Jon Ortiz of the Sacramento Bee has dubbed the State Board of Equalization (BOE) headquarters in the state capitol as a “Terror Tower,” with good reason. Since the 24-story office building opened 21 years ago, taxpayers have “shoveled about $60 million into combating defects that have plagued the tower, including invasive mold, leaking windows,…
Read More »
Taxpayers calculating the cost of government should remain on full alert for waste on all fronts, but particularly in the military. Consider, for example, this story in the Daily Beast about the new fleet of presidential helicopters. These will be “the most expensive helicopters ever made,” with each one logging in at $400 million,…
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 »
As Josh Hicks reports in the Washington Post, the U.S. Postal Service lost $1.9 billion in the second quarter, and the losses come despite increases in revenues, higher prices for stamps, and a boost in USPS package shipping. The losses, Hicks notes, mark “the 20th time in the last 22 quarters in which the…
Read More »
Most Americans have completed their tax returns and may even have got back some of their own money. Now they should get out the government cost calculator again because as Kelly Cohen reports in the Washington Examiner, last year the IRS gave out between $13.3 billion and $15.6 billion in improper payments. That amounted…
Read More »
As we have noted, the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge cost $6.4 billion, a full $5 billion more than the original estimate, and the project came in ten years late. The delay of a decade, however, was not sufficient to resolve serious safety problems with the bridge. Those were the subject of…
Read More »
Most taxpayers will be unfamiliar with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), but they might want to get up to speed for several reasons. The NTIA is “the Executive Branch agency that is principally responsible by law for advising the President on telecommunications and information policy issues.” The NTIA’s programs and policymaking focus…
Read More »
Insider trading is normally conducted by individuals with access to public companies’ information. But as this report notes, governments also conduct “insider trading in jobs” as shown by the case of Gerardo Lopez, a sergeant-at-arms in the California Senate. In 2012 Lopez was involved in a gunfight at his house that left one person…
Read More »
Taxpayers prone to wonder why government is so wasteful should take a hard look at government-employee pensions in general and the practice of double-dipping in particular. As this report notes, Bill Carnahan, head of the Southern California Public Power Authority, took both his full-time salary and his pension at the same time, and he…
Read More »
In 2004, California’s $3 billion Stem Cell Research and Cures Act, Proposition 71, promised life-saving cures and therapies for a host of afflictions. Voters approved the measure, which created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Ten years later CIRM has spent nearly $2 billion, but as this report notes, “No cures have yet…
Read More »
 |
 |
 |