 LAR: Waste, Fraud and Abuse - Symptoms of a Bigger Government | ||||||||||||
Inbox | x | |||||||||||
2:30 PM (2 hours ago) | | |||
 |
March 14, 2012 Waste, fraud and abuse will never drain our Treasury the way unnecessary bureaucracies and unsustainable entitlement programs do. Thanks to James O'Keefe and Project Veritas, see hidden camera video of voter fraud being committed and you will know that it is something that happens on a regular basis. Besides melting the ice caps, raising sea levels, and melting the Earth, now everyone's least favorite gas will make you fat, too. With national attention focused mostly on Jindal's proposal to expand the New Orleans school voucher program into a statewide effort for Louisiana, the media has largely missed out on the other reform proposals that are just as significant. Waste, Fraud and Abuse - Symptoms of a Bigger Governmental Disease By Howard Rich  Generations of big-spending Republican politicians would have you believe that "waste, fraud and abuse" are the root causes of government's deficit spending problem. Meanwhile generations of bigger-spending Democrats would have you believe that the problem of waste, fraud and abuse in government is overblown. Both perspectives are flat-out wrong. Waste, fraud and abuse are indeed rampant in government at all levels - but they are not the impetus of our nation's present unsustainability. Unnecessary spending - or the refusal of government to confine itself to core functions - is what is driving our deficits through the stratosphere and future generations of taxpayers deeper in debt. Of course it's important to acknowledge that waste, fraud and abuse are symptomatic of a larger disease - government's managerial inferiority. According to a January 2012 study from PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), government agencies are experiencing"increasing levels of economic crime and are particularly at risk from being defrauded by their own employees and their suppliers." Specifically, this report found that 46 percent of public sector survey respondents "experienced one or more incidents of economic crime in the last 12 months," a figure that was up from 37 percent just three years earlier. By comparison, the current average across all sectors of the economy was 34 percent. Those numbers makes sense. In the private sector there is constant pressure to identify and eliminate fraud - with failure to do so resulting in firms going bankrupt or missing out on opportunities to expand. In government, on the other hand, there is always a steady stream of tax dollars to count on - reducing the impetus to crack down on fraud. "The top-down and bureaucratic Medicare and Medicaid systems are perfectly designed for scamming," writes Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policy Studies at The Cato Institute. "For example, the government processes 1.2 billion Medicare claims each year by computer, generally without human eyes checking them for accuracy." Get full story here. A Look At Voter Fraud And How Easy It Is To Commit Video by Frank McCaffrey  Get permalink here. New Danish study claims CO2 makes you fat.guess we're all doomed By Rebecca DiFede  If you ask any third grade science class what the essentials of life are, they are going to tell you that breathing is pretty high up on the list. They may even name it first, no doubt after taking in a nervous breath of their own. For those unfamiliar with the process of respiration (I'm looking at you, zombies) let me explain. You breathe in oxygen, it goes into your lungs and is pumped through your blood stream by your heart, and then when you exhale, the oxygen has been turned into the bi-product of your breath, Carbon Dioxide, or CO2. However despite this irrefutable piece of common knowledge, scientists in Denmark have just released a study that causes many of us to put our heads in our hands. Even though CO2 is a basic part of something we doseveral thousand times a day-indeed, a gas essential to life itself on this planet - these scientists are now claiming that one of the reasons people are getting fatter is that there is just too much CO2 in our bodies. I'm sorry, come again? Are you telling me that not only should I drink more water, exercise more, and cut out junk food, but that now merely breathing is making me fat? How exactly am I supposed to run on the treadmill without exhaling? Unless the point is to die, at which point I suppose I would be skinnier. To say that this study is patently ridiculous would be an insult to your intelligence. The reasoning in this study is as flimsy as the claims that Al Gore made about the dire need to reduce carbon emissions.as he flew cross country in his private jet. Get full story here. Gov. Jindal Looks to Empower Local Education Leaders and Constrain School Boards By Kevin Mooney  This is how far Gov. Bobby Jindal's education reform agenda reaches. Local officials who are closest to the classroom, such as superintendents, principals and teachers, should have more say in day-to-day decision and personal decisions, a "fact sheet" from the governor's office explains. With national attention focused mostly on Jindal's proposal to expand the New Orleans school voucher program into a statewide effort for Louisiana, the media has largely missed out on the other reform proposals that are just as significant. Rep. Steve Carter (R-Baton Rouge) sponsored the "Micromanagement Bill", which was signed into law as Act 720 in 2010. He believes this policy change was an important step along the path toward greater decentralization and autonomy within local school districts. He anticipates that new proposals aimed at further constraining the school boards and empowering local officials will come for consideration in the legislative session, which begins this week and runs through early June. The existing law includes language that prohibits school board members from exercising undue influence over superintendents when they make personnel decisions. Moreover, the legislation seeks to insulate superintendents from board politics by requiring a two-thirds vote of school board members to terminate the district leader mid-contract. Union officials have been critical of the bill but Carter sees cause for encouragement. Instead of school boards constantly "looking over their shoulder," superintendents and principals now have greater flexibility, Carter explained. But, at the same time, he acknowledges that the new arrangement is not "foolproof" in terms of weeding out undue bureaucratic interference. For this reason, Gov. Jindal has incorporated several new proposals within his education platform that would establish clear demarcation points between the school boards and local administrators, Carter said. Get full story here. |
No comments:
Post a Comment