Wonder if it’s too hot to go outside at your workplace? Don’t bother checking the thermometer or stepping outside—the federal government has the answer for you. And it’s only costing taxpayers $643,997.60. Josh Peterson of the Daily Caller reports that the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is due to release a smartphone app that uses temperature and humidity data to warn workers if it is too hot outside. According to OSHA’s website, the “Heat Safety Tool”—available for Android, Blackberry and iPhone—“allows workers and supervisors to calculate …
President Obama had hoped to be in Hawaii today for the start of his 17-day Christmas vacation. Instead, he’s stuck in Washington until Congress finishes its work for the year. But in the Aloha State, residents are already abuzz about the first family’s trip — and its high price tag. Figures obtained by Hawaii Reporter reveal the trip is expected to run taxpayers about $4 million. It has already cost taxpayers about $100,000 extra just so first lady Michelle Obama and the president’s daughters, Sasha and Malia, could leave Friday …
The White House yesterday launched yet another signature initiative to cut wasteful spending, once again setting the Administration’s key utility infielder, Vice President Joe Biden, to the task. This latest campaign follows a previous effort launched in 2009 directing the cabinet secretaries to track down a whole $100 million—yes, million—in wasteful spending. In the summer of that year the White House then trumpeted that they had over-performed by a whole $2 million. Meanwhile, the budget deficit topped $1.4 trillion. Two full years into the Administration, with agency budget officers and …
The federal government made at least $125 billion in improper payments last year. It spends $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties. Rife with duplication, Washington runs 342 economic development programs, 130 programs serving the disabled, 130 programs serving at-risk youth, and 90 early childhood development programs. Government waste runs rampant, yet Congress never seems focused on cleaning it up. A new bipartisan proposal sponsored by Senators Orrin Hatch (R–UT) and Mark Udall (D–CO) and Representative Jeff Duncan (R–SC) would force Congress to address this problem. The bill …
At first glance, President Obama’s motion to kill a program that provides low-income families with energy sounds as politically attractive as legislation to drown puppies, but when you take a look at the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), it makes all the sense in the world. LIHEAP has become a rapidly expanding federal program meant to help America’s households with the lowest incomes pay their fuel bills. The funding for LIHEAP more than doubled in the past few years, increasing from about $2 billion in 2008 to $5.1 billion …
In the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, numerous unemployed but hard-working Americans have turned to federal job training programs. These programs, held up as a beacon of good government by politicians, are actually riddled with fraud, waste and mismanagement, according to a new report from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). The most egregious accounts in Coburn’s “Help Wanted” report include a program that exposed youth to asbestos “under the guise of involving students in work experience and job training programs,” a shopping spree by a job …
One of the persistent disappointments of the government’s response to the Gulf oil spill has been their refusal to immediately rescind the drilling moratorium. The tragedy of the initial spill and the resulting damage has only been magnified by the President’s decision. The moratorium has had a devastating ripple effect across the local Gulf economy with suppliers, service industry and port personnel joining their neighbors in the oil and gas field in the unemployment lines. Rigs have already left the Gulf as a result. Several weeks ago, we reported that the President sent the …
Even as debate and votes are launched this week on health care reform bills that will hurt “our capacity to innovate” and “develop new therapies”, the Obama Administration moved yesterday to make federal funds available for controversial experimentation that has thus far failed to generate any human therapies. Taxpayer money will now flow to support research using cell lines derived from the destruction of human embryos. The National Institutes of Health approved the first 13 stem cell lines on Wednesday, and several dozen more of these lines are nearing approval …
Ask any person across Europe their top priority right now and they’ll likely say “it’s the economy, stupid.” Soaring unemployment, failing banks and massive government deficits continue to dominate the news headlines in several EU countries as ordinary people worry about their jobs and futures. As people tighten their pocketbooks, it is increasingly obvious that international institutions aren’t doing the same. This week, the EU’s Court of Auditors refused to once again sign off the EU’s budget – for the 15th straight year. For 15 years, the EU’s own auditors …
