These next few weeks, I will be pointing out areas of duplication, overlap, or fragmentation in the federal government and suggestions on how it can be eliminated that will save millions of dollars for the taxpayers. Since 2011, the General Accountability Office (GAO) has been required to “identify and report annually to Congress on Federal […]
It’s All in the Numbers
Last week, we got the jobs numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). They reported a job gain of 162,000 for the month of July. There wasn’t a lot of hoopla about it because the numbers were pretty pathetic. Many analysts had expected somewhere between 175,000 to 200,000 jobs. Plus, the BLS dropped the […]
Bravo Senator Coburn!
We’ve heard a lot of whining and seen a lot of hand wringing about how awful the the sequester is to the nation’s economy. (The sequestration is the automatic budget cuts imposed by Congress that is occurring in the federal government.) We hear about federal employees being furloughed, children not being able to attend school, […]
Stay Vigilant!
In today’s Congressional Quarterly, the headline reads, “Senate Democrats Weigh Sequester-Replacement Plans for September Votes” immediately followed by “the White House tries to broker a bipartisan budget deal with a small group of Republicans.” We who favor reducing the size of government need to be vigilant the next few months as Congress begins to negotiate […]
Ho Hum
Yesterday, the President traveled to Tennessee to discuss his “new” proposal for spurring on the economy and creating jobs. He proposes to lower the corporate tax rate and simplify the tax code by closing tax “loopholes.” Currently, the federal tax rate in the U.S. for corporations is 35%, one of the highest among industrialized nations. […]
I See Dead People
A Government Accountability Office report released June 28 has an eye catching headline, “USDA Needs to Do More to Prevent Improper Payments to Deceased Individuals.” Yup, here we go again, our government using our tax dollars to pay dead people. The GAO discusses in its report how the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) doles out […]
A Big Nuthin Burger
Yesterday and today, the President pivoted for the 19th time to the economy and gave a one hour-plus speech on the economy. On Wednesday, his first stop was Knox College in Illinois where he gave a commencement address in 2005. Many news reports prior to the event predicted the President wouldn’t come up with any […]
Unions Wake Up from their Four-Year Slumber
Well, who would have thought that the very unions that spent millions of dollars to get Obamacare signed into law are now complaining to Democrat leaders in Congress about the same law, telling them, “We have a problem; you need to fix it.” In the letter to Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader […]
Flying High on the Tax Payers
I am one who appreciates our military and wants it to be strong and effective. Under our Constitution, one of the main purposes of the federal government is to “provide for the common defense.” But that does not mean that Congress and the Defense Department cannot root out wasteful spending. Here is a good example […]
Put On the Daddy Pants
Politico Pro, a Washington D.C.-based policy magazine, recently wrote a piece entitled, “The Sequester’s Slow Burn,” by Darren Samuelsohn. He starts off by saying, “So the era of sequestration has meant furloughs for more than 800,000 workers and entire agencies are shuttered for days – and those were the easy cuts. There are nine more years […]