RealClearInvestigations Articles

Voters often say that politicians have no common sense, but a little-known Senate program takes that belief a bit too seriously. The Office of Education and Training gives senators and their staffers classes on basic life skills like stress management, small talk, self-assertiveness, proper sitting posture and even sleeping. Taxpayers spent $1.9 million funding the classes in 2013, or $2.7 million in today’s money. The program still exists, but the dollar cost is unclear because it’s been incorporated into the larger Office of the Sergeant at Arms’ budget. That’s...

The State of Utah overpaid a janitorial contractor by $677,669 after one of its own employees falsified procurement documents and made improper contract changes. The Division of Facilities Construction and Management recovered some of the money, but $291,650 is gone, according to a September state audit. Key facts: The problems involved janitorial services at the Taylorsville State Office Building, a 415,000-square-foot complex housing more than a dozen government agencies.  Auditors said the employee responsible for the contract worked mostly in isolation. Reviewers failed to catch...

Contractors working at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ suicide-prevention hotline earned $11.2 million without answering a single phone call, according to a Sept. 1 report from the VA inspector general. Key facts: The Veterans Crisis Line is available 24 hours per day for veterans experiencing a mental health emergency. Trained government staff answer calls, provide support and send a medical team if there is an immediate risk of harm. In 2019, a contractor was hired to establish a backup crisis line. If the main Veterans Crisis Line was unavailable because of a power outage or some...

It’s no wonder that California’s infamous high-speed rail line has more than tripled in cost and been delayed by 20 years. The consultants working on the project have been killing time at a tiki bar, a nightclub, an escape room, a gym and more. Their travel expenses add up to more than $2 million, including $592,000 that was “not allowable,” per a Sept. 15 inspector general report. Key facts: The consultants are allowed to bill taxpayers for legitimate business expenses, but the state “routinely” allowed them to travel without advance approval, as required....

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the WeekSeptember 20 to September 26   RCI Podcasts & Videos On the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney discuss a wide range of articles published this week. Topics include the growing campaign to cast AI as an existential threat, the media’s lack of interest in the rampant fraud targeting taxpayer funds and the rise of Islam in Europe and the US. You can also listen to the Podcast on Spotify and Apple by search “RealClearInvestigations.”   On The Miller Report: Real...

Americans underpaid their taxes by an estimated $696 billion in 2022, according to new data released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.  Most of the money came from people and businesses that understated their income. But 9% came from people who didn’t file a tax return at all, and efforts to track them down have been slow-moving as the Internal Revenue Services’ case log remains backed up. Key facts: The IRS’ backlog of cases increased when its office buildings closed during the Covid-19 pandemic, but the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022...

Anyone who has had an argument with their spouse knows that telling them to “just calm down” is usually not productive. But a taxpayer-funded study from 2013 arrived at the opposite conclusion, showing a link between avoiding emotional outbursts and marital satisfaction.  The study focused mostly on wives’ behavior, concluding that women who can “regulate” their “negative behavior” are more likely to have a successful marriage. The research was produced with a $325,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, or $465,000 in today’s...

When Bari Weiss was hired to lead CBS News last year, many of the network’s star reporters feared the centrist founder of The Free Press news site would turn the network into a mouthpiece for the Trump administration. Longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley was fired after he accused Weiss of “murdering the show.” If the season premiere of “60 Minutes” is any indication, progressives have little to complain about. In a segment titled “The Pardon Economy,” veteran CBS reporter Lesley Stahl alleges that Trump has upended...

Oklahoma spent $6.2 million planning and designing a behavioral health campus that was never built — and State Auditor Cindy Byrd says the work wasn’t helpful for the replacement project officials ultimately chose. Key facts: The Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services planned to build the Donahue Behavioral Health Campus in Oklahoma City for patients in need of urgent, overnight care. The state appropriated $87 million for the project in 2022, using federal Covid-19 relief funds. Oklahoma City and County contributed a combined $2.5 million. Before...

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced it has cut off payments to 11 providers suspected of fraudulently billing $3.4 billion to Medicare Advantage for durable medical equipment in the past two years. Key facts: A New Jersey-based provider claimed to have treated one patient 38 times, but records showed the patient died before the first treatment began.  A Texas-based provider also claimed to treat nine patients that records showed were already deceased. Another six people the provider claimed to treat told CMS they never heard of the company. A company in Florida...

Five construction projects at a Department of /Veterans Affairs medical center in Fayetteville, Arkansas nearly tripled in cost because of delays that “could have been prevented” by better communication among VA staff, according to a Sept. 9 report from the agency’s inspector general. Key facts: Staff in Fayetteville hired construction companies for the five projects, but never provided the necessary blueprints or details about what the projects entailed, the IG found.  The construction companies were left to follow “vague” instructions, leading to errors...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the WeekSeptember 13 to September 19   RCI Podcasts & Videos On this week’s episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, RCI Editor J. Peder Zane and RCI Senior Reporter James Varney speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Joby Warrick about his compulsively readable new book, “The Jackal: The Rise and Fall of Carlos, the World’s First Super-Terrorist.”   Featured Investigation: Natural Gas Is Cheap – Why Is Your Bill So High? Natural gas has rarely been cheaper in Southwestern, Pennsylvania, yet monthly bills...

The Small Business Administration potentially made $11.5 million in improper payments to banks after overruling its own employees who had recommended reducing or denying government guarantees on 16 failed small-business loans. For another 13 failed loans, SBA took so long to review them that the six-year statute of limitations expired, wasting another $5.4 million, according to an Aug. 27 inspector general report. Key facts: SBA’s 7(a) program helps startups with a risky business model get loans, but it does not generally lend taxpayer money directly. Private banks make loans of up to...

The quintessential image of up-and-coming musicians toughing it out in a squalid tour bus was far from reality in 2013, when the federal government spent $284,300 helping record label executives travel overseas to sell music — $412,249 in today’s dollars. The American Association of Independent Music received the money from the Department of Commerce’s Market Development Cooperator Program to promote indie rock in China, France, Brazil and Canada. That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For...

A potentially sweeping reform to K-12 education beginning in January is forcing Democratic governors to weigh the political risks of joining or rejecting the new federal school choice program designed by conservatives.   The little-known program, called the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit, creates a new and possibly large funding stream for education based on private donations to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations. The uncapped initiative is expected to generate billions of dollars in scholarships that could affect the educational paths and performance of millions of...

RealClearInvestigations’ seven-part series, Islam’s Rise Across America, reports on the growing power and influence of Muslim-Americans across the country. GOP Battles Sharia: Is Islamic Law a Threat or Dog Whistle? Paul Sperry reports for RealClearInvestigations that congressional Republicans, backed by President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, are advancing legislation to restrict immigration from Muslim-majority nations and curb the spread of Sharia law in America. They warn that growing Muslim immigration is enabling the formation of parallel societies governed by...

Medicare spent an estimated $380 million acquiring human organs that were either transplanted into patients without Medicare or never transplanted at all, according to a new Department of Health and Human Services inspector general audit. Key facts: Medicare reimburses hospitals for removing kidneys, hearts, lungs and other organs from donors after they die. Federal law says Medicare should only bear those costs when the organ is used in a Medicare-covered transplant. But decades-old Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services guidance tells hospitals to assume that any organ they send to a...

The U.S. Army gave $533 million to General Dynamics to build an artillery factory in Texas that has yet to produce a single usable shell, according to an investigation by ProPublica. Key facts: The Army wanted to rapidly increase production of 155mm artillery shells after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. General Dynamics was the only U.S. producer of the shell bodies at the time. Instead of using its own proven manufacturing process, General Dynamics used new “flow-forming” machinery from Turkish subcontractor Repkon. The equipment had never produced the newer model of shell the...

Retiree Janet Stechly examines her often confounding gas bill in her Washington, PA, home. RCI WASHINGTON, Pennsylvania—Janet Stechly, a retired schoolteacher, and her husband, a retired coal miner, pore over every monthly expense. One of the most confounding is the monthly natural gas bill for their small townhouse in southwestern Pennsylvania. Their March bill from Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania totaled $95.17, but only $13.99 of that was for the gas itself. The other $81.18 covered delivery ($40.68) and a series of hard-to-decipher items including a “customer charge”...