The WasteWatcher

The WasteWatcher is the staff blog of Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) and the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW). For questions, contact blog@cagw.org.

Best Laid Plans: Another USPS IG Report, Another Failed Attempt to Save Money

October 17, 2019 - 16:20 — Leslie Paige

As has been pointed out repeatedly in the past few years, United States Postal Service (USPS) management continues to struggle mightily to enact efficiencies or carve out savings from its operations. And this continues to be the case despite the dramatic drop in mail volume and USPS Postmaster General (PMG) Megan Brennan’s regular declarations and testimony before Congress that her team is aggressively managing the business. The USPS has had nearly thirteen consecutive years of losses

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Senate Budget Committee Makes Budget Reports Available for the Public Online

October 17, 2019 - 16:12 — Allen Johnson

The Senate Budget Committee's Chairman has introduced a new budget scorekeeping report on the Budget Committee's website to provide a regular accounting of budget developments.

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FHFA Director Calabria is the Watchdog Taxpayers Deserve

October 16, 2019 - 14:12 — Peter Klensch

Mark Calabria is moving FHFA in a new direction and making taxpayers his top priority.

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D.C. Soda Tax Could Give Taxpayers A Nasty Toothache

October 11, 2019 - 14:36 — Peter Klensch

The D.C. City Council could approve one of the highest soda taxes in the nation.

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President Trump's Great Ideas to Improve Medicare and the Contradictions

October 4, 2019 - 17:40 — Elizabeth Wright

His effort to enhance Medicare is commendable.

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The Restoring Internet Freedom Order Court Decision

October 2, 2019 - 15:11 — Deborah Collier

The Federal Communications Commission’s Restoring Internet Freedom Order (RIFO), which determined that broadband internet access services (BIAS) are an information service under Title I of the Communications Act of 1934, was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (the Court) on October 1, 2019, in the case of Mozilla v.

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How Did Maryland Drop Their Individual Insurance Premiums by 22 Percent?

September 27, 2019 - 15:13 — Elizabeth Wright

Citizens who purchased health insurance on the Maryland Health Connection, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, marketplace exchange,saw their premiums drop an average of 13 percent in 2019 and will see an average 10 percent decrease starting January 2020. The 2019 decrease was the first time since ACA was implemented that consumers saw

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Senate DOD Appropriations Bill Lacks House JEDI Guardrails

September 25, 2019 - 16:35 — Deborah Collier

In the ongoing saga of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud services contract, the bill and report language for S. 2474, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2020 was filed by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) on September 12, 2019. Unlike its House of Representatives counterpart, H.R.

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Lenin, Stalin, and Capone Would be Proud of Pelosi's Drug Pricing Plan

September 19, 2019 - 15:30 — Elizabeth Wright

Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) released the official summary and backgrounder of H.R. 3, “The Lower Cost Drugs Now Act,” although as of this posting, there is no bill language. It would exert so much government authority over the pharmaceutical industry that it would equal anything that communist and socialist leaders in other countries have done to control various sectors of their economies.

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The KC-46's Deficiencies Demonstrate the Benefit of Fixed-Price Contracts

September 18, 2019 - 11:07 — Sean Kennedy

The KC-46 is intended to serve multiple roles for the Air Force, but continued problems with the plane has created uncertainty. Thankfully, the Pentagon arranged a fixed-price contract for the aircraft.

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