Senator Tom Coburn (R–OK) and others in Congress have repeatedly expressed concerns about “fragmentation, overlap, and duplication” in non-emergency food aid programs administered by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). But a study released this month by the United States Government …
Federal requirements for monitoring jobs data associated with President Obama’s stimulus package are insufficient to ensure that that the information is accurate, according to a review of that data compiled by the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The IG released a report this week documenting widespread inaccuracies in …
The Obama Administration fervently opposes state laws requiring voter identification to cast a ballot. But it is insisting that the nation’s farmers prove the identity of every chicken transported across state lines. Under the fowl rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), a flock that has been hatched, …
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay up to $50,000 each to female and Hispanic farmers and ranchers who claimed they were discouraged from applying for USDA loans due to perceived discrimination. But those farmers won’t be required to prove that they ever actually farmed. The payments are part of a …
When does the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) say you should eat meat? It depends on the day. On July 23, the agency’s interoffice newsletter, Greening Headquarters Update, encouraged employees to participate in the “Meatless Monday” initiative that was supposed to help the environment. Three weeks later, on August 13, …
A stimulus program designed to create jobs by funding rural utility projects has created only about 12% of the jobs projected at the outset of the program in a sample of towns recently examined by the Agriculture Department’s Inspector General. The IG examined 22 local utilities and government agencies to receive …
A report from the Agriculture Department’s Inspector General has revealed some stunning examples of financial waste in the Department’s nascent technology security efforts, which have mismanaged about $63 million in taxpayer funding. Among the IG’s findings: the USDA spent more than $2 million on an internship program that only hired …
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded a large loan guarantee to a biofuel company whose investors donated handsome sums to the Obama campaign. Some of them have even visited the White House to discuss federal job-creation efforts. Taxpayers will guarantee a $105 million loan for Fulcrum Sierra BioFuels, a …
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) just pulled the plug on its controversial outreach program to promote food stamps with “telenovelas” (soap operas), but that’s not the end of its courting of Spanish speakers. As the Daily Caller reports, the USDA and the Mexican government have been working together “to …
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has doled out millions of dollars in subsidies to farms on which farming isn’t actually taking place, according a new report from government watchdogs. Billions more have gone towards supporting farms that don’t grow the crops for which they’re being subsidized. USDA gave nearly $3 …
