On September 24, the House of Representatives passed the fiscal year 2009 Defense Authorization Act by a vote of 392-39. The Senate will approve the legislation as well. It includes more than $600 billion for national security programs in the Energy and Defense departments.
Embattled Doan Cuts Waste
The General Services Administration (GSA) is often called “the government’s landlord.” It is responsible for the upkeep of the government’s 8,600 buildings. The agency has a $66 billion budget and 12,000 employees, and its current administrator is Lurita Doan.
While she has been making progress in reducing wasteful spending at GSA, Doan has dealt with several scandals. Soon after taking over GSA in May, 2006, she gave a no-bid contract to a company owned by a longtime friend. According to a January 19, 2007 article in The Washington Post, the $20,000 contract signed by Doan was cancelled in the summer of 2006, after senior GSA officials determined that it violated procurement rules.
Waste on a Plane
According to a September 28, 2007 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, federal employees have been flying first and business classes more than they should. The GAO reviewed credit card records for air travel purchases of federal employees between 2005 and 2006 and discovered that agencies spent $230 million on 53,000 premium-class tickets. In more than two-thirds of the cases, the high-cost airfare was not sanctioned or justifiable, costing taxpayers $146 million annually.
Read Our Lips: No New Internet Taxes
In the fall of 1998, the Internet Tax Freedom Act put a moratorium on discriminatory and multiple Internet taxes on electronic commerce and access taxes at the federal, state, and local levels. With large bipartisan support, the ban was extended in 2001 and 2004. It expires on November 1, 2007. Congress is considering a four-year extension.
Abstinence of Logic
Abstinence education is not just for teenagers anymore.
In a strange shift in guidelines for grant awards, the government’s official message of no sex prior to marriage will be directed at single individuals up to 29 years old. Hypothetically, this means a recently divorced man or woman weeks shy of their 30th birthday is now a target for taxpayer-funded, abstinence-only education. This will be official policy starting in fiscal year 2007.
FEMA and Trading Spaces
When a participant goes on the popular Learning Channel show Trading Spaces, they have two days to redesign a room in the home of a friend or family member. They must remain under budget throughout the process. Conversely, when FEMA decides to remodel, it tends to extend projects indefinitely and ignore budget limitations. Nonetheless, fans of the home improvement show might still enjoy FEMA’s project along the Gulf Coast.
College Town Poverty – Ramen Noodles AGAIN?
It’s an early afternoon on a crisp fall day in an average college town. In preparation for the game, young professionals are piling into local bars and restaurants to see their alma mater play. The late risers are lining up at the numerous downtown coffee shops to inject some caffeine prior to kickoff. After the game, there are more festivities – food, drinks, and celebration.
Nothing seems out of the ordinary, until one learns that the federal government occasionally labels such towns as among the poorest in the country. This backwards fact is made possible by the government’s formula that determines distribution of anti-poverty funds.
Taxpayers Get Railroaded
In an emergency supplemental appropriations bill designed to provide $92 billion for the war on terror and hurricane relief, Mississippi Senators Trent Lott (R) and Thad Cochran (R) added $700 million to relocate newly repaired railroad tracks. The costly pork barrel project has been jammed into an already bloated bill which currently sits at $106.5 billion, or $14.5 billion above the $92 billion version passed by the House last month, which met the President’s request.