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Archive for March, 2017

The New Long-Term Budget Outlook


Friday March 31st, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:32am PDT   •   0 Comments

The Congressional Budget Office released its 2017 Long-Term Budget Outlook this week, several months ahead of its usual schedule, which is typically published every July. The most interesting part of the new long-term budget outlook appears in the report’s appendix, where the CBO’s analysts illustrate how their new outlook for the publicly held portion…
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The Skyscrapers of National Debt


Wednesday March 29th, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:09am PDT   •   0 Comments

On March 23, 2017, the U.S. government’s total public debt outstanding added up to more than $19.86 trillion, or if you round up by another 0.014 trillion, we’re really talking about a national debt of 20 trillion dollars. That’s a big number, which for many people, is really tough to grasp just how big…
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Government Rail Remains Insolvent and Unsafe at Any Speed


Tuesday March 28th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 10:10am PDT   •   1 Comment

Last December, Amtrak train number 527 approached a track switch near Davis, California, where the speed limit was 40 mph. The engineer roared through at 78 mph, jerking the train violently and causing five passengers to suffer injuries. The Federal Railroad Administration let Amtrak conduct its own investigation, and as one passenger told reporters,…
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Tax Agency Deserves a Stop on California “Corruptour”


Monday March 27th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 9:04am PDT   •   1 Comment

With the April deadline looming, taxpayers might ponder the prospects of filing a return in which they fail to account for millions of dollars. As it happens, that is the case with a California tax agency. According to Board of Equalization member Betty Yee, who is now state controller, the BOE misallocated $47.8 million…
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The Opportunity Costs of California’s Bullet Train


Monday March 27th, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:03am PDT   •   0 Comments

According to the latest estimates, it will cost Californians upwards of $64 billion to build the bullet train envisioned by Governor Jerry Brown and the state’s legislature. That’s money that they don’t have today, but if they did, that’s also a lot of money that could be put to work to do more things…
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Governor Brown Begs the Spending Questions


Thursday March 23rd, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 9:13am PDT   •   0 Comments

After the 2016 election, California governor Jerry Brown showed signs of early onset Trump Derangement Syndrome, pledging resistance and warning that California would “launch its own damn satellite” if President Trump backed off on climate research. On his trip to Washington this week, Brown toned down the defiance and held out the begging bowl….
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Medicare’s Willful Blindness to Its Own Waste


Thursday March 23rd, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:42am PDT   •   0 Comments

Every year for the past four years at least 40 billion dollars has gone to waste because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has declined to audit its own expenditures to ensure that unintentional medical billing errors are caught and corrected. That is a stunning claim being advanced by Kristin Walters of…
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Worker’s Comp System Abuses Victims of San Bernardino Terrorist Attack


Monday March 20th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 9:34am PDT   •   0 Comments

As we noted, California’s troubled Victims Compensation Board will reportedly provide $4 million for the victims of the December 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino. The backstory here is that these seriously injured government workers have become victims of government agencies. “The problems started when San Bernardino County placed the terror victims into California’s…
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The Hysterical Reaction to the Skinny Budget


Monday March 20th, 2017   •   Posted by Craig Eyermann at 6:51am PDT   •   0 Comments

Since President Trump released his “skinny” budget last week, there has been a lot of political posturing, if not outright hysteria in the media, from the advocates of the various government programs targeted for reduced levels of federal spending. And perhaps more remarkably, there have been widespread accusations of spending cuts where none have…
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Spying Out EPA Waste, Fraud and Abuse


Friday March 17th, 2017   •   Posted by K. Lloyd Billingsley at 9:29am PDT   •   0 Comments

President Trump wants to cut the budget of the federal Environmental Protection Agency by 31 percent, from $8.2 billion to about $5.7 billion, a reduction of $2.6 billion and more than 3,000 positions. The proposed cuts have drawn attacks from politicians, the old-line establishment media, and regulatory zealots. For their part, taxpayers might keep…
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