This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: “Your Tax Dollars At Work”

  • More on Social Security Disability

    I’ve written before (here and here) about Social Security Disability.  Well, ti’s time for an update.

    Yeah, the Social Security Disability rolls set another record last month.  In April 2014, according to the Social Security Administration nearly 11 million Americans (10,996,447) were receiving Social Security Disability benefits.

    This total was an increase of over 15,000 from the previous month.

    Nearly 9 million of those receiving benefits – 8,942,232, to be precise – were disabled workers. The other 2+ million beneficiaries were spouses and children.

    The fraction of America receiving Social Security disability continues to rise also.  In 1967, 2 million were receiving Social Security disability benefits – out of a population of roughly 198.7 million.  That was about 1.01% of the US population.

    Today, the Census Bureaus says the US population is roughly 318 million. Doing the math, that means that nearly 3.5% of the US population (3.46%) is currently drawing Social Security disability benefits.

    The number of people drawing Social Security disability benefits today is greater than the estimated population of Tunisia.  The number is approaching the population of Cuba.

    Any questions regarding why the SSA is now saying that the Social Security Disability Fund will go broke in about 2 years?

    The CNS article has an excellent graph showing the number of Social Security Disability recipients by year, but it’s scaled rather small and doesn’t display that well in their article.  Click here to see that graph as a separate image.

    We are so screwed.

  • About Those ObamaCare Subsidies . . . .

    Remember about 6 months ago? When I wrote that the FBI had serious concerns about the possibility for fraud concerning those ObamaCare subsidies because the data used to calculate them would be reported using the “honor system”?

    Well, it looks like there’s a damn good chance the FBI was right to be concerned. Because now we’re seeing the first data regarding just how well income information reported by those qualifying for subsidies matches up with income data on file at the IRS and other government agencies.

    BLUF:   “T’ain’t lookin’ s’good, Cleetus.  Looks to be lotsa ‘mistakes’ in them thair applikashuns.”

    Specifically:  over half of those who signed up through the Federal exchange (Healthcare.gov) appear to have an “inconsistency” in their application – an inconsistency that requires further explanation and/or additional documentation. The total number of applications with such an inconsistency is about 3 million.

    It’s estimated that up to 1/3 of this group – or about 1 million individuals – could well be receiving an inaccurate subsidy. If they’re getting too little, they’re missing out on what the law allows. (Whether the government has any business providing squat is a different argument, one I’m not addressing here.) If they’re getting too much, though, they could be in for a huge tax issue at some point in the future.

    The article doesn’t say how many of these “inconsistencies” appear to be outright fraud. But two other programs that operated on the basis of “honor system” income reporting – the “ObamaPhone” program (formally LifeLine) and the EIC tax credit – are estimated to have had historical fraud rates in the 20% to 40% range.

    The discrepancy rate here for ObamaCare is consistent with a fraud rate close to that magnitude.  And since it’s known that some ObamaCare navigators were advising people to understate their actual incomes in order to to qualify for subsidies, I’m guessing a large chunk of those “discrepancies” are indeed due to outright fraud.

    Unfortunately, we don’t yet know much in the way of details. There’s still no working process for computer checking ObamaCare applications against income data on-file with other government agencies. The matching must be done manually, so it will take a while.

    Still – this is just another bit of proof that ObamaCare is a half-baked abomination that should be burned to the ground, then the ashes buried in quicklime.  With a stake through what’s left of its bureaucratic heart for good measure.

  • ObamaCare Websites Total Cost? $5 Billion and Climbing

    I’ve written previously about troubles with various state ObamaCare insurance exchanges.  Without rehashing things, five of them – MD, OR, NV, MA, and HI – have run through nearly $500 million in Federal money, and delivered essentially squat.

    However, that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

    HealthCare.gov is only about half-finished.  And it’s run up a huge bill, too.  I don’t have figures for today.  But six months ago (November 2013), HHS indicated they’d spent upwards of $675 million for that “sterling example of technology”.  God only knows what the total is today.

    So it’s clear we’ve poured literally hundreds of tons of $1 bills down the toilet just in building these non-functional pieces of junk.  (A metric ton of $1 bills is worth roughly $1 million.)  But how much have we spent overall?

    Well, the Financial Times did some digging.  And they’ve come up with an approximate amount spent on those various “healthcare exchanges” to date.

    You might want to sit down.

    Kaiser Permanente did the actual estimate.  And by their estimate, the Federal government alone has spent approximately $4.7 billion since 2011 to assist in creating healthcare exchange websites.

    That’s only the total for Federal spending.  It doesn’t include state spending.  Including state spending pushes the total spent on these exchanges well above $5 billion.

    And it doesn’t include cost of ObamaCare’s subsidies, HHS bureaucracy, or any of the multitude of other costs associated with ObamaCare.

    Needless to say, after seeing this none of the other 35 states that passed on setting up their own health insurance exchanges plan to do so.  And several who have their own today have either terminated them or are seriously considering doing so.

    Sheesh.  We need to dump this SCoaMF of a Federal program posthaste.  Like preferably yesterday.

  • Well, This Just Freaking Takes the Cake

    Most TAH readers know that the President’s air transportation is provided by DoD.  No issue with that.

    Most TAH readers know that the USMC provides his official rotary-wing transportation – “Marine 1”, it’s called, when occupied by the POTUS.  No real problem with that, either.

    However, the Marine VIP helicopter fleet dedicated to the task is aging.  So a contract has apparently been let to replace it.

    However, I do have a huge problem with that.  You see, the overall cost of the replacement program is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to be around $17 billion over multiple years – for 23 helicopters.  The cost for each helicopter is estimated to be around $400 million.  The rest of the $17 billion is presumably operations and maintenance costs associated with the program over its life cycle.

    Yes, you read that correctly.  $400 million. Per. Freaking. Helicopter.

    To put things in perspective, that’s about the same unit cost as the Air Force One Boeing 747.

    The USMC and Navy have been down this road before.  They previously spent $3.2 billion on a failed effort to replace the Marine VIP helicopter fleet.  That effort was terminated because it was “too costly”.

    Adding that cost, the total spent to replace the Marine VIP helicopter fleet comes to a cool $20 billion.

    Oh, and did I mention that the new helicopters won’t be ready until 2022?  Or that the program cost does not include the cost of maintaining and operating the existing Marine VIP helicopter fleet until the new aircraft are available?

    You know, it just seems to me that we could have negotiated a better deal than $400 million per helicopter.  But I also have to wonder just hard we really tried to negotiate – seeing as only one firm (Sikorsky) bid on the latest contract.

    And in case you were wondering:  yeah, Sikorsky builds the current VIP fleet.

    Sheesh.  Perhaps the best comment I’ve heard on the situation was from a former senior DoD official, who quipped that at that price, “Marine One should be able to have a solid gold toilet for the president – except that it would add too much weight.”

    Further details are found in this UK Daily Mail article.  Don’t read it unless you want to get royally p!ssed.

    But I guess in a way this is good news.  After all, like I said yesterday:  this means DoD – and especially the USMC and the Navy – must be absolutely flush with cash, right?

  • Nice to See DoD Has Plenty of Money

    I guess that must be the case.  DoD has decided to play around with R&R leave rules.

    Yeah – again.

    Now, it seems as if anyone who deploys prior to 1 June 2014 to “the land areas of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan” will be “grandfathered” for R&R.  Specifically, it means if you deploy before 1 June 2014, you’ll be authorized non-chargeable R&R leave, complete with paid transportation to/from the leave location.

    Deploy on or after 1 June 2014 to those areas, and you’re SOL.

    The reason those 9 areas were losing R&R authorization was that they’re also losing “combat zone” designation on 1 June 2014 – and thus most “combat zone” bennies.  They still are.

    Personally, I think that’s long overdue.  If there have been shots fired in anger in any of those 9 countries during the past decade, I certainly haven’t heard of it.  They’ve IMO been nothing but a remote unaccompanied tour for at least that long.

    Sheesh.  It seems to me that using a little common sense was all that was required vice yet another exception to policy.  Specifically:  if you had spent enough time to qualify for R&R under the “old rules” as of 1 June 2014 (6+ months, if I recall correctly), then you should get R&R.  If not – well, as JFK said, “Life is not fair.”  Maybe that’s just me.

    But I do have to wonder how anyone reporting in on 1 June is going to feel now when the guy or gal who got there a week earlier goes on R&R – and they realize they won’t get to do the same.

    Still, it’s nice to see that DoD has a bunch of extra money laying around.  They must have in order to pay for things like this.

  • More Secret Service Issues? Sure Looks Like It

    We’ve written more than once before here on TAH about issues with the US Secret Service (previous articles can be found here and here and here).  Well, it looks like there’s another issue or two now coming to light.

    It seems as if agents assigned to duties protecting the POTUS were on multiple occasions diverted to another task.  Specifically, they appear to have been sent to check on the “well being” of the Director’s assistant, who “was being harassed by her neighbor.”

    For a period of time, agents were sent twice a day to a small town in SE Maryland roughly and hour’s drive from the White House.  Agents involved

    . . . . thought the reassignment was a potentially illegal use of government resources. They were concerned enough about their own liability that they kept records of their involvement and their superiors’ instructions.

    In at least one case, agents were diverted from an assignment patrolling the Ellipse shortly before the POTUS was to depart the White House via helicopter.  Such times are periods of enhanced White House security.

    When reached for comment, the former US Secret Service Director involved – Mark Sullivan

    . . . . said through a spokesman that he did not personally order the 2011 checks on his assistant’s home and that a supervisor in his office authorized the visits. He said that he learned of the checks after they began and that to his knowledge, they were done for just a few days and were “appropriate.”

    The Washington Post has a decent article on the agents’ diversion.  It’s IMO worth reading.

    Think the Holder-led Justice Department will actually investigate this case thoroughly?  And maybe even hold someone criminally liable for misuse of government resources?

    Nah.  Me neither.

  • YRGBSM!! (the “R” Stands for “Really”)

    I wish I were, and that this article of mine was fiction.  Sadly, I’m not – and it isn’t.

    DoD is buying “green fuels”.  We all knew that.  Hell, it’s one of this administration’s   obsessions    apparent means of political payback    wealth redistribution mechanisms    truly stupid ideas   pet projects.

    But this time, what DoD’s done IMO really takes the cake.  Let me assure you – you don’t want to know what DoD has been paying for “green” jet fuel.

    You probably need to know.  But you don’t want to know.

    The article documenting just how badly Uncle Sam is taking it in the . . . ear regarding some of this type of “green fuel” can be found here.  It’s so damn bad I’m intentionally omitting some of the details in this article.

    If you really want to get p!ssed, follow the link and read it.  If you have even two or more working brain cells and pay taxes I’m pretty sure you will be seriously angry after reading it.

    And yeah – one of the guys heavily invested in the firm getting top dollar is a big donor to the current Administration’s political party.

    Given what else is going on with the DoD budget these days, this is particularly galling to me.  But maybe that’s just me.

    Sheesh.  GMAFB.

     

    (Edited to add:  hat tip to the Drudge Report for the link.)

  • FBI Investigating “Cover Oregon”

    It’s about freaking time.   And for what it’s worth, so is the HHS Office of the Inspector General  – as well as the GAO and at least one Congressional committee.

    As most TAH readers probably remember, “Cover Oregon” was that “wonderful” healthcare insurance exchange developed by the state of Oregon.  It received $303M in Federal grants.

    By mid-December 2013 just under $160M had been spent to “develop” Cover Oregon’s website to allow online application for health insurance.  As of April 2014, that website had signed up precisely zero online applicants (approximately 200,000 did manage to sign up via a paper application processes).

    Oregon has since announced termination of that website, and that it will use that paragon of excellent function, HealthCare.gov, in the future as it’s healthcare exchange.  Those who signed up previously will have to reapply next year.

    I’m sure they’ll enjoy working their way through the Federal website.  Or maybe they’ll submit a paper application to the Federal government instead – just like tens of thousands of those who tried to apply at HealthCare.gov ended up needing to do.  (smile)

    It also appears that the folks who were running Cover Oregon may have misled Federal authorities to get that $303M in Federal funding.  In such programs, funding is typically provided incrementally, with evidence of progress required to receive the next grant.  Multiple sources indicate that Cover Oregon presented an unduly “rosy” picture of progress to Federal authorities to continue receiving Federal grant funding.

    The Oregonian has a good article on “Cover Oregon” and why it’s being investigated.  IMO, it’s worth reading – again, if you don’t have blood pressure or anger management issues.

    Stay tuned.  This one could get interesting.

    That said, I’m pessimistic that anyone will be held accountable.  After all, the FBI is part of the same DoJ that gave us “Fast and Furious”.  No one has been held accountable there yet.

    That unlawful “escapade” got people killed.  Given that fact – and the fact that no one was held accountable – what’s $303M in tax money lost to fraud?