even written, there's no telling how many more taxes, regulations and penalties are still in the works. Oh, joy. Nancy Pelosi did say we'd have to pass Obamacare before finding out what all is in it, and, boy, are we. Tax after tax after tax.

Washington Blows $108 Billion on “Improper” Payments

According to a report released last week by the Government Office of Accountability (GAO), $108 billion of unemployment benefits and other government appropriations went towards “improper payments.” The payments identified either went to the wrong person, or were issued in the incorrect amount. According to Roll Call, “No business would allow this much of its budget to be wasted. Sadly, this is business as usual in Washington, and solutions are tough to come by.”

So, what’s $108 billion in improper payments to Washington, anyway? Let’s put it another way: The median household income in the U.S. is about $52,800. The GAO estimates that the government-wide rate of error for payments is 4.35 percent. That’s as if a household earning about $52,800 a year paid nearly $2,300 of their bills to the wrong person, or paid an incorrect amount.

With the need for a responsible budget and living within our means already noted in past presidential addresses, perhaps it’s time to commit to spending taxpayer money properly. If Washington cannot make payments responsibly, what signal does that send the rest of America?