This column tracks government waste, fraud and abuse, and on rare occasions, so does government itself. For example, a new report from California State Auditor Elaine Howle finds that “Caltrans’ weak cost controls over field maintenance work orders create opportunities for fraud, waste, and abuse.” Caltrans division of maintenance, the report says, “paid $250,000…
Read More »
With newspapers in decline, stories about government waste, fraud and abuse tend to get short shrift. One notable exception is Jon Ortiz of the Sacramento Bee, whose “State Worker” columns demonstrate how waste works. For example, California’s Board of Equalization, a tax agency, wanted to replace a door. The initial cost for that simple…
Read More »
As we recently noted, injustices such as wrongful imprisonment, needless trial expenses and prosecutorial errors cost California taxpayers $282 million from 1989 to 2012. These costs are hardly the only problem in the criminal justice system, as Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee observes. Walters has been on the job since the 1970s and…
Read More »
The question is answered by the reporting of the Daily Caller News Foundation‘s Kathryn Watson: Uncle Sam’s financial statements are so bad the Government Accountability Office (GAO) flunked him for the 19th year in a row. The Department of Defense, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Department of Agriculture have books in such…
Read More »
Taxpayers are familiar with waste in boondoggles such as California’s $68 billion bullet train project and the new span of the Bay Bridge with its cost overruns of $5 billion. Likewise, State Parks bureaucrats keep a hidden slush fund of $54 million and education bosses get lavish salaries and benefits unconnected to student achievement….
Read More »
Lance Roberts is an investment advisor who also hosts a radio show in Houston, Texas. Recently, he had a Twitter exchange with Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, in which Steve asked the following question: Does rising debt cause slow growth or does slow growth cause debt to rise? Roberts’ response to the question makes…
Read More »
How much does your state or local government’s debt add to your personal share of government debt? With so many different jurisdictions and debt-issuing governments, getting a precise answer to that can be extraordinarily difficult to determine, but thanks to the following map produced by the Tax Foundation, we can get you a somewhat…
Read More »
Government waste abounds in California but is not always easy to spot. Veteran observer Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee suggests a hard look at “overlapping and utterly confusing governmental entities that cloud accountability.” His first example is the California Coastal Commission, by some accounts the most powerful land-use body in the nation, and…
Read More »
How does life change when a government doesn’t have the money to pay the people who loaned it money? The answer to the question is that life gets a lot harder, as the Associated Press’ Danica Coto reports in “Puerto Rico is cracking down on people who steal power, cheat on their taxes or…
Read More »
While millions around the world watched the Academy Awards on February 28, Brian Lamb of C-SPAN was hosting Thomas Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. The interview confirmed that when it comes to wasting taxpayers’ money, government bureaucrats are endlessly creative. Lamb recalled the first Golden Fleece award in 1975, a project of…
Read More »
 |
 |
 |