Most people would agree with Chris Edwards that the federal tax code is insanely complicated. The IRS Commissioner doesn’t do his own taxes, the Treasury secretary and other Washington policy experts haven’t paid what is owed, and the already overwhelmed IRS would be given an expanded role under the Democrat’s health care legislation.
Downsizing Blog
Cost Overrun Incompetence at Energy
OMB Director Peter Orszag is blaming the inefficiencies of the federal government on outdated personal computers. That is hard to understand given that federal IT spending amounted to $200 million a day last year.
HHS Bureaucracy is Not up to the Task
One aspect of the health care debate that has not been sufficiently addressed is how the Department of Health and Human Services will handle all its new responsibilities given the massive fraud and abuse that already plagues its existing programs.
Federal Job Creation
The board game Monopoly first took off during the Great Depression. A different game has become popular during today’s Great Recession. In this game, politicians race against high unemployment to create jobs in order to save their own. The players (politicians) have unlimited tax and borrowing authority, and can call upon friendly economists to help them maneuver. The players even get to keep score, although the media can penalize shoddy scorekeeping. Ultimately, voters will decide which players win and lose in the fall elections.
Pepsi Throwback and the Sugar Racket
This weekend while watching a football game with a friend, I saw a commercial for Pepsi “Throwback.” This is a new product containing real sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. My friend was incredulous when I explained that soft drinks manufactured for sale domestically generally don’t contain sugar because government protection of the U.S. sugar industry from imports make its use cost-prohibitive.
Federal Bias Toward Homeownership
The Wall Street Journal ran the story last week: “U.S. Now a Renters’ Market.” Apartment vacancies hit a 30-year high in the last quarter of 2009, and rents are falling in most markets. For current or former homeowners trying to stumble out of the debris left from the government-fueled housing bubble, a renter-friendly environment is a positive opportunity.
Medicaid's Cash Cab
As Congress hashes out an agreement behind closed doors to expand the government’s role in health care, a Medicaid story out of New York serves as another reminder that government is part of the health care problem, not the solution. Audits released by the state’s comptroller found $169 million in misspent funds, including a $196,000 cab bill for a woman who took a daily $300 taxi ride to visit her son in Albany for three years.
Government vs. Private IT Spending
The government is less efficient than the private sector, and technology investment is a prime example. A column this week on the federal CIO, Vivek Kundra, by InformationWeek’s Bob Evans illustrates this reality. Evans begins his column with some well-placed sarcasm:
U.S. Best for Investing in Farmland, but...
According to AgWeb.com, “Midwestern U.S. farmland provides investors the best opportunity and risk to reward” in the world. Five factors were analyzed, including soil content, growing season, and infrastructure. But it was the last two, property rights and government support, which caught my attention.
Census Paves the Way for Subsidies
Our bloated government does a lot of things it shouldn’t, but the decennial census is one of the handful of federal activities the Constitution approves of. The census was intended simply to determine the number of seats each state would have in the House of Representatives. Today, census data is plugged into government formulas to determine how more than $400 billion in subsidies from the federal welfare state are allocated to state and local governments.