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Archive for February, 2017

President Trump on the Budget and the Debt


Monday February 27th, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 4:12pm PST   •   0 Comments

Last week, on February 22, 2017, President Trump spoke to the press for the first time about the budget and the national debt while attending an informal federal budget meeting at the White House. Here are some quick quotes that stood out during his introductory remarks, first off, covering his impression of the overall…
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Cronyism Rolls On in the Golden State


Monday February 27th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 2:26am PST   •   0 Comments

As we noted, California has made it difficult for veterans to apply their medical skills in civilian life. Like many others, these veterans must contend with the labyrinth of state boards and commissions. According to the state’s Little Hoover Commission, a watchdog agency of sorts, one out of every five Californians must receive permission…
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CA Senate Smacks Down Vietnamese Refugee’s Free Speech Rights


Friday February 24th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 8:55am PST   •   2 Comments

As this column makes clear, governments at all levels abuse the public, trample human rights, and waste taxpayers’ money on a massive scale. Sometimes government abuses its own and the public at the same time. Witness the recent smackdown on free speech at the California capitol. On February 21, the state Senate held a…
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Fixing What Ails the VA


Thursday February 23rd, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:27am PST   •   0 Comments

Last week saw two significant developments at the scandal-ridden U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: The U.S. Senate voted unanimously to confirm President Trump’s selection of David Shulkin to assume the top leadership post of the VA, replacing the often out-of-his-depth Robert McDonald. The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a 700-page report on federal government…
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Government Abuses Veterans, Job Seekers


Wednesday February 22nd, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 10:04am PST   •   1 Comment

The U.S. military trains medics and tasks them to attend those shot, bombed or blown up, sometimes including civilian victims. This is about the most rigorous duty any medic could experience but veterans have a hard time applying their skills in civilian life. As Foon Rhee notes in the Sacramento Bee, the California legislature…
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Government Dam Abuse


Monday February 20th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 2:03pm PST   •   0 Comments

Despite contrary claims by law enforcement, looting did take place during the evacuation of more than 150,000 people in the wake of the spillway failure at the Oroville Dam. As the Los Angeles Times reported, in one case looters blasted the doors of a market with a shotgun and attempted to ransack the business….
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First on the Chopping Block


Monday February 20th, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:14am PST   •   0 Comments

There is a draft memo circulating around the White House’s Office of Management and Budget that identifies the first federal government spending programs that the Trump administration is targeting for cuts on Capitol Hill as part of its first budget proposal. The New York Times reports: The White House budget office has drafted a…
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Why Not Replace Bureaucrats with Robots?


Thursday February 16th, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:28am PST   •   0 Comments

Over the years, MyGovCost has told many stories of bureaucrats behaving badly, but technology may have finally advanced enough to provide a real solution for bad bureaucrats: we can replace them with robots! That possibility is now being discussed in the United Kingdom, where one think tank believes that up to a quarter million…
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BART Sweeps In More Toll Hikes


Wednesday February 15th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 1:13pm PST   •   1 Comment

Bridge tolls are high in the Bay Area but rapid transit bosses are worried that they are not quite high enough. As Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross note in the San Francisco Chronicle, a $3.5 billion bond approval has BART bosses panting for another $1.5 billion in toll hikes on the area’s seven state-owned…
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“Stuff Happens.” Oroville Dam Crisis Is a Failure of Government


Tuesday February 14th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 10:48am PST   •   2 Comments

A massive spillway failure at Northern California’s Oroville Dam prompted an evacuation order that sent 200,000 people running for shelter anywhere they could find it. As the Sacramento Bee reported, the dam itself “has not been compromised. But experts say that if the emergency spillway collapses, it wouldn’t be much different than a total…
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