(Washington, D.C.) – Today in the nation’s capital, America’s premier waste watchdog released its June WasteWatcher articles on government waste:

Healthcare Reform: A Pricey Prescription

By Erica Gordon

President Obama promised this would be the year of healthcare reform.  After much anticipation, Congress has begun unveiling various healthcare reform plans that would, among other things, expand Medicaid, impose individual and employer mandates, enlarge the almost bankrupt Medicare program, create a new government-run healthcare plan, and cost at least $1 trillion over 10 years...

British Expense Scandal Should be Lesson for U.S. Lawmakers

By David Williams

The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) in Great Britain was founded in 2004 by Andrew Allum, Matthew Elliott, and Florence Heath to “represent taxpayers and to fight for lower taxes.”  CAGW has been working with the organization on a wide variety of issues, including more transparency in government for British taxpayers…

A "Generic" Call for Change

By Tom Schatz

As Congress braces for the largest reform of healthcare in the nation’s history, lost in the debate has been an issue critical to federal and state healthcare budgets, as well as the ability of consumers to afford lifesaving drugs.  The issue is whether Congress should grant generic makers of the next generation of medications called “biologics” the same regulatory approval treatment it did for chemical drugs under the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act...

Stimulating the Dead

By Roger Morse, Visiting Fellow

When the federal government decided to spend $787 billion to stimulate the economy in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), most Americans understood that a percentage of these funds would be wasted but Congress and the Administration swore that the stimulus money would go to “shovel ready” projects.  Apparently, the Social Security Administration (SSA) believes that a “shovel ready” project means digging up the dead to hand them a stimulus check…

Public vs. Private: May the Best Contractor Win

By Erica Gordon

The government should not compete with its citizens; it should rely on the private sector for commercially-available goods and services.  This is a common-sense idea: allow individuals, small businesses, and entrepreneurial companies to contract with the government, instead of creating duplicative and expensive government-run agencies and programs... 

CAGW is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.