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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is criticizing President-elect Biden's new coronavirus relief, arguing that it doesn't go far enough to help people in need during the pandemic. Biden's stimulus plan, which includes the increased payments, would cost $1.9 trillion. According to The Washington Post, most people would end up with a total of $2,000 in stimulus, including $600 checks dispensed in recent legislation. But that wasn't enough for Ocasio-Cortez, who appeared to want the latest checks to reach $2,000 as she and others have repeatedly requested. "$2,000 means $2,000. $2,000 does not mean $1,400,″ she told the Post.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul brought to light a $6.9 million provision for a “smart toilet” that was part of his annual federal government waste report that tabulated $54.7 billion in government waste in the past year.

Everybody celebrates the holiday season in their own way. Each year, Senator Rand Paul invokes the spirit of the fictional grievance-airing holiday “Festivus” from Seinfeld to release an annual taxpayer waste report—and boy, is this one a doozy.The libertarian-leaning Kentucky lawmaker’s report for 2020 finds an astounding $54.7 billion wasted by the federal government this year. (That’s not even an exhaustive figure for the federal government, nor does it account for the vast levels of waste by state and local governments.)To put the nearly $55 billion wasted in context, Paul’s office explains that this is equivalent to wasting the taxes...

The insects eat leftovers that would otherwise sit in landfills, emitting carbon pollution. Most people would look at a mass of writhing maggots and see a scene that belongs in a horror movie. But Jason Drew sees opportunity. Drew is CEO of the Insect Technology Group, which farms fly larvae at a factory in South Africa. “The fly has an incredible future in helping us solve some of our problems,” he says. For example, fly larvae can eat food waste that would otherwise sit in landfills, emitting carbon pollution. At Drew’s factory, the maggots munch on leftovers from restaurants and...

It happens every September. Inside federal office buildings, budget minions go on scandalous spending sprees using tens of billions of your tax dollars.Their departments have gotten along just fine throughout the fiscal year, but as the clock ticks down to Sept. 30, they know that any money left over in their budget will be forfeited next fiscal year, so they scramble to spend every dollar.What the heck are they buying at the last minute? The 2019 fiscal year facts, as compiled by nonpartisan watchdog group called OpenTheBooks, are mind-blowing. The group’s annual “Use-It-Or-Lose-It Spending Spree” report is a must-read for...

Executive Summary The Social Security Administration serves as the primary steward of death records at the federal level. Despite federal agencies’ need for accurate death information, accurate death data are not universally available to federal agencies, including those with payment functions. Improvements to federal payment integrity could include legislative changes that would ensure accurate death information is more widely available to federal agencies. Introduction Perhaps the most conspicuous element of the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic fallout has been economic impact payments (EIPs) or “stimulus checks,” sent to nearly 160 million Americans, and totaling $267 billion....

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) says "the federal government has an ethical obligation to bail out my state. Admittedly, we might have been excessively generous in how we spent taxpayers' money. Perhaps this was a mistake. However, there is no need to make the people of California suffer for the miscues of their government. The federal government has an unconstrained power to create money. Failure to use this power to rescue California from bankruptcy would be a crime against humanity." Among the "miscues" are $1 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities, 15,000 hotel rooms leased to house the homeless along with...

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the Heroes Act also includes a retroactive change to the CARES Act, which included the first round of stimulus checks. The change allows illegal immigrants who file taxes using an ITIN to receive money from initial payments. The group estimated that “more than 4.3 million adults and 3.5 million children would benefit from this change.” Because of the retroactive clause, an additional $7 billion in aid would be disbursed.

funding will support an increase in inventory of satellite phone, Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspots, and updated satellite bandwidth technologies to meet escalating demand of District Offices during COVID-19,' the 90-page summary of the HEROES Act outlines. It also says that part of the $5 million will be used to fund the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which was formed to provide oversight for economic aid and stimulus allocated to mitigate the fallout from the pandemic.

Dr Grant Colfax, San Francisco's public health director, said the harm-reduction approach is widespread and based on decades of sound public health policy. 'Our focus needs to be on supporting them,' he said of the people who are isolating or under quarantine. For people experiencing alcohol withdrawal, the Department of Public Health calculates the minimum amount needed and delivers them with meals.

Convincing potential COVID-19 patients to stay in quarantine is taking a controversial turn in Shoreline. King County officials are giving addicts beer, cigarettes - and until recently marijuana - so they won't leave a recovery center. Officials with the Department of Human and Community Services call it harm reduction and point out no tax payer money is being used. Some neighbors said it makes sense. Others called it a big mistake. The Shoreline facility is set up for people suspected of having COVID-19 but who can't quarantine at home, or they don't have a home. Some also have addictions and...

If there's one thing the coronavirus experience has taught us, it's that bureaucracies don't function as well as they're supposed to. In New York, the bureaucracy opted to spend $500 million on illegal aliens instead of on ventilators. Likewise, during the Obama administration, after the 2009 H1N1 epidemic, the Obama administration, despite warnings, never bothered to replenish stockpiles of N95. It turns out now that the NIH was also doing the bureaucratic equivalent of twiddling its thumbs when it should have been acting to prepare America for the next pandemic. It's sheer luck — mixed in with Trump's foresight about...

Mitt Romney called on the federal government to send every adult $1,000 immediately to help cope financially with the economic damage caused by the spread of the coronavirus. “Every American adult should immediately receive $1,000 to help ensure families and workers can meet their short-term obligations and increase spending in the economy,” Romney, a Utah Republican senator and 2012 presidential nominee, said in a statement.

Amazon Web Services is asking a federal claims court for depositions from President Donald Trump, as well as his current and former secretaries of Defense, as part of its bid protest of the Pentagon’s $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI). The cloud computing company claims there are gaps in the discovery information provided by the Department of Defense about its evaluation of JEDI bids and eventual award to Microsoft, according to court documents filed in the Court of Federal Claims in January but unsealed Monday. Seeking to supplement the record, AWS issued a number of requests for targeted additional...

At least 15 roaming horses were fatally shot at a Kentucky strip mine site, authorities said, describing it as a "battlefield for just horses." The horses were found along U.S. 23 near the Floyd-Pike County line, WYMT-TV reported Tuesday. Some were as young as a year and others were pregnant, authorities said. “This is very inhumane and it's a very cruel act of somebody who just apparently had nothing else to do or whatever just to go back on a strip job and shoot down horses who were, one of them obviously was feeding, had grass in its mouth,” Floyd...

Senator Rand Paul recently came out with his annual “Waste Report,” showing how the federal government treats taxpayers as a baby treats a diaper. Or, for the squeamish, as Michael Moore treats a jelly donut. Topping the list is $48 billion in improper Medicaid and Medicare payments. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) spent $582 billion on Medicare alone during fiscal year 2018, making it the second most expensive program after Social Security. Misallocating over 8% of those dollars should be concerning. The fact that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has termed the CMS a “High Risk Program”...

The Jiangcungou landfill in Shaanxi Province, which is the size of around 100 football fields, was designed to take 2,500 tonnes of rubbish per day. But instead it received 10,000 tonnes of waste per day - the most of any landfill site in China. China is one of the world's biggest polluters, and has been struggling for years with the rubbish its 1.4 billion citizens generate. How big is the landfill site? The Jiangcungou landfill in Xi'an city was built in 1994 and was designed to last until 2044. The landfill serves over 8 million citizens. It spans an area...

Given the federal government's accumulated $23 trillion national debt and current year projected deficit of nearly a trillion dollars, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced an appropriations amendment that would cut 2% from next year's planned federal spending in the departments of commerce, science, justice, transportation, housing, urban development, agriculture; and interior. The Senate rejected this proposal by a 67-24 margin. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, urged a vote against Paul's measure, saying that "taking a meat ax to the federal budget is contrary to what the American voters want. Every dollar requested by...

CASPER, Wyo. (Wyoming News Now) One wind farm in Glenrock and two from the Saratoga area have partnered with the Casper Regional Landfill to dispose of their old wind turbine blades. More than 900 blades will be brought to the landfill beginning now until the end of next spring. The Casper Solid Waste Manager, Cynthia Langston, said that though most turbine blades can be reused, there are some that are simply un-recyclable. "Ninety percent of the turbines are completely reclaimed, recycled, and reused, but there is ten percent that is fiberglass, so those are coming to us from three different...

The last few years have seen growing concern over what happens to solar panels at the end of their life. Consider the following statements: The problem of solar panel disposal “will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment” because it “is a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle.” “The reality is that there is a problem now, and it’s only going to get larger, expanding as rapidly as the PV industry expanded 10 years ago.” “Contrary to previous assumptions, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost...