Tag Archives: government

Bean Counting

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Late news, again, concerning another Obamacare-related rollout screw up.

The Internal Revenue Service is unable to account for $67 million in spending related to the implementation of ObamaCare, according to an IRS watchdog report released Wednesday.  …the money was part of a $488 million fund established to cover implementation costs between 2010 through 2012.

And this laugher:

The [Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s] report recommended the IRS improve its record-keeping….

Well, NSS.

Seriously, though: this isn’t rounding error—it’s more than 13% of the funds allocated to the IRS for the purpose.  Yet this is the gang that’s intended to pry into your most personal affairs—your health records and your income and your spending habits—to determine whether you should have bought health “insurance” and did not, or whether you’re entitled to a subsidy, paid for by your fellow Americans, to help you buy that “insurance.”

Yet they are fully checked out on determining whether your group’s political leanings meet standard.

What if They Had a Government Shutdown?

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…and nobody cared?

A lot of financial sector data, for instance flow from the Federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Department of Commerce.  However, these data also flow from private sector entities—organizations like the Institute of Supply Management (a host of forward- and backward-looking management surveys across a wide range of economic sectors), ADP (weekly jobs reports), the University of Michigan (confidence surveys), the Conference Board (roughly complementary confidence surveys), and so on.

Intuit makes, among other things, accounting and tax software—and it collects (with permission) employment data from 200,000+ businesses.  Its monthly employment reports, based on based on these real-time aggregated data, are current.  The best the government can do here (even when it isn’t shutdown) is eight months to a year behind real-time.

Etc.

And there’s Google and Bing.

Separately, but related, comes this…admission…from the just “shutdown” government:

The EPA said its plan for dealing with a shutdown would classify 1,069 employees, out of 16,205, as essential.

The Feds are saying that some 93% of its EPA employees are nonessential.  It’s reasonable to extend from that that the vast majority of these nonessentials are, in fact, surplus.  The EPA is a relatively extreme example, but it illustrates the degree of fat in the Federal government that could be cut—that is being cut by the present shutdown, at least for the duration.

Next there’s the actual impact of this government shutdown.  80% of all Federal employees are still at work (the EPA, et al., notwithstanding).  Parks are closed, which inconveniences several travelers (other than WWII veterans who forced their way into their War Memorial with the help of some Republican Congressmen and the acquiescence of the Memorial’s guards, who had more sense than their Park Service employers), and other frankly similarly minor items, but the government remains fully functional.

Finally, there’s this Federal hardship: First Lady Michelle Obama’s office announced via Twitter: “Due to Congress’s failure to pass legislation to fund the government, updates to this account will be limited.”

The Mendacity of the Obama Government Shutdown

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Here’s an example.  The House, earlier in the week, passed an appropriations bill—devoid of anything else, a clean CR, IAW Democrat instruction—the Senate passed it, and President Barack Obama signed it.  “It’s the law of the land.”  This appropriations law fully funds the DoD for the next couple of months.

Despite that, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel decided to furlough 400,000 DoD civilians (apparently his fair share of the Obama shutdown).  Congressman Buck McKeon (R, CA) wrote to Hagel, asking how that furlough worked, since DoD was fully funded.

Hagel’s response?  Through “a senior Defense official,” Hagel said he had no way to respond.

Unfortunately, most of the staff who draft congressional correspondence are furloughed[.]

Because the responsible officials—Hagel’s deputies, Obama’s appointees—are illiterate, apparently.  Or they need an authority figure to tell them what to do, and both Hagel and Obama are too busy to provide that instruction.  Or these worthies simply are too proud to do their work with their own hands.

Be More Like Europe?

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European railway companies must give partial refunds to passengers who are significantly delayed by bad weather, natural disasters, or strikes after a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

Now, trains must pay for acts of Nature and of God.

It might be good business to do such things, but things that are good business do not, of necessity, make good law.  Look for the price of train tickets to spike.  And too many folks will wonder why.

Government Shutdown

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The Democrats are demanding one at the top of their lungs.  The House passed a bill that funds the government for the next few months; delays Obamacare for a year; removes Obamacare’s medical device tax that’s already costing jobs; and guarantees our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines get paid in the event of a government shutdown.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, UT) says, “No.”

To be absolutely clear, the Senate will reject both the one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act and the repeal of the medical device tax[.]

And

…the White House vowed President Obama would veto the plan….

What we have here, then, is the Democratic Party preferring to shut down the government—rejecting a bill that funds it.  We have the spectacle of the Democratic Party rejecting a bill that pays our military—the very men and women who defend with their lives, in Secretary John Kerry’s words, these Democrats’ right to be stupid.  We have the…foolishness…of the Democratic Party rejecting a bill that provides for the rescission of a job-killing tax.

Why? Because the bill also delays Obamacare for a year—after President Barack Obama, by diktat, already has delayed major parts of it, such as the Employer Mandate, for that same year.

How dishonest is this?  How destructive of our economy is this?  All for the sake of two egos.

Obama said last week that one shouldn’t “threaten to burn the house down simply because you haven’t gotten your way.”  Yet here he is doing exactly that.  He and Reid need to figure out how to yes to the 99% they’re getting in this bill instead of demanding to shut down the government over his precious 1%.