On February 3, 2014, the Senate followed the House’s lead and voted 72-22 in favor of the conference report to accompany H.R. 2642, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013, more commonly known as the Farm Bill. In passing the legislation, Congress is sending to the President a bill that is both a disaster for taxpayers and likely to be even more expensive and wasteful than the abysmal 2008 Farm Bill that it is replacing.
More Problems with Medicaid Expansion
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, the eligibility for Medicaid program was expanded to nearly all Americans under the age of 65 that are effectively at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level (approximately $32,913 for a family of four.) Prior to Obamacare, Medicaid eligibility was for these mandatory classes: children, pregnant women, very-low income parents, seniors, the blind, and the disabled. Eligibility for these six classes varies by income. (States do have some flexibility in designing and expanding the program.)
Defense Bill: Good, Bad, and Ugly
As taxpayers peruse the Department of Defense (DOD) section of the monolithic Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014 (H.R. 3547) that funds the federal government through fiscal year (FY) 2014, they will find mixed blessings. The positive news is that the budget for the Army’s Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS-A) was slashed by 58.5 percent, from $267,214,000 […]
Obama’s 2014 SOTU: Epic Fail
In his fifth State of the Union address (SOTU) delivered to Congress on January 28, 2014, President Obama failed to utter a single word regarding government waste or the growing national debt, and threatened to continue acting as a “Congress of One,” legislating through the increased use of executive orders. He not only failed to identify a significant cost-cutting proposal or promote an effective pro-growth policy, he also offered only a laundry list of new government spending programs. The speech was long on self-congratulation and short on accomplishments because the President has little to preen about.
The Great GATB
Spoiler Alert! In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, the protagonist, Jay Gatsby, is ultimately gunned down in a case of mistaken identity. In another case of mistaken identity, the Government Accountability and Transparency Board (GATB), an entity established by executive order on June 13, 2011, as part of the Obama Administration’s “Campaign to Cut Waste,” can be easily confused with the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (Recovery Board), a separate operation that manages the Recovery.gov website and oversees spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, more commonly known as the “stimulus.”
Cloud First: Three Years Later
In December 2010, the Obama administration announced its 25-Point Plan to reform federal information technology (IT) management (the 25-Point Plan). As part of the plan, agencies were to implement a “cloud first” strategy when purchasing new IT systems and programs. At the time, there was much head-scratching about how this new policy would be implemented, and whether or not it would save taxpayer dollars and streamline federal IT programs.
Eighteen Years and Counting
On February 8, 2014, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 will turn eighteen years old. For most eighteen year-olds this is a major milestone in life. Gaining a sense of maturity; showing that one is ready to face the world. You even get to vote. However, for a law that regulates an innovative and stunningly evolving […]
Declaration of Dependence
A February 4, 2013 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report confirmed what taxpayer watchdog groups such as Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) have been warning about for years: Obamacare is an unprecedented disaster for every American’s personal health and the country’s economic health. CBO reported that 2.5 million people, a historically high number, will leave the […]
Disturbing News on Medicaid from Oregon
Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) in 2010 objected to the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid, a “partnership” between state governments and Washington to provide healthcare to the poor, knowing at the time that the price tag would be prohibitive and it would put the federal and local governments in charge of millions of Americans’ […]
India Bottoms Out on IP Protection
On January 29, 2014, the Global Intellectual Property Center released its second annual intellectual property index, rating how various countries around the world performed on protecting intellectual property (IP). The points were awarded six categories: Patents, Related Rights, and Limitations (7 points); Copyrights, Related Rights and Limitations (6 points); Trademarks, Related Rights, and limitations (5 […]