Back in 2011 I wrote several times about the failure of Solyndra, the solar panel company that was well connected to the Obama administration. Then, as with so many stories, the topic passed out of the headlines and I lost touch with it.
Downsizing Blog
Federal Nuclear Clean Up: $150 Billion
Cleaning up the government’s nuclear weapons sites has become a vast sinkhole for taxpayer dollars. The Department of Energy (DOE) spends about $6 billion a year on environmental clean up of federal nuclear sites. These sites were despoiled in the decades following World War II with little notice taken by Congress. Then during the 1980s, a series of reports lambasted DOE for its lax safety and environmental standards, and federal polices began to change.
Hurricane Katrina: Remembering the Federal Failures
Ten years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast and generated a huge disaster. The storm flooded New Orleans, killed more than 1,800 people, and caused $100 billion in property damage. The storm’s damage was greatly exacerbated by the failures of Congress, the Bush administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Government Debt: Jefferson and Gallatin Were Right
The world economy is getting rattled this week by the consequences of excessive government debt. Greece may be cut off from its international creditors, and Puerto Rico announced that it cannot make full payments on its massive debt. In both cases, years of excessive spending are sadly dealing a crushing blow to the living standards of millions of average citizens.
GOP Candidates and Spending Cuts
You may remember Texas Governor Rick Perry’s brutal stumble in the November 2011 Republican presidential debate. He launched into a bold statement about his budget-cutting strategy, but then he couldn’t remember the third federal department that he wanted to abolish: “Commerce, Education and the um, what’s the third one there …”
Americans Want Politicians to Tackle Debt
A new poll by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation finds that 80 percent of Americans think that rising federal debt should be a top priority of policymakers
Lone Star Rail Insanity
Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Austin is congested, so obviously (to some people, at least) the solution is to run passenger trains between the two cities. Existing tracks are crowded with freight trains, so the Lone Star Rail District proposes to build a brand-new line for the freight trains and run passenger trains on the existing tracks. The total capital cost would be about $3 billion, up from just $0.6 billion in 2004 (which probably didn’t include the freight re-route).
The Feds into Everything
Our hyperactive, grasping federal government has inserted its wasteful, probing fingers into just about everything these days.
Maintaining and Enforcing Spending Caps Is a Huge Test of GOP Credibility on Fiscal Policy
Let’s celebrate some good news. When politicians can be convinced (or pressured) to exercise even a modest bit of spending restraint, it’s remarkably simple to get positive results.
Clinton’s Debt-Free Tuition Plan Seems Likely to Flunk
Over the next couple of days, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will be playing up her new, $350-billion proposal primarily intended to make paying public college tuition a debt-free experience.