A Check-Writing, Wealth Redistribution Machine
When you think of all the ways that the U.S. government spends money, which of its functions do you think tops the list? USA Today‘s John Merline reviewed several decades of the U.S. government’s...
View ArticleWave of Red Ink Set to Strike Social Security
Beginning next year, a wave of red ink is set to strike Social Security as the total amount of benefits paid out to the program’s beneficiaries will begin to regularly exceed the amount of money that...
View ArticleDeath, Taxes, and Government Waste
One of Benjamin Franklin’s most famous sayings involves the certainty of both death and taxes: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Alas, there is now a third...
View ArticleThe Craziness of Pork Barrel Spending
In 2011, the U.S. Congress supposedly banned fiscal “earmarks“—the practice by which legislators would secure funding for special projects in their districts and states by trading their votes for...
View ArticleU. S. Defense Contractor Shows How Government Regulation Can Lead to Price...
TransDigm is a company in the aerospace industry that supplies parts that go into many of the commercial aircraft you see flying around the world today. The company also supplies many parts that go...
View ArticleCalifornia Farmers Waiting on a Train That Will Never Come
As monumental boondoggles go, it’s hard to top California’s bullet train. So much so that it deserves a second look from a little different angle this week! To date, California has spent over $4...
View ArticleU.S. Government Could Max Out Its Credit by Early September
If things go as analysts at the Bipartisan Policy Center expect, the U.S. government will face a heightened risk of defaulting on its $22 trillion debt in early September. That’s when the extraordinary...
View ArticleMeet the Federal Agency Propaganda Mascots That Cost Taxpayers a Fortune
Meet Sammy Soil. Sammy is one of the many official mascots of a federal government agency who, along with friends at other government departments like Franklin the Fair Housing Fox, Rex the Ready Kids’...
View ArticleA Broken Track for California’s Zombie Bullet Train
California’s costly high-speed bullet train boondoggle has officially entered a zombie-like state of existence, neither truly alive nor fully dead. Shortly after announcing the massively expensive...
View ArticleFinancially Troubled Amtrak Is Taking Taxpayers for a Ride
Last November, several news outlets reported that Amtrak, the nation’s heavily subsidized passenger rail service, was on track to break even for the first time in the company’s history. After nearly 50...
View ArticleBipartisan Proposals for Spending Cuts
Thanks to the coronavirus recession, the U.S. government is on track to borrow more money in 2020 that it will collect in taxes as it cranks up its deficit spending to unprecedented levels. That’s the...
View ArticleAre Police Forces the Best Candidates for Defunding?
In the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis cop, calls are ringing out to defund the police. Those who question the wisdom of such a move might want to consider some other...
View ArticlePaycheck Protection Program a Costly Mess
By Washington, D.C., standards, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is a success. The program funded over $659 billion of loans to small businesses so they could avoid laying off employees because of...
View ArticleTracking Waste in the Paycheck Protection Program
At $541 billion, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is the largest component of the federal government’s emergency COVID-19 relief program. That’s an absolutely massive amount of money for...
View ArticleA Wasteful Federal Spending Quiz
Politicians and bureaucrats waste millions of dollars on crazy stupid things every year. But can you tell the difference between an actual federal budget line item and something that just sounds like a...
View ArticleCalifornia Prisoners Score Fraudulent Unemployment Benefits
Scamming COVID unemployment benefits from California’s Employment Development Department (EDD) isn’t just for celebrity rappers any more. Serial killers, rapists, and child molesters can cash in too!...
View ArticleCalifornia’s Multibillion-Dollar Pandemic Unemployment Fraud
California’s government-waste problem with unemployment fraud has just become a lot bigger. It’s not just celebrities and prison inmates who have been fraudulently cashing in on California’s pandemic...
View ArticleFederal Student Loan Program Is Losing Billions
In 2004, Barack Obama was running for a seat in the U.S. Senate in Illinois. Speaking before a group of students at Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield, Illinois, he voiced an inspirational...
View ArticleLogrolling Fills COVID Relief Bill With Waste
The latest example of how professional politicians generate costly waste on Capitol Hill just became official. Shortly after a number of COVID-19 relief measures passed earlier in 2020 as part of the...
View Article2020 Festivus Grievances: $54 Billion in Waste
For those of us who pay attention to government spending, the week between Christmas and New Years is a busy time. It’s never pretty, because this is when a lot of wasteful spending is forced through...
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