As we recently noted, the Veterans Administration has been cooking the books and falsifying information about wait times. According to CNN, at least 40 veterans died while awaiting treatment at the VA facility in Phoenix. President Obama says he’s angry over the situation but he has not fired VA boss Eric Shinseki. Now, as…
Read More »
According to the official government website, “The President’s vision for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is to transform VA into a 21st Century organization that is Veteran-centric, results-driven, and forward-looking.” So no surprise that “the President’s 2015 Budget includes $163.9 billion for VA in 2015. This includes $68.3 billion in discretionary resources and…
Read More »
Catherine Engelbrecht used “weaponizing of government” to describe what she perceives as a federal campaign against her. Is it the latest blast of fevered rhetoric, or does she have a case? Catherine and her husband Bryan were largely apolitical people who ran a small manufacturing business in Rosenberg, Texas. Over two decades the couple…
Read More »
Last year, the UC San Diego engineering student Daniel Chong was mistakenly swept up in a DEA raid near the UC campus. Chong, 25, had committed no crime and was not charged with anything. But DEA agents stuck the student in a small windowless interrogation room with no food, water, or toilet facilities, and…
Read More »
UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, and Aetna, another major insurer, recently abandoned California’s individual health insurance market. This ran as a business story but it’s really about Obamacare. The companies’ departure from the individual market is clearly a response to the Affordable Care Act, and that departure has already made it harder…
Read More »
Calculating the cost of government is a difficult task but as a general rule the costs will always be higher than taxpayers imagine. A California case shows why this is so. Pension plans, including those in government, include contributions by the employer and the employee. The employee contribution of Susan Muranishi, an administrator in…
Read More »
When something as big as Medicare makes decisions the consequences involve more than health care. For example, in April the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made a decision to increase funding to the private-sector Medicare Advantage program by $8 billion. That decision was worth billions to private health insurers, and as the…
Read More »
Most American voters want to see the federal government make spending cuts across the board, but those same voters doubt such cuts will take place, according to a recent Rasmussen Poll. The survey found that only 39 percent of likely voters think it is somewhat likely that government will significantly reduce spending while 57…
Read More »
In the mid-1800s, Sutter Creek and Amador City were centers of the California gold rush. Now for the first time in 50 years the Mother Lode is again the scene of mechanized mining. The Sutter Gold Mining Co. operates a modern $20 million complex, complete with ventilated tunnels, laboratories and a mill. The operation…
Read More »
USA Today reports that the difference between what the federal government under President Obama will have spent in 2012 and how much it will collect in taxes and other revenue sources will be $1.33 trillion: The budget, an outline of which was released by the White House Friday night, will show a higher deficit…
Read More »