Yet another federal government trust fund supporting the welfare of America’s elderly population appears set to run out of money within the next 12 years. This time, it’s Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund which, when it runs out of money as projected in 2028, will shrink the amount of money that goes to help…
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Last week, on June 29, 2016, President Obama signed a bill designed to help Puerto Rico’s government restructure its excessive debts into law – the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA). CNN reports: On Thursday, President Obama signed a bill known as PROMESA (Spanish for “promise”) to help Puerto Rico get…
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The existence of perverse incentives explain a lot of the bad behavior that we see among government bureaucrats. A perverse incentive can be said to exist whenever an incentive to achieve a specific goal instead creates an unintended and undesirable result, which is often entirely contradictory to the intentions of the people who created…
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It’s a well established fact that unlike previous U.S. Presidents, President Barack Obama made an unusual practice of bowing to foreign leaders, and particularly China’s and Japan’s leaders as he greets them, which is a major breach of diplomatic etiquette in that by doing so, the President appears to be acknowledging that he is…
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According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the federal government has borrowed over $1.036 trillion to loan money to U.S. college students through the Federal Direct student loan program through April 2016, with over 86% of that amount having been added since January 2009. David Jesse of the Detroit Free Press reports that for the…
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According to a new whistleblower, supervisors at the the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ central office are abusing their power in ways that include physical and verbal intimidation, sexual harassment, and orders to their staff to not cooperate with Congressional investigations of wrongdoing at the federal government entity. Ashleigh Barry of Phoenix’ KPHO/KTVK News…
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Eileen Norcross and Olivia Gonzalez of the Mercatus Center have released a new report on the fiscal solvency of each of the United States, Ranking the States by Fiscal Condition. The rankings they determine for each state is based on the following five categories: Cash solvency. Does a state have enough cash on hand…
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A bill that would allow the U.S. territorial government of Puerto Rico to restructure its debts has passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, where it now needs Senate and Presidential approval to become law. The Wall Street Journal describes the main goals of the bill that passed in the House with bipartisan majorities….
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Last week, based on estimates published by the U.S. Treasury Department, we indicated that Saudi Arabia owns at least 0.6% of the U.S. government’s total public debt outstanding. But that leaves at least two really big questions unanswered: How much is the total national debt of the United States now? And who are the…
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By definition, waste is an act or instance of using or expending something carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose. In practice, the existence of waste means that costs get run up while nothing of benefit is produced. As an example, the U.S. federal government is extraordinarily wasteful. In fact, Investors Business Daily reports that…
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