The WasteWatcher
The WasteWatcherLawmakers Choose Pork Over Bridge Safety
The I-35 Bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which resulted in the deaths of 13 people, dominated several news cycles and gave politicians the kind of somber photo ops they can rarely resist. Some, including House Transportation and...
The WasteWatcherRead Our Lips: No New Internet Taxes
In the fall of 1998, the Internet Tax Freedom Act put a moratorium on discriminatory and multiple Internet taxes on electronic commerce and access taxes at the federal, state, and local levels. With large bipartisan support, the ban was extended in...
The WasteWatcherDepartment of Homeland Waste
Since its creation in March 2003, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been dogged by criticism of its ability to fight waste, abuse and mismanagement. On September 6, 2007, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its latest...
The WasteWatcherCatastrophic Insurance is a Disaster
Congress is considering changes to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) as well as increasing the availability of state-sponsored insurance funds. Both initiatives would expose taxpayers to massive costs.
The WasteWatcherNew Senate Ethics Bill
“Members of Congress have reproductive organs the size of BBs,” so said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Colo.) in challenging his colleagues to enact real earmark reform. Alas, Sen. Coburn was proven correct as the Senate voted 83-14 to approve S. 1, misnamed “...
The WasteWatcher“Nutty” Earmark Rejected By Florida County
Some times you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t. In the case of Coconut Road in Florida, even though a member of Congress felt like wasting taxpayer dollars on a highway interchange project at Coconut Road and I-75, taxpayers in Lee County,...
The WasteWatcherPennsylvania Piglet Book Reaps Savings
Pennsylvania is a study in contrasts. The state boasts some of the most scenic highways and byways in the nation yet the roads are punctured with countless potholes. At one end of the state there is Pittsburgh, with a winning football tradition...
The WasteWatcher“Bunks for Drunks:” The Real Cost of Seattle’s Social Experiment
If one lives in Seattle, there are clean, furnished apartments in the downtown area for less than $200 a month. It’s a great deal, with one catch: in order to move in, one has to be an alcoholic.
The WasteWatcherFederal Property: Wretched Excess
The United States government is seriously overdue for a garage sale. While the government is projecting a $205 billion budget deficit for Fiscal 2007 and splurging on tens of billions of dollars in wasteful programs and congressional pork-barrel...
The WasteWatcher‘F’ is for Farm Subsidy
In anticipation in the next few weeks of markup of Title I farm subsidy programs in the House Agriculture Committee, CAGW released Making the Grade: CAGW’s Report Card on Farm Bill “Reform” Proposals.
The WasteWatcherTaxpayers 1, Rep. Obey 0
When House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) announced his plans to wait until closed-door conference committee meetings between the House and Senate to insert earmarks into spending bills, he declared, “I don’t give a damn if...
The WasteWatcherTidbits
Congressman Kanjorski (D-Pa.) joins a mushrooming list of members of Congress whose earmarking habits are getting a lot of media attention. Over an eight-year period, Rep. Kanjorski steered $10 million in earmarked federal funding (from the Energy...
