Tag: government

Conservative lawmakers push for pledge cutting spending across the board, capping government spending, and requires a balanced budget amendment.

12:46 pm

Conservative lawmakers are coalescing behind a pledge to cut spending across the board while requiring a balanced budget amendment.

This story once again suggests to me that the political winds are definitely favoring big cuts in government spending. Woe to the politician of either party who ignores these winds.

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King County, Washington, requires life vests for swimmers

12:25 pm

Big Brother rules! King County, Washington, has voted to require life vests for swimmers.

[The law] applies to people intertubing, rafting, using a surfboard, canoe or kayak. Swimmers or people wading more than 5 feet from shore or in water more than 4 feet deep would also have to wear life vests. The new ordinance does not apply to people at designated public beaches or for people who are skin diving.

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Theft by TSA employees of passenger valuables a nationwide problem

5:31 pm

Doesn’t this make you feel safer? Theft by TSA employees of passenger valuables has become a nationwide problem.

According to TSA records, press reports, and court documents . . . some 500 TSA officers . . . have been fired or suspended for stealing from passenger luggage since the agency’s creation in November of 2001. The airports servicing New York City—John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty—harbor the most flagrant offenders, but virtually no city in the nation is safe from the TSA’s sticky fingers.

In 2009, a half dozen TSA agents at Miami International Airport were charged with grand theft after boosting an iPod, bottles of perfume, cameras, a GPS system, a Coach purse, and a Hewlett Packard Mini Notebook from passengers’ luggage. Travelers passing through the airport’s checkpoints reported as many as 1,500 items stolen, the majority of which were never recovered.

In May of this year alone, TSA agents were arrested on the suspicion of theft at airports in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

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How the recently dissolved California Space Authority wasted millions of dollars in federal earmarks and grants

9:27 am

How the recently dissolved California Space Authority wasted millions of dollars in federal earmarks and grants.

Sadly, this story is typical of many quasi-public/private authorities, most of which have nothing to do with the aerospace industry. There is a lot of one hand washing the other, using money the federal government nonchalantly gives away as if it is water.

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National Speleological Society responds to the demand that all caves be closed to protect bats

12:20 am

The National Speleological Society has responded in strong opposition [pdf] to the demand by the Center for Biological Diversity that all caves on public land be closed to protect bats.

Calling for blanket cave closures across the U.S. is unnecessary, unenforceable, and counterproductive. While cave closures on some federal lands have been implemented, particularly in the eastern U. S., there is no evidence that this action has done anything to contain [white nose syndrome] (WNS). Most people working on WNS understand that bat to bat transmission is overwhelmingly the primary method of transmission, and administrative closing of caves and mines does nothing to prevent that.

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Obamacare doesn’t stop Medigap providers, AARP partners from discriminating against seniors

11:31 am

Surprise, surprise! Obamacare doesn’t stop Medigap providers and AARP from discriminating against seniors with preexisting conditions, as had been promised.

This story is just more evidence that the law is a mess, it should never have been passed, and in the future our so-called lawmakers should read the goddamn legislation before they vote on it.

I should add that I think it a very big mistake for the government to forbid insurance companies from denying new coverage to sick individuals. If insurance companies are forced to accept everyone as a new customer, even those who are ill, why bother paying for insurance when you are healthy? Everyone can simply wait until they are sick, and then buy the coverage, thereby getting a lot of insurance for very little investment. The result: insurance companies go bankrupt, as the whole concept of insurance depends on a lot of healthy customers paying the cost, at a low rate, for those who are sick.

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Obama to announce plans to cut government waste

9:59 am

Obama to announce plans today to cut government waste.

Though I applaud any effort to reduce the federal government’s out-of-control spending, to me this paragraph suggested strongly how symbolic and superficial this announcement by Obama will be:

One of the campaign’s first steps will be targeting waste and duplication among federal websites. The administration will halt the creation of new websites, as well as shut down or consolidate one-fourth of the 2,000 government websites in the next few months.

For one thing, having an employee launch an extra website is hardly very costly, as you are already paying that employee’s salary. Will they be laying off these workers as well? I doubt it.

For another, shutting down websites is hardly a demonstration of transparency in government.

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Cruise passengers tell of seven-hour security ‘revenge’ nightmare

11:51 am

The abuse of power: Cruise passengers tell of seven-hour security “revenge” nightmare, forced on them by U.S. immigration officials.

But when a handful of them questioned whether the lengthy security checks at the port were strictly necessary for a group of largely elderly travellers officials were not amused. Although they had already been given advance clearance for multiple entries to the country during their trip, all 2,000 passengers were made to go through full security checks in a process which took seven hours to complete.

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Police yesterday shut the Jefferson Memorial to clear out a crowd challenging a ban on dancing inside the monument.

9:16 am

Police yesterday shut the Jefferson Memorial to clear out a crowd protesting the arrest of five people last week for dancing inside the monument.

One man took to the microphone to demand that all intrusive government policies be overturned, specifically mentioning the need to repeal “Obamacare.” Medea Benjamin [of Code Pink] clarified that some participants also wanted a single-payer system, but that all agreed on the right to dance at the memorial.

On some issues we all agree.

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All new cars starting in June will have a mandatory black box

7:50 pm

Big brother arrives: Starting in June all new cars will have a mandatory black box.

The installation and use of these black boxes can have infinite possibilities for local, state, and federal governments to monitor and record data for a number of other revenue programs that are currently under consideration. In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a proposal to institute a tax on mileage to help pay for the federal budget deficit. Additionally, local cities and counties can download information from these black boxes, and they can be used to issue driving citations after the fact in the case of speeding or not wearing a seat belt.

I think the value of my old used Subaru Forester has just gone up!

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