With the election only weeks away, pundits are visualizing how a Republican-controlled Senate would impact future policy decisions. Today’s Washington Post highlights the supposed plight of federal workers under a Republican Congress.

The Secret Service is scandal prone. It spends excessively on foreign presidential trips, and it has agents who get in trouble with prostitutes and 

The problems with federal highway spending are well documented. The program distorts project incentives and distributes money inefficiently. A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) adds to the list of problems, detailing improper fund management within the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

State budgets face numerous long-term pressures, including overpromised and underfunded pensions. Another challenge is Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income individuals, which is growing rapidly in cost and enrollment.

In an editorial today, the Wall Street Journal discusses Democratic complaints linking Ebola with supposedly falling spending on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Let’s take a look at the data with the Downsizing Government chart tool. Click open Health and Human Services, then click on CDC. Hold your mouse over the line to see the data.

When politicians write policy books, they are often shallow affairs full of party talking points. Bill White’s America’s Fiscal Constitution is different. It is an excellent and scholarly book.

Cato’s “Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors” focuses on short-term tax and spending decisions made by governors. But governors and legislatures also make important decisions that will affect state budgets over the longer term.

This morning, Cato released the 12th edition of the “Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors.” The report card uses statistical data to grade the governors on their tax and spending performance from a limited-government perspective. The governors who cut taxes and spending the most receive an “A,” while the governors who increase taxes and spending the most receive an “F.”

This is a really bad policy idea: the U.S. Postal Service wants to get into the grocery delivery business. Economists will sometimes support government interventions in industries where there are serious market failures. But with grocery delivery, private businesses are already performing the service, and no market failure is evident.

As research for this essay on the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I visited the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). I found virtually no information useful for my project.