We were among the first to report that President Obama’s proposed budget would break the debt deal reached in the U.S. Congress last summer. Today, although the President’s proposed budget is officially dead, the leadership of the majority Democratic party in the U.S. Senate according to Powerlineblog is taking steps to make breaking that…
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Here is an apparently common scene today from the U.S. Senate’s first session to attempt to mark up a budget for the first time in almost three years (we’re nearly a week away from the official anniversary of the last time the Democratic Party-controlled body acted to do so, as they are required to…
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The Wall Street Journal reports: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta defended his government-plane trips to his California home Monday, but said he regretted the cost to taxpayers—about $870,000—at a time when the Pentagon faces billions of dollars in spending cuts. “I regret that it does … add costs that the taxpayer has to pick up,”…
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What happens when the federal government’s bureaucrats, such as those of the General Services Administration, don’t have any effective oversight in the executive branch when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars? Well, rather than us tell you, let’s have the reporters of the Washington Post describe the agency’s Inspector General’s findings of fiscal malfeasance,…
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CNS News reports: The government spent at least $205,075 in 2010 to “translocate” a single bush in San Francisco that stood in the path of a $1.045 billion highway-renovation project that was partially funded by the economic stimulus legislation President Barack Obama signed in 2009. It must be easy to spend this kind of…
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If the United States were make a real effort to run a budget surplus for the sake of cutting its national debt burden in half by the year 2050, how big would those budget surpluses have to be? The Economist answers the question for the U.S. and 25 other nations in chart form: The…
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Do you ever feel like you need a scorecard to keep track of all the various spending proposals being put forward for the U.S. federal government’s budget? If so, you’re in luck! The Mercatus Center has put together the following chart that you can use as a scorecard to see how well each of…
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In “Bad Rap: Video Spoof Amplifies Agency Ill” (Wall Street Journal), Peter Landers reports that in a rap video produced by a Government Service Agency (GSA) employee, he fantasizes about being a GSA Commissioner and spending lavish amounts of taxpayers’ dollars with no accountability. For the video, he won a GSA contest, which was…
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Via the Associated Press, all values below are in millions of U.S. dollars (because apparently, to save ink, the AP cut them off. We’ve added the dollar signs and better punctuation): WASHINGTON (AP) — Figures on government spending and debt (last six digits are eliminated). The government’s fiscal year runs Oct. 1 through Sept….
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A recent article in the Huffington Post points out that our country is officially on spending autopilot. What do I mean when I say the budget is “on autopilot”? Right now, vast swaths of government spending are classified as “mandatory.” That means certain programs are funded automatically. In other words, they are funded outside…
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