When Chicken Little said “The sky is falling!” and convinced his barnyard brethren of the same, the facts notwithstanding, he practically invented fear-mongering. Trade liberalization opponents are engaged in their own version of spreading false and misleading information by claiming that so-called “fast track” legislation is fraught with end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it perils. Just as the falling acorn […]
MR. GRUBER – COME ON DOWN!
On November 20, 2014, Chairman Darrel Issa of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent letters to Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Director Marilyn Tavenner and Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) professor Jonathan Gruber asking them to testify before his committee on December 9 at 9:30 AM. The topic: to examine the […]
Ding, Ding, Ding – Arlington, Virginia Hops Off the Trolley
Good for Arlington, Virginia for pulling the plug on its wasteful trolley project. May the action of a few sages in Arlington become a beacon of light to other municipalities, which may be experiencing the intense pressure of the “smart growth,” mass transit zealots, but really don’t want to bleed scarce tax dollars on projects […]
House Judiciary Tackles GSA Waste
House Judiciary Tackles GSA Waste By Colin Gamm The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet held a hearing today on two cases of wasteful courthouse renovations. The hearing topic was entitled “GSA’s Failure to Meet the Needs of the Judiciary: A Case Study of Bureaucratic Negligence and Waste.” The full Judiciary […]
CCAGW to Senate Judiciary: Lift Outdated , Onerous Regs During STELA Markup
June 17, 2014 The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy Chairman Senate Judiciary Committee 224 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 The Honorable Charles Grassley Ranking Member Senate Judiciary Committee 224 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Dear Chairman Leahy and Ranking Member Grassley, On behalf of the more than one million members and supporters […]
Eight Dirty Words… and the Mother of All Debt Bombs!
The April 16, 2014 article, “Senators Miss Sperling at Key Point for Housing Bill,” by Jon Prior, Kevin Cirilli and MJ Lee, probably should have appeared on “Page 6” of the New York Post – renowned for its gossipy tidbits about the Big Apple’s glitterati – instead of p. 10 of Politico, since it was […]
So Long, Farewell…
This week Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius resigned her position from the Department of Health and Human Services. Most policy people in Washington are not asking, “why?” but instead are pondering “what took so long?” Sebelius has been secretary at HHS since the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) was written, passed by […]
Obama of the Thousand Days
Yes, it’s happened again, twice in a matter of days. The Obama administration has made major changes to Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act (ACA) without Congressional approval. Based on a Galen Institute list of administrative changes to ACA, the first change occurred on April 19, 2011 when a Medicare Advantage “patch” was created to […]
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.”
In Case You Missed It
Between the three-day holiday weekend and the big snow storm on the east coast, you may have missed this news story from the Jan 17, Wall Street Journal. Titled “Exchanges See Little Progress on the Uninsured” by Christopher Weaver and Anna Wilde Mathews it concerns a survey undertaken by McKinsey & Company of 4,463 consumers between […]