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Archive for February, 2016

The U.S. Government’s Student Loan Racket


Monday February 29th, 2016   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 5:05am PST   •   0 Comments

It’s not often that we’re surprised by a government spending statistic, but what Breitbart News‘ Mike Flynn reported over the past weekend about one particular line item within the U.S. Treasury Department’s annual financial report for the U.S. government floored us. Tucked away in the report, however, was a surprising fact. Student loans now…
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Bureaucratic Bloat Endures


Monday February 29th, 2016   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 5:03am PST   •   0 Comments

California Senate boss Kevin De Leon was recently asked to approve a new chief for the state’s Bureau of Electronic and Appliance Repair, Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation. The startled senator replied that he “never heard of this department in my entire life until Rules Committee.” He may since have learned that this bureau,…
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Government Rail Switches Tracks on Taxpayers


Monday February 22nd, 2016   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 12:48pm PST   •   1 Comment

We have been keeping track of California’s so-called high-speed rail project, backed by governor Jerry Brown and facing huge problems. As in Blazing Saddles, one thing stands in the way of the land they need: the rightful owners. The farmers, in particular, are not eager to sell. The project will supposedly cost $68 billion,…
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Does Fannie Mae “Need” Another Bailout?


Monday February 22nd, 2016   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 5:52am PST   •   1 Comment

Do you remember Fannie Mae? Or rather, the Federal National Mortgage Association, the government-supported enterprise which was bailed out and taken over by the U.S. Treasury Department back on September 7, 2008? If not, ProPublica summarizes what happened to the government-backed corporation at that time: On Sep. 7, 2008, the government took over Fannie…
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The Federal Government’s PR Budget


Friday February 19th, 2016   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 5:44am PST   •   0 Comments

According to estimates by the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. government spent over $892 million for public relations advertising through private firms in 2014. And that doesn’t include the spending that various federal departments and agencies do to advance their own reputations in the public through their own PR resources! Government spending watchdog Open…
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Crony California


Thursday February 18th, 2016   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 5:23am PST   •   1 Comment

Covered California has not been much in the news of late, but that does not mean that all goes well with the Golden State’s wholly owned subsidiary of Obamacare. As we noted last year, Emily Bazar of the Center for Health Reporting wrote that Covered California’s computer system is “responsible for countless glitches and…
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Double Standards on Firing Government Bosses


Tuesday February 16th, 2016   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 11:21am PST   •   0 Comments

On February 10 in Morro Bay, the California Coastal Commission (CCC) fired its executive director Charles Lester. For any government body to fire the boss is exceedingly rare, and this case should prove educational for all Californians. For one thing, what Lester had done wrong remained unclear. On his watch, no major environmental disaster…
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The Obama Spending Past and Future


Wednesday February 10th, 2016   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 5:51am PST   •   1 Comment

President Barack Obama released his final budget proposal for the U.S. government yesterday. We thought it might be fun to visualize the proposed spending in all his previous budget proposals, from his first to this last one, adjusting each for inflation so that they’re expressed in terms of constant 2009 U.S. dollars — the…
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Government Give and Take is Mostly One-Way


Tuesday February 9th, 2016   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 11:01am PST   •   0 Comments

Contrary to what many politicians seem to believe, government makes mistakes. For example, as the intrepid Jon Ortiz of the Sacramento Bee notes, the state of California recently overpaid some 20,000 employees. The overpayments amount to $37 to $101 per employee and, overall, about 5 percent of all state paychecks in a single month….
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Pillage People Pick Off Professionals’ Pay


Monday February 8th, 2016   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 9:18am PST   •   0 Comments

The Denver Broncos took the game 24-10 but the real winners of Super Bowl 50 were California’s pillage people. This is due to the state’s “jock tax” on players and coaches for their “duty days” in the state. As Matthew Artz notes in the San Jose Mercury News, California’s jock tax is highest in…
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