Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently exposed vulnerabilities that end up costing taxpayers hundreds of billions in wasteful spending due to erroneous and sloppy billing, and outright fraud. The OIG’s October 7, 2016 report documented that even though The Medicare Access and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization […]
USPS Poorly Manages Owned Properties and Gas Rights
On September 20, 2016, the United States Postal Service (USPS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a report titled “The Oversight of Oil and Gas Mineral Rights.” The report sought to assess USPS’ oversight of their oil and gas mineral rights. What should surprise no one, the OIG found that there is significant room […]
Morning Joe Is Wrong: Medicare Does Negotiate Drug Prices
Today on the Morning Joe Show, a false narrative was perpetuated: Medicare does not negotiate drug prices. The show’s eponymous host, Joe Scarborough, called for free-marketers to call Congress and demand that the government negotiate Medicare drug prices. Joe needs to supervise his producers’ research better. The free market is very much involved in negotiating […]
President Clinton Did Not Say What You Think He Said
There’s been a lot of hoopla about former-President Bill Clinton’s recent criticism of Obamacare and the news media is playing some of the more juicer tidbits. So you’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden, 25 million more people have health care and then the people that are out there busting it […]
Clinton/Trump Round 2: Taxpayers Deserve a Policy Debate
Before the first Presidential debate on September 27, 2016, CAGW proposed policy questions that would enlighten taxpayers as to where each candidate stands on critical government waste issues facing the nation. Unfortunately, the debate utterly failed to discuss any of these issues with any depth, choosing to focus on shenanigans instead of substance. Hillary Clinton […]
Nothing to See Here. Move Along.
Yesterday, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) finally received an answer from the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics regarding an ethics complaint that we, and nine other signatories, submitted to them more than a year ago. The complaint, submitted on June 25, 2015, requested that the Senate Select Committee on Ethics investigate the senators and/or […]
Transparency Needed at the FCC
There is a problem with transparency at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) relating to the sharing of information with the public on critical regulatory matters under consideration. The most recent issue to arise relates to the proposed mandates being considered by the agency regarding set-top boxes. The notice of proposed rule-making was issued on February […]
Congress Passes Continuing Resolution
On September 28, 2016, the U.S. Senate and, a few hours later, the House of Representatives passed a resolution that would continue the funding of the government through December 9, 2016 – narrowly missing the last day of this fiscal year, which ends on the September 30th. Since Congress failed to pass the 12 individual […]
Set-Top Box Proposal Takes Center Stage
Technology innovations are great, and the advancement of the electronics industry over the past 20 years has been astounding. However, when the federal government steps in to mandate technology, typically progress comes to a halt. Such is the case with the set-top box. The cable industry has been in the process of moving away from […]
It’s Getting Rockier for Obamacare in Tennessee
Citizens Against Government Waste’s August WasteWatcher discussed how many states were seeing large health insurance rate increases in the Affordable Care Act’s (Obamacare) exchanges. In the state of Tennessee, Cigna and Humana revised their original premium rate increase request from an average of 23 percent to 46 percent and an average of 29 percent to […]