As the Illinois legislature winds up the 2013 session by creating a new $750,000 “Forever Green Illinois Program” (it’s really there on pp. 8-9 of the 284-page budget bill) that would fund the “maintenance and beautification of greenery,” including grass, weeds, trees, shrubs, bushes, and plants on state or local government property, elected officials should also consider adopting a new official […]
Set and Match!
On Tuesday, May 28, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) ruling on the placement of the Tennis Channel in Comcast’s cable tiers of service. Comcast, a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD), already offered the Tennis Channel to its subscribers in its premium package, as part of […]
Uptick in Part Timers Linked to Obamacare
Trend is Toward Fewer Hours Not More Jobs First, let me offer congratulations to the 165,000 families whose personal unemployment rate went from 100% to 0%, always a joyous event, both in terms of economics, as well as self-worth and esteem, during the last month! Unfortunately, it is widely estimated that the minimum average monthly […]
Slow Progress, but Progress Nonetheless
On May 21, 2013, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced the approval of Amazon Web Services as an authorized cloud service provider for the federal government under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) submitted the application for Amazon Web Services to receive its provisional authority […]
Peeling Back Another Onion
As I wrote last week, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has gotten herself into some hot water concerning her solicitation for donations for non-profit groups that will help with the implementation of Obamacare. She asked for donations from corporations, some of which are regulated by HHS, and foundations. Reuters reports the non-profit “Enroll America” seems to […]
In Other News…..The Farm Bill and The Terrible Twelve!
With the triad of scandals rocking Washington this week, you would be forgiven if you were unaware of the fact that we are heading into consideration of a five-year $940 billion Farm Bill, starting Monday. CCAGW, along with ten other taxpayer watchdog and consumer groups, distributed a nice primer on the “Terrible Twelve” items currently contained in the behemoth that should be of serious concern: “Washington’s Farm Policy is a nearly […]
Show Me the Money
The Washington Post had an interesting column a few days ago. It seems Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is asking for more money from health industry officials to help implement Obamacare since Congress is refusing to provide more funds. While the effort is caged as asking for “donations” it does not take […]
We Agree with David Axelrod
Every once in a while a politician or political operative says something with which everyone can agree. So today, for the first time, all of us at CAGW agree with David Axelrod to the extent that he acknowledged that the government is too big. Obviously we don’t agree that the size of the government excuses […]
Nothing New Under the IRS Sun
By now I am sure you have heard that the IRS targeted and harassed Tea Party and conservative groups that were trying to obtain non-profit status. If a group used words like “tea party” or “patriot” in their organization’s name or the phrase “making America a better place to live” it was enough to raise […]
The Proof is in the Metrics
On Tuesday, May 14, 2013, the House Oversight and Government Affairs Subcommittee on Government Operations held a hearing on “Data Centers and Cloud Computing: Is the Government Optimizing New Information Technologies to Save Taxpayer Dollars?” Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CAGW) most recent cloud computing report, the 2012 Federal Cloud Review discussed the potential for savings […]