Free Republic

Facing a $78 million budget shortfall, California’s ObamaCare exchange has spent $1.37 million to fund an outreach video featuring exercise guru Richard Simmons gyrating on the floor and hugging a contortionist who is kneeling with his buttocks in the air. The “Tell a Friend — Get Covered” campaign by Covered California features other celebrities Olivia Wilde, comic Billy Eirchner, Fran Drescher and Tatyana Ali. The centerpiece of the effort was an eight-hour live web stream that ran on Jan. 16. None of the celebrities were paid for their work, Covered California said.

With billions of dollars in American aid increasingly flowing straight into Afghan government coffers, the United States hired two global auditing firms three years ago to determine whether Afghanistan could be trusted to safeguard the money. The findings were so dire that American officials fought to keep them private. But the money has continued to flow, despite warnings from the auditors that none of the 16 Afghan ministries could be counted on to keep the funds from being stolen or wasted. The problems unearthed by the auditors are detailed in a report to be published Thursday by the Special Inspector...

Just before Gov. Rick Snyder began his State of the State address Thursday evening, a principal in Escanaba tweeted: "When Gov Snyder claims school funding has increased keep in mind that Escanaba gets less money per pupil than in 2011" The claim was popular, drawing retweets from Progress Michigan and Mark Schauer, the Democratic candidate for governor. But it isn't true. According to the Treasury Department's State Aid Status reports, Escanaba is slated to receive more than $16 million in funding from the state during the 2013-14 school year. During the 2010-11 school year, Escanaba received $15.9 million. Escanaba might...

While President Barack Obama’s attempts to increase the nation’s minimum wage through legislation have stalled in Congress, the White House announced plans on Tuesday to use the president’s executive powers to partially address the problem. Just hours before the President is scheduled to deliver his fifth State of the Union address, the White House revealed that Obama will issue an executive order to increase the minimum wage for new federal contract workers..... . In a fact sheet announcing the action, the White House highlighted several occupations that will be helped by the move, including kitchen and laundry workers on military...

Minnesota isn't alone in wasting federal dollars on failing exchanges. ObamaCare exchanges built by Oregon, Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Vermont also are suffering serious-to-fatal problems. These six states — all solidly Democratic — received $1.2 billion in ObamaCare grants, according to official tallies by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Those dysfunctional six are in addition to 35 states that initially accepted funds to build exchanges that never got built.

A metro Detroit newspaper and the Senate Minority Leader said state funding cuts are a reason some public school districts are in financial distress. Yet, according to the Senate Fiscal Agency, K-12 public education has received hundreds of millions of dollars more the past few years despite there being a drop in the number of students the past three years. The Detroit Free Press reported in a Jan. 15 article that 50 school districts and charter public schools ended 2012-13 in deficit "largely because of declining enrollment and the impact of state funding cuts." MLive ran a Jan. 15 article...

State Budget Solutions, a non-partisan public policy organization, has released their 4th annual report on state debt. The findings are not pleasant. The data shows that the total combined state debt is equal to $5.1 trillion. For perspective, this figure is almost five times as much as the bipartisan appropriations bill ($1.1 trillion) now working its way through Congress. This stunning amount of debt is a clear threat to state budgets and should deeply concern taxpayers who will eventually find themselves on the hook to repay this debt, either through decreased government services and/or tax increases. Pension-reform The drivers of...

Flint Community Schools received $5,400 more per student than the nearby Grand Blanc school district in 2011-12, yet Flint has been losing money for three years while Grand Blanc balanced its budgets. School districts in deficit often are in the red not because they aren't getting enough money, but because they don't manage their finances well. Flint received $13,757 in 2011-12, which was more money per pupil than any of the other 30 school districts and charter public schools in Genesee County. In fact, the only two districts in deficit in Genesee County in 2012-13 were the two districts that...

Welfare spending in Britain has increased faster than almost any other country in Europe since 2000, new figures show. The cost of unemployment benefits, housing support and pensions as share of the economy has increased by more than a quarter over the past thirteen years – growing at a faster rate than in most of the developed world. Spending has gone up from 18.6 per cent of GDP to 23.7 per cent of GDP – an increase of 27 per cent, according to figures from the OECD, the club of most developed nations. By contrast, the average increase in welfare...

On a tight food budget? Here are seven inexpensive and nutritious items you should consider adding to your grocery list.Trying to live on a food budget of about $4 per day can be quite a challenge. People quickly discover this when they take the Food Stamp Challenge and try to learn what it's like to be poor for a week. The challenge mirrors what someone can get through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the federal program that helps low-income people buy groceries. One in seven Americans receive the benefits, which were significantly reduced by Congress in November. To...

The number of Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs) receiving food stamps zoomed from 1.7 million to 3.9 million between Fiscal Year 2007 and Fiscal Year 2010. In that same period, food stamp recipients in total grew from 26 million to nearly 40 million. Spending on food stamps now totals somewhere around $80 billion, twice what the number was in Fiscal Year 2008. Presently, the work waivers foisted on the states by Obama allow ABAWDs to receive food stamps indefinitely--without working or preparing for work.

WASHINGTON — The House voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday, 359 to 67, to approve a $1.1 trillion spending bill for the current fiscal year, shrugging off the angry threats of Tea Party activists and conservative groups whose power has ebbed as Congress has moved toward fiscal cooperation. The legislation, 1,582 pages in length and unveiled only two nights ago, embodies precisely what many House Republicans have railed against since the Tea Party movement began, a huge bill dropped in the cover of darkness and voted on before lawmakers could possibly have read it. The conservative political action committee Club for Growth...

People sometimes express frustration over how difficult it is to pass new laws in our system. I consider that a positive. But in 2013, we saw how one-party rule under the Democrats can open the floodgates on lawmaking. In one short year, Democrats eschewed sound governing principles, even sidestepping the rule of law, to satisfy their interests: government subsidies, bailouts, expanding bureaucracies, favored businesses, and government unions. One-party rule got us some 300 amended statutes in the 2013 tax bill alone. That is astounding. Among those pages were controversial taxes and fee increases of nearly $2.5 billion to pay for...

Gov. Mark Dayton wants Minnesota to embark on one of the state's most ambitious and expensive public works construction programs ever. Dayton called Wednesday for borrowing nearly $1 billion this year to modernize state college and university buildings, revitalize downtown business centers and upgrade parks, prisons and other facilities while leaving enough money to complete the renovation of the deteriorating state Capitol building. He predicted his bonding bill would create more than 27,000 jobs in the state. "This jobs bill would address many of our critical infrastructure needs while strengthening Minnesota's economy and getting people back to work," the Democratic-Farmer-Labor...

What was once outspoken opposition (to increased spending) led by the tea party core in the House seems to have cooled to a lukewarm loyal opposition. A few are opposing the latest $1.1 Trillion omnibus spending bill, but we are not hearing too much strident expression of principle anymore. Where did they go? Republicans in general seem to have been spooked by the mediaÂ’s claims that the previous 16-day shutdown reflected poorly on Republicans. With reelection campaigns looming this year, jittery politicians need to reassure constituencies and donors by bringing home pork. And boy are they! The House bill is...

New budget projections for MinnCare, the state's health insurance program for low-income workers, could show a deep financial hole in the next five years. An email from the Minnesota Council of Health Plans indicates what 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has been told, that MinnCare could be in the red "around 500 to around 600" million dollars. The email was in response to our inquiry about the financial status of MinnCare. We asked Gov. Mark Dayton for a response to the new budget numbers, but his office referred us to the Minnesota Management and Budget Office (MMB). The Minnesota Department of Human...

The House is poised Wednesday to approve a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill to fund the government, despite the opposition of conservative groups.  Both parties scored policy wins in the bill, creating the potential for a resounding show of support on the House floor. The deadline for a government shutdown looms at midnight Saturday, but the political dynamic has shifted dramatically since October’s break in funding. House lawmakers on Tuesday approved a three-day continuing resolution to keep the government open — and did so by voice vote, a procedure usually reserved for only the most uncontroversial legislation. The vote paved...

Congressional negotiators released the details of a massive $1.1 trillion spending bill that would fund federal agencies through the rest of the fiscal year and end the lingering threat of another government shutdown. So, what's in it? We quickly sifted through the legislation, consulted supporting documents from Democratic and Republican aides, and called out some of the more notable and controversial elements below. (If you want a detailed report on each of the 12 pieces of the broader spending bill, it's all here.) ABORTION The bill once again bans the use of federal funding to perform most abortions, bans federal...

Congressional negotiators unveiled a bipartisan, $1.1 trillion spending bill Monday night that will reverse a 1 percent cut to cost-of-living increases for disabled veterans and provide $1.525 billion in aid to Egypt, among other provisions. ...The GOP-led House is slated to vote on the measure Wednesday, less than 48 hours after it became public. In their campaign to take over the House in 2010, Republicans promised a 72-hour review period.... But conservatives can take heart that overall spending for daily agency operations has been cut by $79 billion, or 7 percent, from the high-water mark established by Democrats in 2010....

The sales job is on for a bipartisan $1.1 trillion spending bill that would pay for the operations of government through October and finally put to rest the bitter budget battles of last year. [Snip] The GOP-led House is slated to pass the 1,582-page bill Wednesday, though many tea party conservatives are sure to oppose it.