Posted on June 30th, 2011 by Erica Gordon
Yesterday, the Senate threw logic to the wind and voted down Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) amendment, which would have prevented the creation of duplicative and overlapping federal programs. Senators voted 63 – 34 in favor of the amendment, but Senator Coburn still failed to gain the necessary 67 votes to secure passage. On March 1, 2011, the Government Accountability Office published a report [...]
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Posted on June 24th, 2011 by CAGW Staff
A May 4, 2011 report issued by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) has revealed that 100% of tested IRS databases are vulnerable to hackers. From the alarming report itself: “TIGTA found that non-mainframe databases containing taxpayer data were not always configured in a secure manner and that databases were running out-of-date software [...]
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Posted on June 24th, 2011 by CAGW Staff
The House Budget Committee last week granted its most recent “Budget Boondoggle Award” to the state of California’s increasingly dubious high-speed rail project (HSR). The award is a satirical distinction designed to draw taxpayers’ scorn toward proposals to spend taxpayer money particularly irresponsibly. As Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has insisted for some time, California’s [...]
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Posted on June 24th, 2011 by CAGW Staff
“We must get rid of stupid spending and pointless waste…Each taxpayer dollar is precious, and there is no excuse for wasting a single one,” stated U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in justifying the suspension of the International Scan program. LaHood announced the suspension in an email statement shortly after ABC News informed the U.S. Department [...]
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Posted on June 23rd, 2011 by Leslie Paige
On June 21, the Congressional Budget Office released its annual report on the long-term outlook for federal government finances. The news was not good. For starters, CBO gives this helpful context: just three years ago, in fiscal year 2008, federal debt held by the public totaled about 40 percent, just above the historical average. At [...]
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Posted on June 22nd, 2011 by Luke Gelber
Bloomberg reports that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) announced yesterday that, beginning June 24, it will stop making its biweekly contribution to its pension system. The Postal Service said ending the pension payments would save the organization $800 million this year – about 10 percent of its expected budget shortfall for the year (since USPS [...]
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Posted on June 21st, 2011 by Leslie Paige
Here is a quick synopsis of some of the GAO’s most interesting work in the last few weeks: U.S. Postal Service, June 15: The GAO writes, “USPS urgently needs to restructure its networks and operations as its financial condition and outlook are reaching a crisis. USPS has been experiencing billion-dollar losses and cash shortfalls over [...]
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Posted on June 16th, 2011 by Luke Gelber
According to a June 2011 Government Accountability Office (GAO), in fiscal year 2010 the federal government spent about $90 billion on domestic food and nutrition assistance programs. The spending was spread over at least 18 different programs. In its recent report outlining various ways in which the federal government could save money by cutting duplicative [...]
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Posted on June 16th, 2011 by CAGW Staff
A report released June 2, 2011 by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stated that the true cost of the federal government guaranteeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is substantially higher than the figures previously cited by officials. The two government sponsored enterprises (GSE) cost taxpayers $317 billion, or $187 billion more than the previous estimate [...]
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Posted on June 15th, 2011 by Luke Gelber
Today, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) its June Porker of the Month for littering the fiscal year (FY) 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with what appears to be pork. The defense authorization bill, drafted and approved on Chairman McKeon’s watch, originally included a $1 [...]
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