waste

Lisa Rein and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux of the Washington Post report:

The system of federal and state "exchanges" or "marketplaces" that offer health insurance through the Affordable Care Act lean heavily on "navigators" to guide consumers in their choices. Organizations such as community health centers, legal aid societies, social service groups, church groups and…

Federal agencies set a new record for improper payments last year, shelling out $125 billion in questionable benefits after years of declines. The Feds, as the AP reports, blew the billions on (among other things):

A former IRS tax examiner was indicted Friday along with three conspirators for filing false tax returns and making false claims for lost income related to the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The IRS worker, Jimmie McCorvey of Pensacola, FL, helped the other three obtain $95,200 from…

Vice President Biden spent about a day and a half in Belgium in early February to meet with various European leaders, but his entourage, security team and other delegation members required up to 209 rooms for up to three weeks surrounding the visit. While the estimated tab was $690,507, this cost…

In January, the State Department signed contracts for an estimated $1,690,000 million for hotels for President Obama's trip to India. Two of the contracts were for the New Delhi stay, and another two were for Agra, the location of the Taj Mahal. That latter leg of the trip was cancelled when…

Lisa Rein of the Washington Post writes that:

In a 2011 blog post titled "There's a New Sheriff in Town," the White House announced that Vice President Joe Biden was spearheading a new "effort to root out wasteful spending at every agency and department in the Federal Government" called the Campaign to Cut Waste. As if to emphasize the urgency…

A headline in the Wall Street Journal reads, “U.S. Deficit Shrinks to Level Last Seen in ’07.”  The problem with this headline isn’t its accuracy (although it should say ’08 unless it’s speaking as a percentage of GDP).  The problem is that readers are likely to come away with the false perception…

After nine years and $247 million, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) new high-tech disaster relief system may not work as intended, according to a new report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Not only is the system unable to…

President Obama was counting strokes on the golf course at Fort Belvoir in northern Virginia last Saturday, but the day before a $91,318.76 contract was awarded to count something quite different at Fort Belvoir: bats. The Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation will conduct the "Bat…

Thanks to the marvels of the digital epoch, citizens can now track the government’s spending of public money.  On a website, of all things.  Of course, while the technology may change and improve, the eternals still apply.  So one is not especially astonished to learn, as Gregory Korte of USA…

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published a month ago but just publicly released on Monday found that while the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has taken steps to see that ineligible beneficiaries do not receive reduced-price or free school meals, oversight still needs to be…

The Scrapbook was dimly aware that the U.S. Army was reengineering its ammo but still was taken aback to read that it took 15 years and an estimated $100 million to come up with a new 5.56 NATO round for our infantrymen. It cost so much and took so long because, you know, it’s not easy being green.…

The FBI announced Tuesday in Savannah, Georgia that eighty-eight people have been charged in "one of the largest federal food program frauds ever prosecuted." Fifty-four of the defendants were charged with conspiring to open "purported grocery stores" specifically for the purpose of defrauding…

The official White House schedule says President Obama was in the Philippines for less than 24 hours, but the estimated cost of the hotel and vehicle rentals in support of the trip topped $1.1 million. The hotel contract (Sofitel Luxury Hotel) provided for up to 3,600 room night plus various…

An eye-opening report from KMOV about an Obamacare contractor using taxpayer dollars to pay their employees to spend all day doing nothing:

Four years after Obamacare became law, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is notifying Medicare providers and suppliers of new fingerprint-based background checks.  Eventually, all individuals who hold a five percent or greater stake in a Medicare supplier or provider that is…

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released details of the latest contract with Terremark Federal Group covering "open market items" required for the ongoing operation of Healthcare.gov. The documents include an itemized list of computing and network services, fees, licenses and…

A provision tucked away in a 2008 bill allocated $20 million to create an office at the USDA to inspect facilities that process catfish. Seafood inspections have traditionally been done by the Food and Drug Administration—and if you're wondering why one species of fish needs to be inspected by two…

A report issued in September and released this week by the IRS's Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found continuing problems with the agency's Volunteer Program, which provides free tax preparation and electronic filing for "low- and moderate-income, elderly, disabled, and…

The findings of the newly released NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll are simply brutal for congressional Republicans. Not only are they getting the lion's share of the blame for the government shutdown, but President Obama's numbers have actually improved. Worse, Obamacare's numbers are improving,…

Just a week before the government shutdown kicked in on October 1, the State Department awarded a five-year, maximum $5 million contract for custom handcrafted crystal stem and barware, according to a report in the Valley News, an online news site in Vermont (via Charlie Perkins).  Valley News…

Only "essential" employees of the federal government are still working during the shutdown. And at the Federal Election Commission that means practically no one is coming one. 

In 2009, the Obama administration made news with an $18 million, five year contract to redesign Recovery.gov, the website the government set up to allow taxpayers to track the stimulus spending enacted by the president and Congress soon after President Obama took office.  On Wednesday, notice of…

The state of Alabama received bonus payments from Medicaid for 2009 and 2010 that were a stunning 13 times higher than the state was eligible for.  So says the inspector general (IG) for Health and Human Services in a report released on Wednesday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a report on Thursday regarding illegal trafficking in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps. The report showed that the rate of trafficking rose from 1 percent of total benefits in the last study…

Despite an admission by the Department of Transportation (DOT) that the Federal-aid Highway Programs under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) are "susceptible to significant improper payments," the DOT Inspector General (IG) has terminated an audit initiated in April "due to other…

On Friday, the Obama administration dropped another health care implementation bombshell.

There is a lot in the farm bill not to like, which makes it like every farm bill of the last half century. There are also, as Erik Wasson of the Hill reports, the usual absurdities, which opponents will try to carve out of the bill and, no doubt, fail in the attempt.  The larger the outrage, the…

From a congressional hearing today:

At a Democratic National Committee fund raising event in Atherton, California Thursday morning, President Obama declared that the United States government still needs to get its fiscal house in order:

Another resignation at the Department of Veterans Affairs after the inspector general discovered that “as much as $762,000 was wasted on the conferences for a parody video of the movie ‘Patton,’ trinkets including pedometers and water bottles, and overpriced food and drinks. The total cost of the…

Just before breaking away for summer recess, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 26-3 to approve $61.3 million in spending to fix the Capitol Dome. Only 3 senators on the almost 30-person body voted against the measure. 

[A] regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, explained in 2010 that he understands the EPA policy to be to "crucify" a few oil and gas companies to get the rest of the industry to comply with the laws. So maybe it is better if the bureaucrats spend their time – and our money…

Until last week, Mitt Romney had trouble getting potential voters to care so much that they would crawl over ground glass to get to the polling station and vote for him.  But now, the man and moment may have come together, thanks to employees of the General Services Administration and the Secret…

Lawrence Pitts, provost of the University of California, writes this letter to the editor in response to Charlotte Allen's “Boondoggle U.,” which appeared in the most recent issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD:

The 411,618 square foot Solyndra building in Fremont, California has been put on the market:

A clown and mindreader stood in front of Senate office buildings, passing out their resumes to employees of the Government Services Administration (GSA), who were on Capitol Hill to testify, and asking the embattled government bureaucrats for jobs.

In times past, government "service" was the career choice for people who didn't really believe in fun. Or had never had much practice at it, anyway. The federal bureaucrat, back then, dressed gray and thought in columns of figures. The kind with many, many zeroes. Washington, D.C., in those days,…

Tom Maguire: "Politico Sends In The Clowns"

On October 12, Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, filed for bankruptcy. The move took most of America by surprise—​

Hot Air: "Report: At least 200 murders in Mexico now linked to Fast & Furious weapons"

Here's your eye-popping statistic of the day, courtesy Stephen Losey at Federal Times: