Why we can't have nice things like more ships and airplanes for our Navy.

Next time someone beefs about "excessive defense costs" (and there are lots of those) you might want to note that the failure to control costs in other areas sucks up a lot of budget dollars, too, such as Senate report: Illegal immigrants benefited from up to $750M in ObamaCare subsidies

Illegal immigrants and individuals with unclear legal status wrongly benefited from up to $750 million in ObamaCare subsidies and the government is struggling to recoup the money, according to a new Senate report obtained by Fox News.

The report, produced by Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, examined Affordable Care Act tax credits meant to defray the cost of insurance premiums. It found that as of June 2015, “the Administration awarded approximately $750 million in tax credits on behalf of individuals who were later determined to be ineligible because they failed to verify their citizenship, status as a national, or legal presence.”

The review found the credits went to more than 500,000 people – who are illegal immigrants or whose legal status was unclear due to insufficient records.

$750 million will buy a couple of Littoral Combat Ships or about 12 F-18 Super Hornets or 3 Navy P-8 aircraft or 1 Coast Guard National Security Cutter or most of the cost of a new Coast Guard ice breaker. If the number turn out to be 1/2 of $750 million, you still got 1 LCS , etc.

Yes, illegal immigrants do pay into the U.S. tax system. There is an argument as to whether this contribution is a net plus or net minus. Much of that discussion depends on whether you limit the numbers to solely federal or include state costs.

Much of that discussion also predates Obamacare subsidies.

However, when there is a clear legal mandate that people who are not legally in this country should not receive Obamacare subsidies and that ought to be easy to enforce there is little excuse for the waste of hundreds of millions of tax dollars.

Health care is not the only over-spent account. There are some notable failures in trying to stimulate "green energy" projects like Solyndra (-$530 million), Fisker Automobiles (-$123 million) and Abound Solar (-$40 million).

Interesting 2013 Reason Foundation report by Victor Nava and Julian Morris Stimulating Green Electric Dreams (pdf) (emphasis added):

Over the past decade, federal and state governments have significantly increased their support for nonconventional energy technologies, ranging from wind-powered electricity generators to battery-powered cars. One of the largest such programs was the Department of Energy’s Section 1705 Loan Guarantee Program — the subject of this study.

The $16 billion dollar program “invested” in various failed enterprises, including Solyndra and Abound Solar. But those are just the tip of the iceberg of the DOE's poorly diversified portfolio of mostly “junk” grade investments, many of which, years later, are still “under construction.”

So why did the DOE systematically make loan guarantees to companies that are financially unsound? We found that many recipients had close ties to those in charge of approving the loan guarantees. Moroever, we found that the DOE allocated funds broadly in proportion to applicants’ lobbying expenditures. In other words, it is likely that loan guarantees were allocated not on the merits of the projects but, rather, according to the degree to which the applicants were able to use political connections.
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The Department of Energy’s allocation of Section 1705 loan guarantees appears to have been widely abused by political insiders seeking to make a quick buck. Many Section 1705 recipients also received other substantial funds from the DOE under the ARRA and other programs, including the ongoing Section 1703 program, suggesting that the DOE’s entire green-energy program is ill-conceived.

The fundamental problem is that government loan officers do not have incentives to ensure that the investments they make on the public’s behalf generate a return on investment. In contrast with private venture capitalists and angel investors, government agencies have no skin in the game. Whether the projects they fund succeed or fail makes practically no difference to them. In the absence of such incentives, loan officers are motivated to make their lives easier by doing politicians’ bidding or by simply allocating funds to the companies that do the most sweet-talking.

This situation has distorted investments in innovative technologies. In the absence of such subsidies, venture capitalists would have made investment decisions based on the likelihood of a return, which would have entailed an evaluation of the likely future demand for the technology, the price that could be charged and the production costs. An important factor in this decision would have been the cost and availability of alternative technologies.

The Obama administration has sought to justify its investment in solar, wind and other “renewable” technologies on the grounds that they offer a means of reducing carbon emissions. But it seems to have given little consideration to the cost of achieving this reduction. In the context of electricity generation, the dramatic increase in availability of natural gas and the consequent reduction in its price are significant. By subsidizing the current generation of solar and wind technologies, the Administration may have reduced investments in gas generation that could otherwise have helped reduce carbon emissions at a lower cost — for example, by expanding the supply of natural gas or by increasing natural gas generation capacity. And these subsidies have most likely reduced the capital invested in future, more innovative forms of generating capacity because potentially innovative companies can’t compete with government
subsidized green energy companies.

There are many reasons why people don't much like the direction of the federal government. These are but a couple of them. Or, perhaps, $17 billion reasons.

See also here, here and here.

Good Political Advice: The Tortise Strategy

Worth reading by the conservative/libertarian opponents of the current executive branch.

The American Spectator : Don't Let Alinsky Win:

"The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength," wrote Alinsky in Rules for Radicals. "The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step…."

Cloward and Piven, meanwhile, called for "a political crisis… that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty." They propose actions that "would generate severe political strains, and deepen existing divisions…. [B]y the collapse of current financing arrangements, powerful forces can be generated for major economic reforms at the national level." And: "Advocacy must be supplemented by organized demonstrations to create a climate of militancy."

A crisis is Obama's friend. An angry reaction is his ally. Disorder is his goal.

His mortal enemy (speaking tactically), on the other hand, is steady, sober, thoughtful, rational pressure by political adversaries who are willing to take the time to consolidate gains, explain themselves, reassure the public that it (the public) has nothing to fear from them (Obama's adversaries), and which constantly calibrates their words and actions to make it evident that they are keeping the moral high ground. A government shutdown does not fit this model. Forcing a debt crisis does not fit this model. Incendiary rhetoric doesn't fit the model, nor do all-or-nothing ultimatums.

In short, slow and steady. In fact, "relentless" may be a better term than steady.

You think it doesn't matter about keeping calm but steady pressure? Look at these two new White House efforts to . . . goad conservatives? Further expand the federal government?

1. Boeing may not be your favorite company, but what happens when a company's right to move to less unionized state is attacked by the federal executive branch? See Obama to Boeing: Drop Dead. Given that the argument is that the Boeing effort is purely a anti-union move and the NLRB has couched its complaint as responding to a Boeing "retaliation":

In its complaint, the labor board said that Boeing’s decision to transfer a second production line for its new 787 Dreamliner passenger plane to South Carolina was motivated by an unlawful desire to retaliate against union workers for their past strikes in Washington and to discourage future strikes. The agency’s acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, said it was illegal for companies to take actions in retaliation against workers for exercising the right to strike.

Really? So it is thus okay to force Boeing to remain in higher labor cost Washington? What about all those companies that moved production offshore to take advantage of lower labor costs (much of it related to union activity)? Can we force them to bring it all back to the U.S.? Can we make the auto makers who located plants in "open shop" states to require union membership to make it fair, when one of the reasons they left Michigan and Ohio to begin with was to avoid union hassles? Can we make Ford move factories back from Mexico? Can we make U.S. airlines buy only U.S. made aircraft? Who will pay the price for the higher costs? Oh, the consumer? Big deal, I guess.

If Washington state doesn't like businesses moving out because of more "business friendly" labor laws, why doesn't Washington state modify its laws? You know the answer - the power of union votes and money.

What prevents the Washington workers from moving themselves to South Carolina?

By having the feds step in this manner, questions must be raised about all those other inter-state competitions (such as sweet tax deals and other incentives to induce a business to relocate from California or New York to North Carolina or Mississippi)?

What about things that might be attractive enough to induce residents of states that have high income taxes to move to states that have no or much lower income taxes (Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Wyoming)? Isn't that "unfair" to the high tax states? UPDATE: For all you living in New Jersey and New York who are planning to retire to Florida - better do it soon, before it requires a federal permit that shows your expected tax contribution to NJ/NY is so negligible that you can be allowed to move. All you multi-millionaires - good luck getting such a license to move.

Was the goal of the founders to let each state exercise its own path in determining its laws and regulations or to allow the national government to force its views on individual states. If the latter, then why have states? Let's get rid of all the excess money spent on state legislatures, governors, state courts, and state laws and constitutions and give have one national legislature, executive and judiciary running the whole show.  Create your scenarios.

This battle needs to be fought in the courts, slowly and carefully. You know, unless like the idea that all states should become New York.

2. Okay, how about demanding that companies doing business with the federal government give up their free speech rights? See Obama administration considers moves to limit anonymous donations:

The White House last week began circulating a draft executive order that would require companies seeking government contracts to disclose contributions – including those that otherwise would have been secret – to groups that air political ads attacking or supporting candidates.

This a "push back" against the U.S. Supreme Court decsion that allows corporate donations to political campaigns. See here:

“No sufficient governmental interest justifies limits on the political speech of nonprofit or for-profit corporation,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

Is this an intimidation tactic? "Get along to go along?" Will there be an impact on the flow of government business your way if it turns out that your corporation has donated money to the opponents of a current administration, even if the donations are totally legal? What do you think?

So, two examples of action/proposed action that could foment an outraged response. Time to take a deep breath and win the little battles that win the larger war. Slow and steady.

What happens when Congress doesn't have clue (and doesn't care) about business...

A blog post by Chris Edwards at the CATO Institute nails it (hat tip: Tigerhawk) here:

A few wording changes to the tax code’s section 6041 regarding 1099 reporting were slipped into the 2000-page health legislation. The changes will force millions of businesses to issue hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of additional IRS Form 1099s every year. It appears to be a costly, anti-business nightmare.
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Basically, businesses will have to issue 1099s whenever they do more than $600 of business with another entity in a year. For the $14 trillion U.S. economy, that’s a hell of a lot of 1099s. When a business buys a $1,000 used car, it will have to gather information on the seller and mail 1099s to the seller and the IRS. When a small shop owner pays her rent, she will have to send a 1099 to the landlord and IRS. Recipients of the vast flood of these forms will have to match them with existing accounting records. There will be huge numbers of errors and mismatches, which will probably generate many costly battles with the IRS.

Better start collecting that 1099 info from OfficeMax, OfficeDepot,Staples, and every provider of any service to your corporation (yes, even you mom and pop S Corps).

I'm glad we closed down our little monthly newspaper business. All those 1099s from small advertisers and having to generate them for our suppliers and service providers... and now I wonder if I will have to file 1099s with my Continuing Legal Education providers. . .

"Measures to Cut Budget Deficit Are All on the Table"

Clearly this headline is false: "Measures to Cut Budget Deficit Are All on the Table"

The deficit was $1.4 trillion in 2009; the Federal government owes $12.9 trillion now and is expected to add another $1 trillion to that figure every year for at least the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The interest alone on all that debt would eventually comprise 4.5 percent of the economy and 20 percent of the Federal budget.

I'll believe the headline when Congress announces the halt of ObamaCare, an end to TARP, the "stimulus package" and throws out the Department of Education and an number of other useless, expensive agencies.

You know cuts will come in Defense which is a true Constitutional mandate, as opposed to say, subsidizing ethanol, which clearly is not. As an example, and as reported here:

In 2008, the U.S. government spent $4 billion on biofuels subsidies, replacing about 2 percent of the U.S. gasoline supply, according to the Baker Institute report, "Fundamentals of a Sustainable U.S. Biofuels Policy." The average cost to the taxpayer was about $82 a barrel, or $1.95 a gallon.

In 2007, Congress mandated that biofuels production increase from 9 billion gallons in 2008 to 36 billion gallons by 2022. Corn ethanol is capped at 15 billion gallons a year, but the study says even that level will be difficult to reach.

The report also questions the tariff imposed on ethanol imported from Latin America and the Caribbean, mainly made from sugar cane. Because sustainable production of U.S. domestic corn-based ethanol faces limitations, the report finds "tariff policies that block cheaper imports are probably misguided."

And ethanol isn't even a "clean" fuel.