Special Trustee Thomas Sloanaker, an independent overseer for the Department of the Interior, was forced to resign his post recently because he openly criticized the department for its ongoing mismanagement of Indian trust funds.  He was then offered the choice of resigning or being fired.
-- The Wall Street Journal (7/31)

Unions recruited a firefighter and a border security agent to testify alongside Senate Democrats in opposition to management flexibility within the Homeland Security Department.  President Bush has threatened to veto over the measure, which could restrict the department's autonomy to direct its resources where need demands.
-- Associated Press (7/31)

In a rare moment, the Senate passed the Defense Appropriation with less than the amount requested by the White House.  Cynics point out the defense bill will likely be hiked in Senate-House conference, while the other appropriations bills with more than requested will remain the same.
-- Associated Press (7/31)

Former presidential candidate Bob Dole will star in a series of federally financed advertisements for the USA Freedom Corps, to promote its recently redesigned website.
-- Washington Post (7/31)

The 1996 welfare reforms will expire this October, and the Bush Administration proposes to renew it with more teeth using longer workweek requirements.  The Senate sees things differently though, and its version will allow education and job searching to count as work, and adds $5.5 billion over the next five years for child care.
-- Washington Post (7/30)

The House Energy Plan promises $33 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for the energy industry.  The Senate bill, with a price tag of $14.5 billion, looks to be better but will mail as many checks to "green" energy as it will to viable sources.
-- Washington Post (7/30)

The U.S. Treasury will borrow $76 billion to cover new debt in the July-September period, $21 billion more than expected.
-- Washington Post (7/30)

A Bush Administration audit of the Centers for Disease Control has provoked criticism of taxpayer-funded HIV prevention programs in San Francisco that feature drag queens and masturbation demonstrations.
-- Foxnews.com (7/30)

The White House is transforming its Radio Free Afghanistan into a full fledged Office of Global Communications, a government PR firm for American foreign policy.
-- Washington Post (7/30)

The Bush Administration, through the Office of Budget and Management, is pushing management reform through red-lining government agencies.  The reform would implement management flexibility in pay and firing.  Naturally, unions oppose it.  Interest in the initiative is said to be low on Capitol Hill, especially in the House.
-- Federal Times (7/29)

The IRS quietly 'fessed up to politically motivated tax audits recently, with a 1,500-page dump of Freedom of Information Act requests.  The Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, and other right-leaning associations were audited during the Clinton Administration.
-- Syndicated columnist Robert Novak (7/29)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott McCallum (R) is advancing a state constitutional amendment, forcing a referendum for any tax increase.  "I want to make it as difficult as I can in this state to raise taxes," McCallum said. "We're the third-highest in the nation for state and local taxes."
-- Florida Today (7/28)

The Clinton Administration attempted to terminate artificial beach construction on the coast, but instead of extinguishing these programs eventually increased them.  Since then, the government has spent a record $788 million to build up shorelines from North Carolina to California.  Bush has requested an additional $73.6 million.
-- Florida Today (7/28)

According to the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency, glow sticks and bottled water are drug paraphernalia.  Commonly used by ecstasy rollers at raves, the RAVE Act would cement these agencies' efforts to shut down electronic music concerts at which they are often sold.
-- Instapundit.com (7/25)

The Bush Administration's executive branch appointees are waiting longer for confirmation than any others since 1960, the Brookings Institution reports.  Ninety nine cabinet-level positions remain unfilled.
-- Washington Post (7/25)

The Senate Military Construction Appropriation, opposed by the Bush Administration for its unnecessary $1.1 billion of bloat, passed 96-3 with only two Republicans loyal to their president.
-- CongressDaily (7/25)

The Senate has proposed to increase Amtrak's appropriation this year to $1.2 billion, twice the Bush recommendation.  Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) proposed a $64.6 billion transportation bill with similar increases for highways and airports.  To make way for the new spending, Congress proposed to cut funding to the high-priority Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
--Washington Post (7/25)

In a day of limited military resources, retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) secured $8 million in federal funding for an Army parking garage.  He obtained the funds through the defense appropriations bill, and rather than give them to his home state, he has routed them to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Northwest DC where he currently lives.
--Roll Call (7/25)

Senate Majority Leader Daschle (D-S.D.) slipped a provision into the emergency supplemental defense bill exempting South Dakota from environmental regulations and lawsuits related to logging.  Other states still must follow federal statue when fighting catastrophic fires.
--Washington Times (7/24)

Congress pushed through a pay raise for itself and other federal employees to match the 4.1 percent pay raise given to military personnel.  The Bush Administration had requested a 2.6 percent raise for civilian employees this year.
--Washington Post (7/24)
 
California passed a law to regulate the fuel economy standards of all automobiles sold inside state borders, as well as to add carbon dioxide to the list of regulated chemicals.  CO2 is not on the EPA's list of regulated emissions because it is exhaled by every animal.  The new standards may necessitate another move to smaller cars, a move the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis says is responsible for around a 20 percent increase in motor vehicle deaths.
--Washington Post (7/24)

Trial lawyer Samuel Hersch has announced a class action lawsuit against the four largest fast food chains, accusing them of responsibility for his clients' obesity.  Through deceptive advertising and poor nutritional choices, the plaintiff says that fast food companies created an addiction resulting in high blood pressure and diabetes.
--FOXNews.com (7/23)

Former President Bill Clinton criticized the $1 billion the U.S. is committed to spending fighting AIDS worldwide; $2.5 billion would be closer to our share, he said.
--NBC.com (7/23)

The Senate Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee added another $900 million to the FY2003 Agriculture spending bill, already at $17 billion due to the 2002 Farm Bill.  In total, spending increased $1.6 billion over FY2002.
--Congressional Quarterly (7/23)

A federal employee had a 0.02722 chance of being dismissed for performance reasons from 1997-2001.
--Washington Post (7/23)

How are states using funds won from their massive tobacco lawsuit? New York spent $24 million for a county jail and office building, and $700,000 on a sprinkler system at a golf course.  Alaska used $3.5 million of its settlement to renovate shipping docks.  Ironically, North Carolina used $42 million of it to market its state tobacco products.
--Good Morning America (7/22)

The federal government posted an $118 billion deficit in a preliminary fiscal report.  The Office of Management and Budget predicts the 2002 deficit will grow to $165 billion by the end of FY2002.
--Wall Street Journal (7/22)

The Transportation Security Agency, an agency created 10 months ago in the wake of airport security scares, has come under fire from lawmakers for failing to do much of anything.  The bureaucracy has struggled even to define its mission law enforcement or overseer? and its scope in the airports or the whole transportation system?  Currently, it trains and employs airport screeners. 
--Washington Post (7/22)

In order to cut down on alleged tax fraud, the IRS announced it will resume its policy of randomly auditing tax returns, ended in 1988 by the Reagan Administration.  Also, the Bush Administration proposed $200 million for a free mortgage for lower-than-average income earners, with an additional $35 million to educate home buyers on the merits of buying homes.
--National Review Online (7/19)

California blackouts could return.  The two biggest electrical utilities have no credit, and the state government buys most of the electricity.  State and federal regulators still have not come to a consensus on a solution.
--Wall Street Journal (7/18)

Senate committees approved a $137 billion Labor-HHS bill, $5.8 billion fatter than requested by the president, a $355 billion Defense Appropriations bill, $3 billion larger than expected, a $2.7 billion to increase funding for Capitol staff and police, and began work on a $5,000 pay raise for congressional representatives.
--Congressional Quarterly (7/18)

The Clinton Administration predicted discretionary outlays pretty much everything but Social Security and Medicare to equal about $600 billion of the roughly $2 trillion federal budget.  Since Clinton left office, FY2003 discretionary spending is pushing $800 billion, 33 percent higher than predicted.  The Cato Institute calculates that if spending remained at merely Clintonian levels, the government would have posted a $1 trillion in surplus in four years.
--Columnist Steve Chapman (7/18)

After a brief rebellion by conservative Republicans, the House of Representatives caved in and approved a $19.8 billion spending bill for the arts, including a 10 percent increase for the NEA.
--New York Times (7/18)

The arts vote was followed by another spending bill.  Two hours later the House approved a $20.4 billion natural resources bill, exceeding the president's request by $1.5 billion.
--Washington Post (7/18)

A General Accounting Office probe found that more than 200 Army Officers used federal credit cards to pay for fees at strip clubs.  In total, $38,000 was spent.  The probe did not disclose the specific nature of the fees.
--Associated Press (7/17)

With the recent addition of Michigan, 17 states this year have levied cigarette taxes, a move the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms fears will create a viable black market for cigarette smuggling.  Already the illegal cigarette trade has gone into the New Economy they are not only available on street corners but through specialty Internet sites.  State and federal authorities lose more than $1.5 billion in evaded cigarette taxes annually.
--Associated Press (7/17)

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) boasted of several appropriations in fiscal 2003: $3 million for a National Fatherhood Initiative, $500,000 for Youth Violence Prevention Research, $1 million for the shellfish industry, $500,000 for "at risk" employment training, and $106 million for the manufacturing industry.
--The Office of Sen. Shelby (7/17)

US Airways, on the verge of bankruptcy before Sept 11, is in the process of bargaining for a $900 million loan to keep flying.  Southwest Airlines, however, said no to a government bailout.
--Free Congress Foundation (7/16)

The Enron and WorldCom scandals pale in comparison to the tricky reporting used in the government's accounting.  If the government kept its books the way it requires companies to, last year's $127 billion surplus would have been a $515 billion deficit.  In addition, $17 billion simply disappeared from the government's books.
--USA Today (7/16)

California experienced a $23 billion deficit under Gov. Gray Davis (D) this year, while Colorado delivered $927 million in tax rebates along with a balanced budget.  And, Colorado has neither Silicon Valley nor a major tourist industry.  The difference is that Colorado, unlike big spending states North Carolina, Kansas, Tennessee, Ohio, and California, has a balanced budget amendment.  Forty-six states are raiding their cash reserves this year to reduce deficits.
--Wall Street Journal (7/16)

The Army has spent $10 million to develop a computer war game to attract recruits.
--George Gilder's Friday Letter (7/16)

The Office of Budget and Management released an agency-wide review of governmental bookkeeping practices.  Twenty two out of 26 agencies, including the OMB itself, got the lowest rating.
--USA Today (7/15)

"I'm convinced that the director of the Office of Management and Budget is only concerned about numbers and has no concern about what those numbers do or do not do for the country, for our military, for our security."
--House Appropriations Chairman Bill Young (R-Fla.), after OMB Director Mitch Daniels said the porked-up Supplemental Defense bill was unacceptable. (7/12)

According to the Brookings Institution, the sheer size of the proposed Department of Homeland Security could create unintended consequences.  It recommends the department be boiled down to handle border security, threat analysis, and infrastructure protection only.
--New York Times (7/14)

The federal government is paying for cleaning Manhattan apartments for dust kicked up by the World Trade Center collapse, at an estimated cost of $7,000 each.  No word on what proportion of the borough's 15,000 apartments will be eligible.  Meanwhile, tenants associations are advising residents to complain to the EPA that apartment cleaning alone is inadequate, and that it must also clean their rooftops, outdoor spaces, and common areas.
--Associated Press (5/8), (7/5)

Earlier this year, President Bush proposed that $77 billion be spent on new health benefits over the next ten years.  House Democrats have upped the ante for the same period to $1 trillion.
--National Review (7/15)

Two of the biggest beneficiaries from the bloated $170 billion farm bill are not really farmers.  A deeply buried provision raises subsidy levels for cotton mills and shippers, who could reap $1.5 billion over the next six years.
--Time (7/15)

Amtrak, which needed a federal bailout to avert a threatened shutdown this month, is headed for its second straight annual loss of at least $1 billion, the railroad's president told Congress.  David Gunn said at a Senate hearing that Amtrak's red ink this fiscal year would be similar to 2001 when overall losses hit a record $1.1 billion.  Cash losses, which account for depreciation, would total about $500 million, he added.  The fiscal year ends Sept. 30, and Gunn has said Amtrak must have at least $1.2 billion in federal subsidies by then to operate for another year.
--Washington Post (7/11)

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States have created a wave of new government spending reminiscent of the space program in the 1960s or the savings and loan bailout of the 1980s.  New federal outlays for homeland defense are expected to hit $57.2 billion by next year, and President Bush has made it clear the investment will continue for years to come.
--Washington Post (7/11)

"First Accounts" is a Treasury Dept. program to teach low income citizens to open bank accounts.  In May, Treasury awarded 15 grants through the program totaling $8.4 million.  This meant that to open the 35,445 proposed bank accounts, the cost averaged $236 each.  At this rate, the cost to taxpayers of persuading the estimated 11 million unbanked Americans nationwide to open bank accounts would be almost $2.6 billion.  Despite being unauthorized by Congress, the program received a $10-million appropriation in fiscal 2002. 
--Office of Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.) (7/9)

According to FBI Director Robert Mueller, the bureau has a "paper bureaucracy built up over 90 years" and "burdensome, if not tortuous" procedures.  Its case-numbering system, for example, dates back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, and still includes offenses related to Prohibition, white slavery, and sedition.  Responsibility for his agency's dangerously dilapidated communication-and-information system goes beyond the bureau.  Skeptical of the FBI's ability to manage its own modernization, Congress three years ago helped derail a far-reaching proposal to fix the problem.
--Wall Street Journal (7/9)

Higher standards for government regulations may be on the way as result of a little-noticed law, the Federal Data Quality Act.  Anybody affected by the regulations or activities of an agency would have the right to inspect the data and demand corrections.
--Columnist Thomas J. Bray on http://www.opinionjournal.com/ (7/9)

Government expenditures accounted for 59.8 percent of total U.S. health care costs in 1999, according to a Harvard Medical School study.  At $2,604 per capita, government spending was the highest of any nation--including those with national health insurance.  Indeed, government health spending in the U.S. exceeded total health spending (government plus private) in every other country except Switzerland.
--Associated Press (7/9)

What normally happens when producers crank out 25 percent more of a product than consumers are willing to buy?  Prices drop, of course.  What can stop this process from working?  Only government meddling.  Every time you buy a gallon of milk, the federal government buys an extra quart for you, with your money, to stop oversupply from reducing prices--making sure you pay a really high price for that first gallon you actually bought.  According to the Associated Press, storage costs for the government's milk store are approaching $20 million a year, but the milk powder just keeps piling up.
--Las Vegas Review Journal (7/8)

The federal government continues to provide free parking for its employees, often at high cost to taxpayers.  The Washington region has 29,235 federal government-owned parking spaces, not including the Pentagon's massive lots with about 9,000 spaces.  Agencies pay for thousands of parking spots in private buildings where they lease office space.  The agencies can pass on the costs to employees or have taxpayers pick up the tab.  Some parking spaces cost taxpayers more than $1,200 each to subsidize every year.
--Washington Post (7/8)

Despite the sluggish economy, a record number of House staffers earn six-figure salaries, a recent study of House payroll records shows.
--Roll Call (7/8)

This month the IRS opened the door to Medical Savings Account type accounts for tens of millions of American workers.  The little-noticed ruling is a great leap forward for patient-directed health care.  The IRS ruled that money provided by employers for employees' out-of-pocket medical expenses will not be subject to tax.
--Wall Street Journal (7/8)

Declines in the amount of mail being sent continue to plague the Post Office, which has lost $281 million in the last three months.  Losses are expected to continue, despite the recent hike in stamp prices.
--Associated Press (7/2)

Checkpoint screeners at 32 of the nation's largest airports failed to detect fake weapons -- guns, dynamite, or bombs -- in almost a quarter of undercover tests by the Transportation Security Administration last month.  Tens of thousands of them will likely be hired by the government by November, when screeners become federal employees.
--USA Today (7/1)

The Senate passed a bill in June establishing an Office of Electronic Government within the Office of Management and Budget.  The measure, known as the Electronic Government Act, now goes to the House.  It also authorizes $345 million over four years to fund interagency E-government projects, establish an online directory of federal Web sites, requires federal courts to post opinions online, and calls for improvements in the recruitment and training of IT professionals.
--informationweek.com (7/1)

Reuters reported the Office of Management and Budget "unveiled a new tool for fighting government bloat," a website called The Wastebasket "that allows taxpayers to submit examples of wasteful government bureaucracy."
--Reuters (7/1)