Myrtle Beach, SC Open them, and be ready for what the audit finds, because it is not what this Forum has been assuming. Social Security has one of the lowest improper-payment rates in the federal government. Well under one percent of benefits paid. Not one percent of the improper-payment total — one percent of the … Continue reading Should Social Security and Medicare administration be opened to the same improper-payment and systems audit as smaller programs, or does touching those brands poison any serious waste effort?
Author: thinkingoutsidetheboxe
If Congress will not repeal the statutes that create the spending, can an efficiency office do more than delay outlays and demoralize staff — or is delay itself the only leverage a president has left?
Gastonia, NC This question is about whether a president may lawfully delay spending, and there is a statute that answers it directly, and this Forum has now discussed the subject for six months without naming it once. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974. It was passed because Richard Nixon refused to spend money Congress had … Continue reading If Congress will not repeal the statutes that create the spending, can an efficiency office do more than delay outlays and demoralize staff — or is delay itself the only leverage a president has left?
Do cuts and pauses in foreign-aid and humanitarian vehicles prove that a lot of spending had no domestic constituency — or that efficiency campaigns always start with the least-lobbied accounts rather than the largest ones?
Myrtle Beach, SC Both halves are partly right and the arithmetic settles which one matters more, so let me do the arithmetic. Total US foreign assistance runs somewhere under seventy billion dollars a year. USAID's share was around forty billion. Federal outlays are roughly six and three-quarter trillion. So the entire foreign aid budget is … Continue reading Do cuts and pauses in foreign-aid and humanitarian vehicles prove that a lot of spending had no domestic constituency — or that efficiency campaigns always start with the least-lobbied accounts rather than the largest ones?
Can artificial intelligence usefully flag fraud and duplicate payments inside government, or will agencies use “the model said so” to dodge the human accountability they already fail to provide?
Gastonia, NC Flag, yes. Verdict, no. And the rule I was about to demand was issued eleven days ago as federal policy, which nobody in this Forum seems to have noticed. On the third of April the Office of Management and Budget put out new guidance governing how agencies use artificial intelligence. It replaces the … Continue reading Can artificial intelligence usefully flag fraud and duplicate payments inside government, or will agencies use “the model said so” to dodge the human accountability they already fail to provide?
Is putting modern identity, claims, and audit software against federal benefit systems a long-overdue upgrade, or a privacy-and-error risk that will create a new class of wrongful denials?
Myrtle Beach, SC Overdue upgrade, and the last two months are a lesson in why the upgrade has to be run by people who understand the systems. In February the claim went around that Social Security had millions of people aged well over a hundred marked as alive in its records, some listed at a … Continue reading Is putting modern identity, claims, and audit software against federal benefit systems a long-overdue upgrade, or a privacy-and-error risk that will create a new class of wrongful denials?
After the dust settles, what should a serious republic treat as the lasting rule: clemency is total and unreviewable even when it looks like self-protection — or future presidents will now treat preemptive family-and-staff packages as standard equipment?
Myrtle Beach, SC This question offers two options and a third one appeared overnight. Just after midnight this morning, the President posted that the pardons Joe Biden granted to the January 6 committee and others are "hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT," because they were signed by autopen, and that … Continue reading After the dust settles, what should a serious republic treat as the lasting rule: clemency is total and unreviewable even when it looks like self-protection — or future presidents will now treat preemptive family-and-staff packages as standard equipment?
Should improper payments — Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, disaster aid, pandemic leftovers — be treated as the core waste metric, or is that accounting too narrow for what voters mean by “the swamp”?
Gastonia, NC Core metric, and let me put the actual number down, because this Forum has argued about this for seven weeks without one. The Government Accountability Office puts federal improper payments for fiscal 2024 at roughly a hundred and sixty-two billion dollars. The cumulative figure since 2003, when agencies began reporting, is somewhere around … Continue reading Should improper payments — Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment, disaster aid, pandemic leftovers — be treated as the core waste metric, or is that accounting too narrow for what voters mean by “the swamp”?
Does a last-day preemptive package strengthen the case that “no one is above the law” was a slogan, or can a president empty the risk file on the way out and still leave that slogan intact?
Gastonia, NC If the slogan survived January 20, words do not mean things. But I want to be precise about which January 20, because two packages were signed that day and our side keeps discussing only one. In the morning, a departing president pardoned Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley, the members and staff of the January … Continue reading Does a last-day preemptive package strengthen the case that “no one is above the law” was a slogan, or can a president empty the risk file on the way out and still leave that slogan intact?
The 19th Annual Robert M. Clinger III Invitational Golf Tournament
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The 19 th Annual Robert M. Clinger III Invitational Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, February 18, 2025—The 19th Annual Robert M. Clinger III Invitational was contested on Monday, February 17, 2025 at The Dunes Golf & Beach Club in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The field of eighty-four players braved the cold and wind … Continue reading The 19th Annual Robert M. Clinger III Invitational Golf Tournament
Should Congress attempt to limit preemptive or self-dealing clemency — reporting rules, waiting periods, or a ban on covering unnamed future charges — or would any statute collapse under the pardon clause as written?
Myrtle Beach, SC Attempt the sunlight. Do not sell a ban as anything but a marker. The clause is a wall and the Supreme Court has said so in about as few words as it ever uses. A statute reading "the president may not pardon before charge" or "the president may not pardon a relative" … Continue reading Should Congress attempt to limit preemptive or self-dealing clemency — reporting rules, waiting periods, or a ban on covering unnamed future charges — or would any statute collapse under the pardon clause as written?
