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Archive for January, 2017

Covered California Misery Still Getting Worse


Tuesday January 31st, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 9:03am PST   •   1 Comment

Since the dawn of Covered California, the state’s wholly owned subsidiary of the federal Affordable Care Act, health journalist Emily Bazar has tracked the dysfunctions. The skyrocketing premiums, cancellations and “glitches” of the $454 million computer system were responsible for “widespread consumer misery,” not exactly a ringing endorsement. Covered California also dropped 2,000 pregnant…
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Subsidiarity Waste Not Sexy for Taxpayers


Monday January 30th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 9:42am PST   •   0 Comments

This just in: Sacramento City Unified School District has actually fired an administrator, but as Loretta Kalb notes in the Sacramento Bee, this rare dismissal is not an example of accountability. The administrator, Felisberto Cedros, is embroiled in a sexual harassment case against African American school worker Delecia Sydnor, whom he had threatened to…
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The New 10-Year Forecast for the Public Debt


Monday January 30th, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:32am PST   •   0 Comments

Every January, the Congressional Budget Office releases its Budget and Economic Forecast for the next 10 years, which in January 2017 covers the period from 2017 through 2027. The following chart shows what the CBO foresees for the portion of the U.S. government’s total public debt outstanding that is held by the public, which…
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The 2017 Wastebook Is Out!


Saturday January 28th, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 10:47am PST   •   4 Comments

In his second year after having taken over production of the annual Wastebook from former Senator Tom Coburn, Senator Jeff Flake has highlighted 50 ways in which the U.S. federal government’s bureaucrats have squandered taxpayer dollars. Here are five items that stood out from the pack, which we selected just because they involved animals….
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Board of Equalization Bilks Taxpayers


Friday January 27th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 4:26am PST   •   2 Comments

California maintains a state Board of Equalization that, contrary to its name, does not equalize anything. Board of Taxation would more accurate because the state body collects taxes, and as Adam Ashton notes in the Sacramento Bee, board members use some of the tax money they collect to promote themselves in their districts. In…
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Obamacare Bait-and-Switch Bludgeons Californians


Thursday January 26th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 8:38am PST   •   2 Comments

“Thousands of people enrolled in Covered California face higher-than-expected bills from their insurers because the exchange sent incorrect tax credit information to the health plans.” That’s the latest from health reporter Emily Bazar, now with Kaiser Health News. As she explains, Covered California, the state’s Obamacare system, send the wrong tax information for 25,000…
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President Obama’s Greatest Achievement


Wednesday January 25th, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:43am PST   •   2 Comments

From the time when George Washington was sworn into office on March 4, 1789 as the first U.S. President under the U.S. Constitution through February 25, 2008 when George W. Bush was 11 months away from concluding his term in office as the 43rd U.S. President, it took nearly 219 years for the U.S….
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Fat Government Pensions Punish Taxpayers


Tuesday January 24th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 4:54am PST   •   0 Comments

Taxpayers in the northern California capital region wonder why their roads remain full of potholes, fire stations close down, and overall services decline. As Brad Brannan of the Sacramento Bee explains, this happens because of “rising pension costs.” An employee of the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District can retire after 30 years, at the age…
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Government’s Houdini Computer Tricks Taxpayers


Monday January 23rd, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 9:54am PST   •   0 Comments

Back in 2012, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing installed Houdini, a $640,000 computer system designed to automate the filing of complaints. In November, 2013, Jon Ortiz of the Sacramento Bee reported that Houdini was failing to deliver improved efficiency and the DFEH “has seen a decline in the speed and quality of…
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Education Department Bureaucrats Bail After $7 Billion in Waste Exposed


Monday January 23rd, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:15am PST   •   0 Comments

In 2009, as part of President Obama’s signature economic policy that was passed into law as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is more popularly known as the “stimulus package,” President Obama dedicated some $7 billion for the express purpose of improving academically failing schools through School Improvement Grants (SIG). In order to…
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