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Archive for December, 2015

The Bureaucrats’ Newest Perk


Wednesday December 30th, 2015   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:17am PST   •   1 Comment

For a lot of Americans, simply getting to or from work represents a significant expense. In fact, earlier this year, CNN‘s Kathryn Vasel totaled up the average annual expense that Americans pay just so that they can earn an income: Workers spend 200 hours annually at a cost of nearly $2,600 on their daily…
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Beware CDC Mission Creep


Tuesday December 29th, 2015   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 5:16am PST   •   0 Comments

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention draws a budget of more than $11 billion for the purpose of, as the name implies, controlling and preventing diseases. The mammoth CDC, however, is always eager for mission creep. In the 1990s it spent $2.6 million to study “gun violence,” which is not, strictly speaking,…
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A Festivus Airing of Grievances for Government Waste


Sunday December 27th, 2015   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 10:48am PST   •   0 Comments

We missed it before the Christmas holiday, but December 23 marked the annual celebration of Festivus, which if you’re fan of the old Seinfeld TV show or its reruns, you’ll recognize as the focal point of one of the show’s more memorable episodes. As fans of the show know, one of the core activities…
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The Federal Government Throws a Party


Wednesday December 23rd, 2015   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:03am PST   •   0 Comments

Now that we’re well into the holiday season, where many of us will be going to parties, we thought we’d take a moment to consider how the politicians and bureaucrats who are employed by the federal government throw a party. If you’re a long time reader of MyGovCost, you probably have already guessed that…
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Scam Cell, Continued


Monday December 21st, 2015   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 5:38am PST   •   2 Comments

California’s $3 billion Stem Cell Research and Cures Act, Proposition 71, promised life-saving cures and therapies for a host of afflictions including heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In 2004 voters approved the measure, which created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. CIRM drew down the money and spent lavishly, but ten years later…
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Digging Deeper Into the New Budget Deal


Sunday December 20th, 2015   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 3:53pm PST   •   0 Comments

On Friday, December 18, 2015, President Obama signed into law the two massive spending and tax bills that the U.S. Congress passed earlier in the week. When he did, he dug the nation’s national debt hole over $1.2 trillion deeper over the next 10 years than it otherwise would have been, according to estimates…
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Does Caltrans “Set of Values” Include Accountability?


Friday December 18th, 2015   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 8:47am PST   •   0 Comments

The California Department of Transportation hired Alex Morales III as statewide coordinator for compliance with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). As Jim Miller notes in the Sacramento Bee, Mr. Morales III, who was paid a base salary of $74,912, has been arrested for allegedly accepting “at least $100,000 in bribes, including an…
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Surprise Spending Deal


Wednesday December 16th, 2015   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:41am PST   •   0 Comments

On Tuesday, December 15, 2015, while the Republican Party’s presidential candidates were debating national security issues in Las Vegas, House Speaker Paul Ryan reached a budget appropriations deal with congressional Democrats and the White House for how the U.S. government will spend the $1.1 trillion that his predecessor, John Boehner, signed on to spend…
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Government Gravy Train Overflows


Monday December 14th, 2015   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 9:03am PST   •   0 Comments

Property tax bills, marked OPEN IMMEDIATELY and helpfully timed for the holiday season, may put taxpayers in a mood to calculate what government is costing them. In typical style, government does not make such calculation easy, but Brad Branan of the Sacramento Bee provides some guidance. When calculating the salaries of public officials, for…
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2015 Wastebook: The Farce Awakens!


Friday December 11th, 2015   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 4:36am PST   •   0 Comments

When Senator Tom Coburn retired last year, we wondered if his retirement would also mark the end of the Wastebook – the Oklahoma senator’s annual compendium of the most absurd items that the U.S. federal government spent money upon during the previous year. Fortunately not, as it appears that Senator Jeff Flake has picked…
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