Government Waste:

What's It Like To Have A Big Pile of Government Waste Named After You, Bob?, May 13, 2008
Ben Cunningham writes elequently about the waste-of-tax-dollars known as the Clement Landport. Bob Clement spent millions of tax dollars building a mass transit hub that was unwanted, unnecessary and poorly planned, not to mention a complete waste of time, money,...

Criminally Insane, May 13, 2008
Totalitarianism will come to the United States via the efforts of government social workers like these in California. The story's from February but I just ran across it via the Sam Adams Alliance website....

Celebrate!, April 11, 2008
Free at last, free at last! We're free from the tax man for the rest of the year here in Tennessee. It's Tax Freedom Day. By the end of today, the average Tennessee taxpayer will have worked enough days this...

$5 Billion Earmark Update, July 25, 2007
When I reported two weeks ago on an effort by U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota, to pass legislation to kill the Defense Travel System, opening up a potential $5 billion in government business to Carlson Cos., a home-state company whose...

100 Percent Against Earmarks, July 12, 2007
The National Taxpayers Union has posted the pictures of every member of Congress who has voted for every amendment proposed by U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, to strike earmarks from appropriations bills. Four Tennessee members of congress made the list....

A $5 Billion Earmark?, July 12, 2007
In late March of this year, just three weeks after filing legislation that would largely kill a government program established just 10 years ago to help the Department of Defense reduce waste in its mammoth travel expenditures, U.S. Sen. Norm...

Rep. Blackburn Explains Earmarks, June 27, 2007
I recently invited U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, to write something explaining her view of the use of "earmarks" in the congressional budgeting process, and I'd publish it here at BillHobbs.com. I received the following today via Matt Lambert, Rep....

Tennessee Pork, May 3, 2007
Instapundit notes a Washington Examiner story showing just how difficult it is to find out which member of Congress sponsored any specific "earmark" in federal appropriations bills, despite the recent creation of a public database of earmarks. Earmarks are funds...

One of The Good Guys, March 24, 2007
ABC News' 20/20 program had a very nice report Friday night on Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn's anti-pork efforts. You can read it here. If the Senate had at least 50 more just like him, America would be much the better...

Your Tax Dollars at Work Lobbying For More of Your Tax Dollars, November 26, 2006
The Chattanooga Times Free Press explores the spending of your tax dollars by Tennessee cities and towns and government agencies to lobby the state legislature and Congress for more of your state and federal tax dollars. There is something unseemly...

Earmarks Update, September 2, 2006
The Saturday Tennessean has an editorial about earmarks, those often-secretive funding requests that members of Congress now routinely use to spend tax dollars. I recently requested of all nine members of Tennessee's congressional delegation information about which earmarks in the...

Exposing Earmarks, August 15, 2006
The Washington Examiner is inviting readers and bloggers "to help uncover which members of Congress sponsored the 1,867 secret spending earmarks worth more than $500 million in the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriation bill now before Congress."These earmarks average more...

Congressional Spending Report Card, August 5, 2006
By Rick Forman To complement the Congressional Rankings, I suggest a visit to TRIM for the Tennessee delegation. None of the 9 representatives from our state have an acceptable voting record regarding lower taxes and less government. It surprised me...

Foundational Wisdom, July 26, 2006
The Tennessean has an editorial today criticizing our nation's tax laws - not for being too complex and not for taking such a greedy chunk of a family's wealth upon the death of the family member who earned it, but...

In Praise of Gridlock, June 12, 2006
Blake Wylie, guest-blogging over at Nashville is Talking, is longing for gridlock in Washington DC, and recalling the 1995 government shut-down fondly. I was in Peterborough, N.H., on a business trip on the day the federal government shutdown began, preparing...

The Lush Life: At Least Nobody Died This Time, May 5, 2006
If you pop an Ambien and then hop in your car and go driving, and are stopped by the police, you can be charged with driving while impaired. If convicted, typically, you will lose your license for a year, pay...

The Trough, January 9, 2006
In the January 2006 edition of the Cato Institute's Tax & Budget Bulletin, tax expert Chris Edwards investigates the bureaucracy of state governments and argues that the "nation's 16 million state and local government workers form a large, growing, and...