Spending Daily | May 22, 2013

Star Witness to Plead the Fifth in IRS Hearing

The Associated Press reports, “A House committee taking Congress’ latest look at the Internal Revenue Service’s mistreatment of tea party groups will apparently have to do so without input from the star witness. IRS official Lois Lerner will invoke her constitutional right to not answer questions on Wednesday at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, her lawyer told the panel in a lett...

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Spending Daily | May 16, 2013

IRS Acting Commissioner Resigns, But Scandal Far From Over

The Associated Press reports, “Don’t look for the outcry over the Internal Revenue Service’s improper targeting of tea party groups to subside with the ouster of the agency’s acting commissioner. Three congressional committees are investigating and the FBI is looking into potential civil rights violations at the IRS, Attorney General Eric Holder said. … President Barack Obama said Trea...

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Spending Daily | May 13, 2013

IRS Targeted Groups Lobbying to “make America a better place to live”

The Wall Street Journal reports, “The Internal Revenue Service’s scrutiny of conservative groups went beyond those with ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their names—as the agency admitted Friday—to also include ones worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and even ones that lobbied to ‘make America a better place to live,’ according to new details of a government ...

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No Smart Way?
Project Runaway Spending 

RHETORIC: President Obama: “No Smart Way” To Cut $85 Billion: “The problem is, when you’re cutting $85 billion in seven months … there’s no smart way to do that. There’s no smart way to do that.” (“Obama on Sequester Cuts: ‘There’s No Smart Way To Do That,’” Real Clear Politics, 2/26/13)

REALITY: U.S. Military Camouflage An “Expensive Case Study In Federal Duplication”: “In 2002, the U.S. military had just two kinds ...

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Spending Daily | May 10, 2013

“On Jobs Tour In Texas, Obama Offers Little New Hope For Jobs Progress In Washington”

TIME reports, “President Barack Obama’s campaign-style, jobs-focused swing through the Texas technology core on Thursday was notable mainly for what it left out—any plan for putting his proposals into law. … Ostensibly Obama flew to a Democratic enclave in the deep-red state to pitch his previously announced plan for 15 nationwide manufacturing innovation institutes an...

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No Smart Way?
“Number Crunchers” Edition

White House “number crunchers” have now identified nearly $5 billion they can avoid cutting through recalculations and “arcane budget rules.” So cutting three cents on the dollar was impossible, but when it comes to finding new spending, the White House rolls out the number crunchers.  Meanwhile, the headlines on wasteful spending continue to pile up, much like our $16 trillion-plus national debt.

WHITE HOUSE FINDS WAY TO AVOID CUTTIN...

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Spending Daily | April 30, 2013

“Treasury to pay down debt for first time since Obama took office”

According to The Hill, “The Treasury Department announced Monday that it would reduce its level of debt in financial markets for the first time since President Obama took office. The department said it expects to pay down a net of $35 billion in its marketable debt for the second quarter of 2013, the first time it has done so since 2007. In February, Treasury had estimated the government wo...

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Gimmick It Up
Using Fake Money To Offset Real Cuts

Remember that windfall of cash you got from graduating college and finally being able to do something with that extra tuition money?  Or when you hit the real jackpot by staying home that one weekend your friends went out to Vegas?  No? You need to check your Overlooked Contingency Fund.  That’s where all that real money goes – just waiting to be accessed and spent.  

Harry Reid Has Located The Overseas Contingency Fund:

Harry Reid ...

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Spending Daily | April 18, 2013

“Hamel: No more taxes, Mr. President”

Public Notice Executive Director Gretchen Hamel editorializes in The Richmond Times Dispatch, “In business, you have to compete. The only way to attract new jobs and create economic growth is by cultivating a better environment for businesses to thrive. Virginians understand this, and so do their neighbors. North Carolina is considering legislation to drop its corporate tax rate to 4.9 percent, which would be the lowest...

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Spending Daily | April 17, 2013

Dems React to Boston Marathon Bombing with Sequester Talk

POLITICO reports, “With the Boston Marathon bombings less than 24 hours old, some on Capitol Hill are beginning to say the attack shows why Congress should’ve stopped automatic spending cuts from taking hold in March. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), responding to a question at a Tuesday morning press conference, said the bombings are ‘clearly another place where it demonstrates why having th...

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Spending Daily | April 16, 2013

Pray For Boston

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, families and friends of all those who were impacted by the bombings at the Boston Marathon.  The American spirit is evident in the acts of courage and heroism by first responders, emergency personnel, police and fire department officials and the thousands of selfless individuals who helped rescue the injured and bring them to safety. Public Notice will be using its social media networks today to dir...

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Spending Daily | April 9, 2013

New Video: “Debt-tective” Finds Culprit Behind National Debt

Bankrupting America, a project of Public Notice, today released an animated web video titled “What is Bankrupting America?” focused on educating and engaging Americans on the national debt, government spending and the drag they cause on our economy. The video follows a “Debt-tective” as he discovers clues and investigates the real cause behind America’s fiscal frustrations. While the facts ...

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Rhetoric vs. Reality

RHETORIC: President Obama: “No Smart Way” To Cut $85 Billion: “The problem is, when you’re cutting $85 billion in seven months … there’s no smart way to do that. There’s no smart way to do that.” (“Obama on Sequester Cuts: ‘There’s No Smart Way To Do That,’” Real Clear Politics, 2/26/13)

REALITY: Stimulus-Funded Condom Study Creates Zero Jobs. The details of a stimulus grant awarded to Indiana University to study condom use have now been rel...

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Runaway Federal Spending: Problems in Search of Programs

As taxpayers grow numb with the constant drumbeat of bad economic news and looming federal bankruptcy, occasionally a fact jumps out that still has the power to command attention.

“It’s estimated that the government will have spent as much in the first four years of the new decade as it did in all of the 1990s.”

That is one sentence from a story by Doug McKelway on Fox News. It drove home the alarming pace of federal and sought to ...

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As we start debating the re-authorization of our state’s 1 cent sales tax I would like to pause for a moment and take a slightly closer look at what has been, and will undoubtably be again, one of the oft heard sentiments in these discussions.

You almost certainly have heard some version of it, but Paul Krugman (writing in his recent release A Manifesto For Economic Sense) provides a good example: “There must of course be a medium-term plan for reducing the government deficit. But if thi...

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