Spending Daily | May 17, 2013

“Report: Leader Of IRS Office That Targeted Tea Party Now Runs ObamaCare Office”

The Washington Post, “The woman who ran the office accused of targeting Tea Party groups is now running the office tasked with implementing ObamaCare. ABC News reported Thursday that Sarah Hall Ingram, the former director of the office that oversaw tax-exempt organizations during the alleged targeting of conservative groups, now leads the office in charge of the Affordable Care...

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The Exception Or The Rule?

With the IRS admitting to inappropriately targeting conservative groups – beginning back in 2011 – it’s worth taking another look at how the culture in Washington has been driven by politics even before this latest scandal.  Just a few weeks ago, serious questions were being raised about how federal agencies were implementing the sequester.  The White House repeatedly warned of the dire consequences of a 3 percent spending cut, and some have suggested that the...

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IRS-ted Development

As more details emerge about the IRS targeting organizations that focus on government spending and debt, it’s worth noting that the IRS is a repeat offender when it comes to wasteful spending. The service has spent billions of taxpayer dollars on everything from Blackberrys and Aircards to video production. Maybe they should spend more time cutting out their wasteful spending instead of going after the watchdogs.

IRS Targets Spending Watchdogs: “The Internal Reve...

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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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Another Democrat senator shows us why we need a change in control of the Senate in 2014

Whether a particular member of the electorate knows it or not, the fact is, government debt constitutes an existential threat to the Republic. We simply cannot sustain these levels of sovereign debt, unfunded liabilities, and the interest payments that will soon begin to balloon therefrom.

Also, whether a particular member of the electorate knows it or not, government debt is created not by a lack of taxes, b...

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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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Jan Brewer is not the only Republican governor stuck in a struggle with state legislators over expansion of Medicaid.

Governors in Florida, Ohio, and Michigan are battling with legislators after they turned the tables on conservatives and decided to accept federal funds for Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.

Medicaid is the bane of existence for governors and legislators alike that annually face lean budgets.

Funding for Medicaid can consume as much is 25 to 30 percent of a state’s budget. Th...

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No Smart Way?
Vacancy Edition

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: Vacant Office Government Buildings Cost Taxpayers $1.7 Billion Annually: According to a report by the Government Accountability Office,...

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Spending Daily | May 1, 2013

Obama: Health Care Law “Working Fine”

The New York Times reports, “President Obama said Tuesday that his health care law was ‘working fine,’ and he played down concerns that the law could disrupt coverage or lead to higher premiums for people who already had health insurance. … At a hearing two weeks ago, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said that many of his constituents were confused about the n...

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No Smart Way?
What Happened to “Line-By-Line”?

Remember when President Obama prided himself on the desire to get out the red pen and go “line-by-line, page-by-page” through the federal budget to eliminate waste and inefficiency?  That was a long time ago.  Now, the White House is changing its tune.  When it comes to the sequester, “line-by-line” is “piecemeal.”  And that’s no way to do business in Washington … at least if you want to hold onto your political leverage for...

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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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ICYMI, on Tax Day, Heritage provided a useful chart showing federal spending, by percent, laid out on an image of a dollar bill. As it happens, we at Western Free Press did the same thing last year. Below are the two charts. Notice how entitlement spending is going up (this time, Social Security)? Note that eventually, entitlement spending will crowd out all other spending, consuming all revenue.

Spending Daily | April 22, 2013

Public Notice Poll: Majority of Americans Want Spending and Taxes Cut to Balance Budget

Public Notice today released the results of a national survey on federal spending and economic issues conducted by The Tarrance Group. The survey found that with serious fiscal battles ahead, the significant majority of Americans believe the best way to improve the economy is for Washington to cut spending, cut taxes and balance the budget. The results show that the econom...

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 Bankrupting America Releases New Web Video: Your Tax Dollars At Work

Arlington, Va. – Bankrupting America, a project of Public Notice, today released a new tax day web video, “Your Tax Dollars At Work,” asking Americans whether they feel Washington is spending their tax dollars wisely. This video highlights concerns for the way money is being spent in Washington, including reactions to recent headlines exposing real government waste.

The money that Washington squanders on a daily basi...

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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: Redundant Federal Programs Wasting Billions: “Redundant federal programs are leading to billions in waste, congressional auditors say, and the ...

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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:  House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Report Finds Unimplemented Recommendations Could Have Saved Taxpayers $67 Billion. “The Committe...

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Spending Daily | March 29, 2013

“Feds Spending $880,000 to Study Benefits of Snail Sex”
CNS News reports, “The National Science Foundation awarded a grant for $876,752 to the University of Iowa to study whether there is any benefit to sex among New Zealand mud snails and whether that explains why any organism has sex. The study, first funded in 2011 and continuing until 2015, will study the New Zealand snails to see if it is better that they reproduce sexually or asexually – the snail...

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One of many things I don’t understand about those on the Left is how naïve they are.  Even if you get past their childlike belief that human nature doesn’t exist and that if you simply pass enough big government legislation, you can do away with greed, sloth, envy and evil, you still run into their conviction that nothing must ever be allowed to change the climate or the rate of federal spending.

I mean, even if we overlook the idiocy of believing that man controls the elements, and that i...

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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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Spending Daily | March 28, 2013

“The (86,000) budget-cutting ideas that got away”
The Washington Post reports, “After President Obama set up a national online suggestion box asking federal workers for new ways to cut the budget, 86,000 ideas came in. Some, inevitably, were a little odd. … But many others were more serious, sent in by people who had seen real government waste close up: Stop the ‘use it or lose it’ budgeting policy, which leads agencies to blow taxpayer money at year...

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