Tag: government waste

Commentary: Seven Wild Examples of Congress’s Corrupt 2020 Earmarks, Exposed

Ohio Star Staff
Capitol with money around it

A fight is raging in Congress over proposals to restore the practice of spending “earmarks,” small provisions slipped into spending bills quietly authorizing millions for local projects and special interests. But a new report reminds us that despite a “ban” on earmarks being implemented in 2011, the practice never fully went away. 

Published by the advocacy group Citizens Against Government Waste, the 2021 Congressional Pig Book exposes 285 earmarks from fiscal year 2020, totaling $16.8 billion. Here are 7 wild examples of corrupt earmarks the new report exposes.

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Reports: Twenty Federal Agencies Have Wasted $2.3 Trillion in Taxpayer Money Since 2004

The Center Square
US Capitol

Improper payments made by federal government agencies totaled $175 billion last year, or $15 billion per month, according to PaymentAccuracy.gov, a website of the U.S. government.

This is in addition to $2.25 trillion worth of taxpayer money spent on improper payments from 2004 to 2018, according to a Congressional Research Service brief on the Improper Payments Act.

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IG Estimates: Social Security Pays Billions in Benefits to Those With No Numbers

Ohio Star Staff

A new Inspector General (IG) audit of the Social Security Administration (SSA) found that it paid $1 billion in benefits to individuals who do not have Social Security numbers (SSN). Because the audit was of a sampling, the actual amount is estimated to be much higher.

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Beacon Center Calls ‘Cut’ on Wasteful Tennessee Film, TV Subsidies Such as ‘Nashville’

Jason M. Reynolds
film crew

The TV show “Nashville” may finally be ending, but taxpayers have been stuck with the tab for this and other “flops,” conservative think tank says in a new report. The Beacon Center of Tennessee released the “Calling Cut on Film Incentives” report Wednesday to decry the bad “investments” the state…

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Tennessee Loses Money Spending $17,500 Per Job to Lure 1,000 AllianceBernstein Employees to Nashville from New York City

Jason M. Reynolds
Tennessee Capital building

A $17.5 million tax incentive from the state of Tennessee to lure 1,000 jobs to Nashville–$17,500 per job—came at the expense of taxpayers to lure well-paid corporate executives when they already were drawn to the state’s other features like a favorable tax structure, experts say. The Tennessee Department of Economic…

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