United Liberty

Amid more reports of Obama Administration-backed (ie. taxpayer-funded) green energy companies going under or facing severe financial problems, a new report shows that the $26 billion in so-called “investments” that have been made to prop up these companies average out to around $11 million per job:

According to the Institute for Energy Research, the Department of Energy has spent nearly $26 billion since 2009 on its Section 1703 and 1705 loan programs. However, these two programs only yielded 2,308 permanent jobs — meaning the cost to taxpayers was $11.25 million per job.

“Clearly, in terms of ‘bang for the buck,” government programs that coddle renewable energy are losers,” according to IER. “In terms of jobs, the losers are the American workers who would otherwise be gainfully employed but for the tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars on the administration’s obsession with “green energy.’”

The loans were part of the Obama Administration’s plans to create a “green economy” in the aftermath of the Great Recession. However, the loans have become symbolic of the cronyism and waste that has come with the policies it has pursued.

There’s a long list of failed “green energy” companies that have received taxpayer funding and/or tax breaks. In November, the Heritage Foundation released the names of 33 companies that received anywhere from $500,000 to $1.46 billion in taxpayer subsidies.

In the days leading up to the sequester and in the weeks since, Obama Administration officials tried to use scare tactics to drive public opinion in its favor. They called the cuts “draconian” and “unfair.” But this fearmongering hasn’t worked. In fact, President Obama’s approval ratings have taken a dive. The White House didn’t help its cause by canceling tours and then threatening the annual Easter Egg Roll.

There is a lot of waste in the federal budget or individual government departments that still could be cut. The latest comes from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which has spent your dollars on a horribly produced Star Trek-themed training video. CBS News filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain the video:

CBS News filed a Freedom of Information request asking for the video after the IRS earlier refused to turn over a copy to the congressional committee that oversees tax issues: House Ways and Means. According to committee Chairman Charles Boustany, Jr. (R-LA), the video was produced in the IRS’s own television studio in New Carrollton, MD. The studio may have cost taxpayers more than $4 million dollars last year alone.

Written by Christopher Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Posted with permission from Cato @ Liberty.

The fiscal cliff is looming and Washington is scrambling to reach a deal to avoid a Thelma and Louise ending in January. To start, policymakers need to identify spending cuts, and they could begin with Senator Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) just-released report on wasteful and duplicative spending in the Pentagon. The report identifies savings totaling at least $67.9 billion over the next decade in the Department of Defense. The common thread linking these disparate recommendations—from axing non-military research and development projects ($6 billion) to eliminating Pentagon-operated grocery stores ($9 billion)—is that the expenditures “have little to do with national security” and therefore could be implemented “without impacting our national security.” “Many of these programs, initiatives or research projects,” the report explains:

may serve worthy interests, but should not be the job of our military tasked with fighting and winning the nation’s wars.

The Club for Growth has been targeting big government Republicans for years, so endorsing Sen. Dick Lugar’s more fiscally conservative opponent, Richard Mourdock, was expected. But they’ve been hitting the Washington veteran especially hard recently, especially now that Mourdock is in striking distance.

Earlier this week, the Club for Growth made a signficant buy for an ad that ties Lugar to the $15 trillion national debt and slams him for backing the Wall Street bailout, gas and payroll tax hikes, and opposing spending cuts. And they’re not stopping there.

Yesterday, the Club for Growth released a detailed report showing some of the earmarks that Sen. Lugar has supported and the dollar amounts of pork that he has managed to take home to Indiana. The Club for Growth also points out that Lugar has showed little interest in reforming the earmark process and has voted against a ban on earmarking.

Dick Lugar Pork Book

Here is a profile in government waste. A high-speed rail line in California, part of President Barack Obama’s vision for the future of transportation, has just seen its costs and estimated completion rise dramatically:

Faster than a speeding bullet train, the cost of the state’s massive high-speed rail project has zoomed to nearly $100 billion — triple the estimate given to voters and more than enough to run the entire state government for a year.

What’s more, bullet trains won’t be up and running until at least 2033, much later than the original estimate of 2020, although that depends on the state finding the remaining 90 percent of the funds needed to complete the plan.

The new figures come from a final business plan to be unveiled by the California High-Speed Rail Authority on Tuesday, though some of the details were leaked to the media, including this newspaper, on Monday. Officials at the rail authority did not respond to repeated requests for comment Monday.
[…]
The new business plan pegs the price tag at $98.5 billion, accounting for inflation — more than double the estimate of $42.6 billion from two years ago, when it was already the priciest public works development in the nation. It’s a little less than triple the estimate of $33.6 billion voters were told when they approved the project in 2008. By comparison, the total state budget this year is $86 billion.

It’s hard to call that a “business plan.” When you say that you think of an idea eventually making money or at least paying for itself. This high-speed rail line is a boondoggle that will drain taxpayer dollars for as long as it exists.

So much for that earmark ban. According to CNN, the defense spending bill that cleared the House on Thursday contains a provision that will allow members to spend freely on projects back home:

The defense bill that just passed the House of Representatives includes a back-door fund that lets individual members of Congress funnel millions of dollars into projects of their choosing.

This is happening despite a congressional ban on earmarks — special, discretionary spending that has funded Congress’ pet projects back home in years past, but now has fallen out of favor among budget-conscious deficit hawks.

Under the cloak of a mysteriously-named “Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund,” Congress has been squirreling away money — like $9 million for “future undersea capabilities development,” $19 million for “Navy ship preliminary design and feasibility studies,” and more than $30 million for a “corrosion prevention program.”
[…]
Roughly $1 billion was quietly transferred from projects listed in the president’s defense budget and placed into the “transfer fund.” This fund, which wasn’t in previous year’s defense budgets (when earmarks were permitted), served as a piggy bank from which committee members were able to take money to cover the cost of programs introduced by their amendments.

And take they did.

When the problem is $125 billion in improper payments, $100 million is no answer.  However, that’s what President Obama is proposing with a new pilot program that will allegedly curb some of the $125 billion in payments sent to dead people, prisoners, and possibly cartoon characters.  What’s my source?  Why the White House’s Office of Management and Budget blog, that’s what.

From the blog post (emphasis mine)

As part of the President’s committment to crack down on improper payments he created the Partnership Fund for Program Integrity Innovation, to help States and localities find ways to save taxpayer dollars and deliver benefits more efficiently and effectively.  The “Collaborative Forum,” a group of 200+ state and local administrators and other stakeholders involved in the benefit delivery process, has been working to generate ideas for innovative pilot projects to reduce errors, fraud, and waste.  As a result of their efforts, OMB is announcing four exciting new pilot projects focused on reducing improper payments.

These pilot investments could lead to at least $100 million in annual savings if the pilots are successfully scaled up and will provide hard data about how Federal agencies as well as States and localities can save money and significantly improve program integrity, service delivery and efficiency.