ReportWire

Tag: Government Waste

  • How much is Kristi Noem’s alleged adultery airplane costing you?

    [ad_1]

    Rumors of an affair between Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Trump administration political adviser Corey Lewandowski have been flying for months.

    And all that flying, it turns out, might come with a big price tag for taxpayers.

    The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Noem and Lewandowski have recently been traveling together aboard a luxury Boeing 737 MAX jet that includes a private cabin in the rear. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is “leasing the plane but is in the process of acquiring it for approximately $70 million,” the Journal reports, citing people familiar with the plane.

    That is just one small detail amid the explosive and deeply reported piece, which details a pattern of behavior that is both self-aggrandizing and petty. In one incident, Lewandowski reportedly fired a Coast Guard pilot for leaving Noem’s blanket on a plane (it is unclear whether that was the 737 MAX or a different plane), only to reinstate the pilot when a replacement could not be found. The report comes at a time when Noem is under intense scrutiny for her role in ordering the high-profile and aggressive immigration enforcement tactics in Minneapolis that led to the deaths of two American citizens at the hands of federal officers.

    The salacious rumors of an affair between Noem and Lewandowski—both of whom are married to other people—surface repeatedly in the Journal’s article but have been denied by the two officials.

    The deeper, indisputable truth is that taxpayers are being forced to support an aircraft-buying binge at the DHS that goes beyond the alleged adultery airplane used by Noem and Lewandowski.

    Last year, the department purchased a fleet of six commercial jets, ostensibly to carry out deportation flights, at a cost of $140 million. It is unclear whether Noem’s plane with the private cabin is one of those or an additional plane.

    The aircraft in question was apparently identified last year by The War Zone, a blog covering the national security state. The plane has a cabin configuration designed to accommodate 17 passengers and was being marketed at the time for its “extremely luxurious interior layout that includes two suites with full-size beds and a master bathroom with a shower stall, among many other amenities,” according to a brochure reviewed by The War Zone.

    Even if Noem and Lewandowski are not using the plane for, um, activities that go beyond their official duties, there ought to be hard questions asked about whether taxpayers are getting screwed.

    Indeed, there was a time—not even a year ago—when the Trump administration was promising to cut wasteful spending and hold government officials accountable to taxpayers. If the Journal‘s reporting turns out to be accurate, the mess at DHS looks a lot like the complete opposite of that.

    [ad_2]

    Eric Boehm

    Source link

  • The real reason you pay for NFL stadiums

    [ad_1]

    This week, guest host Eric Boehm is joined by J.C. Bradbury, an economist at Kennesaw State University and one of the leading critics of taxpayer-funded sports stadiums. Bradbury is the author of a forthcoming book, This One Will be Different, on the “false promises and fiscal realities” of stadium subsidies.

    Boehm and Bradbury discuss why stadiums rarely deliver on the economic benefits touted by team owners and local politicians, and how public officials, media outlets, and hired consultants help create the illusion that these projects pay for themselves. Bradbury explains why these deals often amount to a reallocation of existing local spending rather than genuine economic growth, and why taxpayers end up footing the bill for facilities that primarily benefit private sports franchises.

    The conversation also touches on the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the surge of new stadium proposals across the country. Bradbury makes the case that America is on the verge of another stadium building boom, driven by political incentives and public enthusiasm rather than sound economics, and argues that cities would be better stewards of tax dollars if they resisted the pressure to subsidize major sports projects.

    The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, and scholars who are making the world a more libertarian—or at least a more interesting—place by championing free minds and free markets.

    0:00—Introduction

    0:56—Loving sports without loving subsidies

    6:01—Marketing taxpayer-funded stadium projects

    16:15—Civic pride and measuring ROI

    21:20—What makes sports stadiums unique?

    24:18—The upcoming stadium building boom

    35:01—Truist Park development

    43:03—Examples of fiscal restraint

    46:04—The Super Bowl and Olympic Games

    51:18—Bradbury’s career trajectory

     

    [ad_2]

    Eric Boehm

    Source link

  • Why can’t New York get rid of 2-person subway crews?

    [ad_1]

    Late last year, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill that would have required two-person operating crews on New York City subways, despite heavy pressure from transit unions. While the veto looked like a win for fiscal sanity, two-person train crews—and needlessly expensive transit systems—are likely here for the foreseeable future.

    The bill, which would have mandated both a driver and a conductor on each train, cleared the state Legislature somewhat unexpectedly last year. It was pushed by the Transport Workers Union (TWU) to permanently codify more union jobs into state law.

    Most NYC subway lines already operate with two-person crews under the current labor contract between the TWU and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Hochul’s veto stopped two-person crews from spreading systemwide, and it theoretically left the door open for the topic to be renegotiated in future labor talks, rather than being cemented into state law.

    NYC’s two-person system is a global outlier. An analysis from New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management found that just 6 percent of the world’s commuter rail lines use two-person crews, with most operating safely with a single driver for decades.

    Although unions insist two-person crews are essential for safety, evidence suggests otherwise. The Manhattan Institute’s Adam Lehodey has documented that London, which uses one-person crews, operates one of the safest rail networks in the world. Research from the Association of American Railroads, which compared one-person trains in Europe to America’s multiperson freight train system, similarly found no evidence of a safety impact.

    But, as TWU President John Samuelsen told The New York Times, “It doesn’t really matter to us what the data shows,” adding that a driver and a conductor make trips “visibly safer.”

    The fight over crew size extends beyond New York. Under President Joe Biden, the Federal Railroad Administration enacted a rule mandating two-person crews for freight trains nationwide. While one might expect this rule to be repealed in a Republican administration, the GOP’s continued bear hug with organized labor has muddied the waters.

    President Donald Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FRA Administrator David Fink both voiced support for the Biden-era two-person crew rule during their confirmation hearings. During his time in the Senate, Vice President J.D. Vance co-sponsored—along with numerous other Republicans, including Sen. John Hawley (R–Mo.) and then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R–Fla.)—the Railway Safety Act, which would have legislatively mandated two-person freight crews.

    The contradiction is especially stark in rail policy, as Trump recently fired numerous Surface Transportation Board members, presumably in an effort to greenlight railroad mergers—the type of pro-railroad stance that collides with the administration’s pro-union crew-size priors.

    Beyond failing to improve safety, two-person crews are substantially more expensive. Switching to one-person crews would save the MTA $442 million a year. That money could fund real safety improvements, such as the installation of platform doors, which provide a physical barrier between passengers and the train until the train has come to a complete stop. After platform doors were installed in Seoul, South Korea, annual subway deaths dropped from 70 to two.

    If anything, Hochul’s veto merely gives new NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani more flexibility in future labor negotiations between the TWU and the MTA. Based on the mayor’s track record, it’s unlikely he’ll be a voice for one-person crews.

    Given likely political support from both City Hall and the White House, two-person crews appear entrenched—and riders will keep paying for them.

    [ad_2]

    C. Jarrett Dieterle

    Source link

  • Photos: What is the National Guard doing in D.C.?

    [ad_1]

    Since August 11, President Donald Trump’s “Safe and Beautiful” plan has pulled more than 2,000 National Guard troops into Washington, D.C.—a visible show of force to deter crime and signal federal control. A U.S. district court judge ruled on November 20 that the deployment is unlawful and ordered that it end, but stayed that order for 21 days. Trump’s lawyers have argued his National Guard powers are “unreviewable.”

    Photo: A National Guard member clears leaves on August 28, 2025, at McPherson Square; Cybele Mayes-Osterman

    For locals, the guard members’ effect on crime remains debatable, but the accompanying checkpoints and stops have been uncontroversially disruptive. The oddest part of the spectacle is captured in the photos that follow. Uniformed and armed men and women from across the country can be seen all over the city wielding leaf blowers, hoses, and brooms as they do municipal chores—tasks for which they are surely overqualified.

    Photo: Air National Guard members clear leaves and debris from McPherson Square, August 28, 2025; Andrew Leyden/Getty

    The deployment is costing taxpayers between $1 million and $1.5 million per day. But over Thanksgiving weekend, the cost rose sharply: A close-range ambush near Farragut Square killed 20-year-old Specialist Sarah Beckstrom and left 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe in critical condition. The Trump administration immediately pledged to send in 500 more guard members. This act will further scramble the already confused logic about the necessity and utility of National Guard presence in American cities.

    Photo: D.C. National Guard members clean up the park around Fort Stevens Recreation Center, October 11, 2025; Associated Press/Gary Fields
    Photo: Army Col. Christopher York (left), commander of the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, removes trash and debris along the Tidal Basin on August 25, 2025; Air Force Master Sgt. Amber Monio/National Guard Bureau
    Photo: A U.S. airman with the National Guard uses a pressure washer to clean at the Washington Monument, September 8, 2025; TSgt. Andrew Enriquez/U.S Air Force Photo/Alamy Live News
    Photo: A U.S. soldier with the National Guard dries marble benches at the Washington Monument, September 8, 2025; TSgt. Andrew Enriquez/U.S Air Force Photo/Alamy Live News
    Photo: A National Park Service worker helps a U.S. Airman with the National Guard use a pressure washer to clean marble benches at the Washington Monument, September 8, 2025; TSgt. Andrew Enriquez/U.S Air Force Photo/Alamy Live News

     

    [ad_2]

    Katherine Mangu-Ward

    Source link

  • Florida applies for federal reimbursement for ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ costs despite court warning

    [ad_1]

    The state of Florida has asked the federal government to reimburse it for the costs of its “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention camp, despite a recent appeals court ruling that receiving federal funds would trigger environmental reviews that the state ignored when it hastily built the camp.

    “The State of Florida submitted an application for reimbursement to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),” a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson says. “FEMA has roughly $625 million in Shelter and Services Program funds that can be allocated for this effort.”

    Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit lifted a lower court’s preliminary injunction shutting down the Everglades detention camp, allowing operations there to resume. It was a victory for Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, but it also complicated the state’s plan to be reimbursed by the federal government for hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses, as DeSantis repeatedly promised would happen.

    The appeals court panel ruled, in response to a lawsuit by the environmental advocacy nonprofits Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, that the detention camp is not subject to environmental impact studies required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) because it has so far been entirely paid for by the state of Florida.

    “Here, no federal dollars have been expended on the construction or use of the Facility,” Judge Barbara Lagoa wrote in the majority opinion. “So, the Florida-funded and Florida-operated detention activities occurring at the Site do not conceive a ‘major federal project’ either.”

    “There may come a time when [the Florida Department of Environmental Protection] applies for FEMA funding,” Lagoa continued. “If the Federal Defendants ultimately decide to approve that request and reimburse Florida for its expenditures related to the Facility, they may need to first conduct an [environmental impact statement]. But, having not yet formally ‘committed to funding that project,’ the Federal Defendants have taken no ‘major federal action’ subjecting them to the procedural requirements of NEPA.”

    As the Associated Press reported Wednesday, the ruling created an apparent predicament for the state: “The state can either pass up federal reimbursement for hundreds of millions of dollars spent to build and operate the facility, or take the money and face an environmental review, which would risk halting the center’s operations,” the A.P. reported.

    But Florida has already applied for such funding, according to DHS’ statement to Reason.

    DHS and FEMA did not respond to requests for a copy of Florida’s application. No funds are reported to have been disbursed yet.

    DeSantis’ office did not respond to a request for comment. The Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM), which is the state agency in charge of the detention camp, responded by sending a link to a DeSantis press conference from last month.

    Friends of the Everglades argues that, although no money has changed hands, the tacit agreement between the federal government and the state of Florida, and the repeated public statements by Florida and DHS officials, clearly show that the federal government has committed to pay for the project.

    In a dissenting opinion, Judge Adalberto Jordan agreed, writing that “the notion that Florida decided to build the detention facility without a concrete funding commitment from the federal government is squarely contradicted by the preconstruction statements of [DHS] Secretary [Kristi] Noem and Governor DeSantis that the United States will pay for the facility.”

    Friends of the Everglades says Florida’s reimbursement application only adds to the pile of evidence that the federal government has always intended to pay for the project.

    “Time will prove the trial judge and Judge Jordan correct—and this evidence will support our case when we return to the trial court,” says Paul Schwiep, the lead counsel for Friends of the Everglades in its lawsuit.

    Federal and Florida officials have had a tacit reimbursement agreement for months.

    In a June 20 email, disclosed last month in a court filing, the Trump administration’s nominee for DHS general counsel, James Percival, wrote to the Florida Attorney General’s Office regarding Florida’s plan to detain aliens under an agreement with the federal government. “If you go forward, we will work out a method of partial reimbursement,” Percival wrote.

    At a June 25 press conference, DeSantis said the federal government would fully reimburse Florida. “This is something that was requested by the federal government, and this is something that the federal government is going to fully fund,” DeSantis said. “From a state taxpayer perspective, we are implementing it…but that will be fully reimbursed by the federal government.”

    Noem also said in public statements over the summer that FEMA funds would be used to reimburse Florida.

    The FDEM estimated in August that a shutdown of the facility would cost it more than $218 million it had already invested.

    [ad_2]

    C.J. Ciaramella

    Source link

  • $500 million to paint the border wall? 5 of Trump’s strangest, most expensive vanity projects

    [ad_1]

    It’s been nearly two weeks since President Donald Trump declared a crime emergency in the nation’s capital. But while the crime crackdown has yielded somewhat underwhelming results—”nearly 2,000 officers made fewer than 400 arrests,” reports Reason‘s Joe Lancaster—the campaign has been massively successful in galvanizing Trump’s base and providing the president and his Cabinet with ample P.R. opportunities.

    The takeover has allowed Trump to flex his muscles, but it’s coming at a steep cost to American taxpayers. The Intercept reports that the use of military forces in Washington, D.C., could cost $1 million per day. With more National Guard members flooding into the capital, the campaign could end up costing hundreds of millions of dollars, according to The Intercept.

    But this isn’t the first time that Trump has used—or suggested using—taxpayer money on expensive vanity projects. Here are five other especially wasteful examples.

    Joseph Mario Giordano / SOPA Images/Sipa USA/Newscom

    In June, Trump hosted a “big, beautiful” military parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Army. The event, which happened to coincide with the president’s 79th birthday, included a barrage of tanks, jet flyovers, and soldiers walking through the nation’s capital, and ended up costing American taxpayers $25 million to $45 million. That’s “$277,778–$500,000 per minute,” Reason‘s Billy Binion reported.

    Trump has also displayed America’s military power at his Independence Day celebrations, including the 2019 “Salute to America,” which ran up a tab of more than $13 million, and the 2020 events in D.C. and Mount Rushmore that cost close to $15 million. Next year’s Independence Day, which will be America’s 250th birthday, is expected to be even bigger. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) appropriated $150 million to the Interior Department for “events, celebrations, and activities surrounding the observance and commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.”

     

    2. Iced Out ICE Vehicles

    Department of Homeland Security

    The OBBBA also allocated nearly $30 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for detention facility maintenance, transportation costs, and recruitment efforts at the agency. ICE appears to be sparing no expense.

    In addition to offering starting salaries of nearly $90,000 and signing bonuses up to $50,000, ICE has also wasted taxpayer money on marketing gimmicks and vehicle upgrades. Recently, the agency spent “$2.4 million for Chevrolet Tahoes, Ford Expeditions, and other vehicles, as well as custom graphic wraps,” writes Reason‘s Autumn Billings. These gold-detailed wraps include the words DEFEND THE HOMELAND, INTEGRITY, COURAGE, and ENDURANCE.

    This vehicle spending is on top of the $700,000 that ICE spent on two gold-wrapped trucks, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) used in a (cringe) recruitment campaign on X.

     

    Polaris/Newscom

    On Tuesday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the entire U.S.-Mexico border wall will be painted black. “That is specifically at the request of the president, who understands that in the hot temperatures down here when something is painted black it gets even warmer and it will make it even harder for people to climb,” said Noem.

    During his first stint in the White House, Trump proposed an identical plan. The Washington Post reviewed a copy of federal painting estimates at the time, which showed “costs ranging from $500 million for two coats of acrylic paint to more than $3 billion for a premium ‘powder coating’ on the structure’s 30-foot steel bollards.”

    More than five years later, the cost to paint the border wall is sure to be higher.

    Avalon/Newscom

    In 2018, Trump signed a $3.9 billion agreement with Boeing that would see the airplane manufacturer deliver two new jets to the Air Force One fleet by 2022. The planes are now expected to be delivered by 2027, years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.

    Under the terms of the contract, the cost overruns will be paid for by Boeing. Despite these delays, Trump may soon be flying in a luxury jetliner that was gifted to him by the Qatari government. While the president has called this new Air Force One “free,” renovating the plane will cost Americans millions of dollars. As The New York Times reports, the Pentagon recently transferred $934 million from a nuclear missile project account to a classified project, which “congressional budget sleuths have come to think…almost certainly” includes the renovation of this new jet.

     

    Andrea Hank/ZUMA Press/Newscom

    In January, Trump revived an executive order that he signed in his first administration to establish a National Garden of American Heroes. The garden, which is expected to open next year on America’s 250th birthday, will include 250 life-sized statues of American heroes.

    But the $34 million project has run into a basic, but serious, issue: America doesn’t have enough quality sculptors to complete the garden by next July or a designated location to put it. Daniel Kunitz, editor of Sculpture magazine, told Politico that the idea “seems completely unworkable.”

    [ad_2]

    Jeff Luse

    Source link

  • Partisan border wars

    Partisan border wars

    [ad_1]

    In this week’s The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman scrutinize President Joe Biden’s executive order updating asylum restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border in response to illegal border crossings.

    01:32—Biden’s new asylum restrictions

    21:38—The prosecution of political opponents: former President Donald Trump, Hunter Biden, and Steve Bannon

    33:25—Weekly Listener Question

    39:56—No one is reading The Washington Post

    48:09—This week’s cultural recommendations

    Mentioned in this podcast:

    “Biden Announces Sweeping Asylum Restrictions at U.S.-Mexico Border” by Fiona Harrigan

    “Biden’s New Asylum Policy is Both Harmful and Illegal” by Ilya Somin

    “Travel Ban, Redux” by Josh Blackman

    “Immigration Fueled America’s Stunning Cricket Upset Over Pakistan” by Eric Boehm

    “Libertarian Candidate Chase Oliver Wants To Bring Back ‘Ellis Island Style’ Immigration Processing” by Fiona Harrigan

    “Donald Trump and Hunter Biden Face the Illogical Consequences of an Arbitrary Gun Law” by Jacob Sullum

    “Hunter Biden’s Trial Highlights a Widely Flouted, Haphazardly Enforced, and Constitutionally Dubious Gun Law” by Jacob Sullum

    “Hunter Biden’s Multiplying Charges Exemplify a Profound Threat to Trial by Jury” by Jacob Sullum

    “The Conviction Effect” by Liz Wolfe

    “Laurence Tribe Bizarrely Claims Trump Won the 2016 Election by Falsifying Business Records in 2017” by Jacob Sullum

    “A Jumble of Legal Theories Failed To Give Trump ‘Fair Notice’ of the New York Charges Against Him” by Jacob Sullum

    “Does Donald Trump’s Conviction in New York Make Us Banana Republicans?” by J.D. Tuccille

    “The Myth of the Federal Private Nondelegation Doctrine, Part 1” by Sasha Volokh

    “Federal Court Condemns Congress for Giving Unconstitutional Regulatory Powers to Amtrak” by Damon Root

    “Make Amtrak Safer and Privatize It” by Ira Stoll

    “Biden Threatens To Veto GOP Spending Bill That Would ‘Cut’ Amtrak Funding to Double Pre-Pandemic Levels” by Christian Britschgi

    “This Company Is Running a High-Speed Train in Florida—Without Subsidies” by Natalie Dowzicky

    “Do Not Under Any Circumstances Nationalize Greyhound” by Christian Britschgi

    “With Ride or Die, the Bad Boys Movies Become Referendums on Masculinity” by Peter Suderman

    “D.C. Water Spent Nearly $4,000 On Its Wendy the Water Drop Mascot” by Christian Britschgi

    Upcoming Reason Events:

    Reason Speakeasy: Corey DeAngelis on June 11 in New York City

    Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

    Today’s sponsor:

    • We all carry around different stressors—big and small. When we keep them bottled up, it can start to affect us negatively. Therapy is a safe space to get things off your chest—and to figure out how to work through whatever’s weighing you down. If you’re thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It’s entirely online. Designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. Get it off your chest, with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/roundtable today to get 10 percent off your first month.

    Audio production by Justin Zuckerman and John Carter

    Assistant production by Luke Allen and Hunt Beaty

    Music: “Angeline” by The Brothers Steve

    [ad_2]

    Matt Welch

    Source link

  • Congress does not come back with a warrant

    Congress does not come back with a warrant

    [ad_1]

    In this week’s The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman contextualize Iran’s retaliatory strike against Israel before bemoaning the recent vote in Congress on the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

    02:20—Iran’s retaliatory strike on Israel

    13:05—House votes to reauthorize Section 702 of FISA.

    29:21—Weekly Listener Question

    42:00—Arizona Supreme Court rules on law that would ban nearly all abortions.

    47:23—This week’s cultural recommendations

    Mentioned in this podcast:

    “Iran Attacks Israel,” by Liz Wolfe

    “Biden Sends U.S. Forces To Protect Israel’s Borders for the First Time Ever,” by Matthew Petti

    “What’s the Root Cause of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?” by Eli Lake and Jeremy Hammond

    “After Hamas Attack, There Are No Good Options in the Middle East,” by Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman

    “The Iranian Coup that Led to 67 Years of Reckless Intervention,” by Nick Gillespie

    “Come Back With a Warrant,” by Eric Boehm

    “Biden Hints at Freedom for Julian Assange,” by J.D. Tuccille

    “Edward Snowden: The Individual Is More Powerful Today Than Ever Before,” by Nick Gillespie

    “‘Selective Surveillance Outrage’ and ‘Situational Libertarianism’ Isn’t Good Enough, Congress!” by Nick Gillespie

    “Why We Get the Police State We Deserve—and What We Can Do to Fix That,” by Nick Gillespie

    “Supreme Court Says Officials Who Block Critics on Social Media Might Be Violating the First Amendment,” by Jacob Sullum

    “Everyone Agrees Government Is a Hot Mess. So Why Does It Keep Getting Bigger Anyway?” by Nick Gillespie

    “In Defense of Roe” by Nick Gillespie

    “Abortion & Libertarianism: Nick Gillespie, Ronald Bailey, Mollie Hemingway, & Katherine Mangu-Ward“

    “Trump’s Abortion Stance Is Convenient, but That Does Not Mean He’s Wrong,” by Jacob Sullum

    “What Leaving Abortion Up to the States Really Means,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

    “William F. Buckley, RIP,” by Jacob Sullum

    “Radical Squares,” by Nick Gillespie

    “FDR: A One-Man Show,” by Chris Elliott

    “The Big Guy’s Last Drink,” by Peter Suderman

    The Libertarian Moment, UFC300 edition (Renato Moicano invokes Mises)

    Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.

    Today’s sponsor:

    • What’s the first thing you’d do if you had an extra hour in your day? A lot of us spend our lives wishing we had more time. The question is, time for what? If time was unlimited, how would you use it? The best way to squeeze that special thing into your schedule is to know what’s important to you, and make it a priority. Therapy can help you find what matters to you, so you can do more of it. If you’re thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It’s entirely online. Designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. Learn to make time for what makes you happy, with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/roundtable today to get 10 percent off your first month.

    Audio production by Ian Keyser

    Assistant production by Hunt Beaty

    Music: “Angeline,” by The Brothers Steve

    [ad_2]

    Matt Welch

    Source link

  • How Michigan lost $1 million of liquor

    How Michigan lost $1 million of liquor

    [ad_1]

    It’s been a rough couple of years for government-controlled liquor systems. In 2022, news broke of an inside job at the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority (ABC), in which a former state employee tipped off private collectors about which state-run liquor stores were expecting deliveries of rare and sought-after bourbons. Last year, Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission officials were busted for siphoning off hard-to-obtain bourbons for their personal use.

    Now, Michigan is writing the latest chapter in the government’s century-long saga of alcohol control embarrassments. According to a just-released audit of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC), the state’s complete inability to properly track its spirits inventory resulted in nearly a million dollars of liquor disappearing without a trace.

    Michigan is one of 17 states that still operates as a control state. MLCC is the sole wholesaler of distilled spirits, meaning all liquor sold and distributed in the state must be originally purchased by the agency. Michigan law requires MLCC to exercise “complete control over alcoholic beverage traffic,” but it turns out that the agency lacks control over pretty much everything.

    Since the 1990s, MLCC has outsourced the actual storage and warehousing of liquor to three “authorized distribution agents” (ADAs), who in turn use 11 warehouses to house the booze. The ADAs, which essentially act as a government-sanctioned oligopoly, are supposed to be operating as agents of the state. But the state code is silent about what the actual responsibilities of the ADAs entail, which results in a situation where everyone and no one is in charge at the same time.

    Perhaps the most significant finding of the audit is that $961,000 of MLCC’s liquor inventory—totaling 62,294 bottles, housed in ADA warehouses—mysteriously vanished between January and February 2022. To put this in context, the missing liquor constituted 20 percent of the state’s entire inventory. While the state is supposed to conduct physical inventory counts at the ADA warehouses, zero inventory checks took place from October 2019 to July 2022 (which, naturally, MLCC blamed on COVID-19, despite the pandemic not starting in earnest until the spring of 2020 and Michigan lifting its lockdown orders by June 2021).

    “MLCC was unable to provide documentation regarding the whereabouts of the missing inventory,” the audit dryly remarks. Although one should never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence, it’s worth noting that the state’s inventory includes spirits ranging as high as $45,000 per bottle, which creates enormous opportunities for malfeasance given MLCC’s slipshod  tracking protocols.

    Were this Agatha Christie-meets-Ayn Rand mystery not enough, the audit goes on to spell out how MLCC is also wholly incapable of ordering rational amounts of each booze type it stocks. The report recounts the agency purchasing 12,204 bottles of a particular spirit in a week in which a mere 1,104 bottles of that spirit were sold. The agency then kept over 11,000 bottles of the spirit on hand for the next 48 weeks—the last 19 of which saw zero sales for it. MLCC also purchased 780 bottles of another spirit over the course of 77 weeks, with zero corresponding sales in any of the weeks those purchases were made.

    The MLCC’s problems extended beyond inventory ineptitude as well, with the agency also somehow issuing numerous liquor licenses to establishments located in dry jurisdictions, which it now will be forced to revoke. These establishments were selling alcohol in dry locales since 2018 without anyone noticing, until the auditor stepped in.

    In perhaps the understatement of the century—and in language only a government lawyer or accountant could appreciate—the audit rates MLCC’s overall performance as “not sufficient.” The agency’s preliminary response is that it “agrees” with all of the audit’s findings, as the report’s mountain of evidence is apparently too much even for a bureaucracy to ignore.

    Lost amid the report’s 65 pages of boozy bean-counting—and the scandal of a million dollars of liquor aspirating into thin air—lies a deeper question: Why, in 2024, is the Michigan government still trying to operate as the wholesaler for distilled spirits? It doesn’t do so for beer and wine, and it already goes so far as to outsource the actual warehousing and logistics to its distribution agents.

    Sadly, the most predictable answer is also likely the most accurate: MLCC has generated some $2 billion for the state’s general fund over the past decade. Perhaps a million dollars in missing liquor is a small price to pay after all.

    [ad_2]

    C. Jarrett Dieterle

    Source link

  • Watchdog report: USPS still failing to secure facility that was robbed twice in 2023

    Watchdog report: USPS still failing to secure facility that was robbed twice in 2023

    [ad_1]

    According to a new inspector general report, the United States Postal Service (USPS) is having trouble keeping its assets safe.

    The USPS has over 235,000 vehicles. More than 140,000 of them are Long Life Vehicles (LLVs), those boxy trucks with a sliding side door and the steering wheel on the right. The USPS last purchased LLVs in 1994, and despite their name, the trucks were only expected to last 24 years, meaning each one should have been retired by 2018 at the latest.

    In December 2022, the agency announced that it would replace its mail trucks with a fleet of electric vehicles (E.V.s). The USPS would spend $9.6 billion—including $3 billion apportioned by Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act—on new trucks as well as the chargers to service them.

    A report by the USPS Officer of the Inspector General released last week found that officials at the Material Distribution Center (MDC) in Kansas, the USPS facility where prototype chargers were being stored and tested, “did not employ necessary physical safety measures designed to protect and deter the theft of Postal Service assets.” Many of the specifics are redacted, but in March 2023, inspectors say, “MDC officials discovered that Postal Service information technology assets were stolen” from one facility. In March and April, officials “replac[ed] locks and eight exterior doors” but did not implement all of the security measures that postal inspectors recommended after the break-in.

    “Despite the theft,” the report continued, “and without implementing crucial remediation measures identified in the Inspection Service assessment, the Postal Service began storing
    charging stations in [redacted] when the first 2,000 units arrived in April 2023.” The following month, the same facility “was again burglarized, resulting in additional losses to the Postal Service, including the theft of charging station heads…and other information technology assets, such as monitors, printers, and docking stations.”

    As a result of “insufficient safeguards,” the report determined that “the Postal Service incurred two thefts and losses of approximately $59,700 in information technology assets (e.g., computer monitors, printers, and docking stations) and $7,700 from two charging station heads.”

    After the second burglary, MDC officials again replaced locks and contracted with off-duty law enforcement officers to patrol the area. Even so, “these measures still do not ensure” that the facility “is in compliance with Postal Service policy requiring physical safeguards or limiting unauthorized access to Postal Service assets.”

    The report noted that USPS policy would have required the MDC to implement a series of further security measures, including installing security cameras and an “intrusion detection system.”

    As if that wasn’t bad enough, a footnote mentioned that “Postal Service officials at the MDC were aware of general security related issues occurring as recently as four years ago in the same industrial park, which resulted in the loss of thousands of dollars’ worth of tools and equipment suffered by prior tenants.” Nonetheless, “despite several security-related incidents, MDC officials did not view” the facility “as an at-risk, administrative facility that necessitated urgent mitigating actions.”

    The USPS has struggled in recent years. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, it experienced consistent declines in revenue even as it sat on tens of billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities. The USPS delivery system is optimized for paper mail over packages, even though the advent of e-commerce means that more people are ordering packages and fewer are sending and receiving letters. Given such a long record of subpar performance, it should come as no surprise that the USPS failed to do so much as even install a security camera to protect its own assets.

    [ad_2]

    Joe Lancaster

    Source link

  • Georgia taxpayers lose $160,000 for every job created by film tax credits

    Georgia taxpayers lose $160,000 for every job created by film tax credits

    [ad_1]

    For nearly two decades, Georgia has lured big-time Hollywood movie studios with the promise of lucrative tax breaks for filming in the state.

    And here’s a predictable plot twist: Handing out welfare to wildly successful movies—like Avengers: Endgame, which earned more than $2 billion at the box office but nevertheless also qualified for tax credits because it was filmed in Georgia—hasn’t been a good deal for taxpayers.

    A new audit of Georgia’s Film Tax Credit program found that the state “loses money” on the program. A lot of money, actually: about $160,000 for every job the program creates. Georgia is now spending about $1.3 billion annually on the program, but it generates a return on investment of just 19 cents per dollar, the auditors conclude.

    “This program should be halted immediately,” J.C. Bradbury, an economics professor at Georgia’s Kennesaw State University and a longtime critic of government subsidy schemes, posted on X (formerly Twitter). In a 2020 paper, Bradbury estimated that the state’s film tax credit program cost about $110,000 per full-time job created and that every Georgia household was on the hook for about $230 in additional taxes every year because of the program’s existence.

    In addition to highlighting the tax credit program’s costs, the new audit also suggests that the film industry has inflated the supposed benefits of the program. Georgia’s film tax credit is responsible for creating about 34,000 jobs annually in the state, according to the new audit, but that’s well short of the 59,700 annual job-creation figure that a recent industry-funded study claimed, reported Variety.

    Created in 2005, Georgia’s subsidies for movie and TV production are the biggest such pot of cash available anywhere in the country. Production companies that spend at least $500,000 in the state during a single year are eligible for tax credits equal to 20 percent of their in-state expenditures. There is no cap on qualifying expenditures for production companies, and there is no aggregate cap for annual or lifetime tax credits, according to the audit report.

    There’s no doubt that Georgia’s program has influenced where movie and TV production takes place. The new audit concludes that the program has induced “substantial economic activity in Georgia,” but that’s simply evidence of the fact that lighting a lot of money on fire will eventually produce some heat. The underlying numbers suggest that Georgia’s subsidies are doing a poor job of generating economic growth or creating jobs.

    It’s been the same story pretty much everywhere else, though many states have gotten wise to the film tax credit scheme. In 2009, 44 states subsidized movie and TV production with some combination of rebates, tax credits, and grants. Today, just 22 states and Washington, D.C., offer those programs.

    Even though Georgia’s program has a long history of bipartisan support, changes could be coming. As Reason‘s Joe Lancaster reported earlier this year, Lieutenant Gov. Burt Jones and Georgia Speaker of the House Jon Burns (R–Newington) have pledged to undertake a thorough review of the state’s tax credit programs, including the film tax credit, with an eye toward “ensuring a significant return on investment for Georgia’s taxpayers.”

    With this new audit in hand, Jones and Burns should do their best Thanos impressions and turn Georgia’s deeply flawed movie welfare program to dust.

    [ad_2]

    Eric Boehm

    Source link

  • Cities are spending absurd sums on modular bathrooms

    Cities are spending absurd sums on modular bathrooms

    [ad_1]

    Philadelphia recently installed two Portland Loos: modular, stand-alone public restrooms first commissioned by Portland, Oregon. The single-stall metal structures are easy to keep clean and feature rounded walls to deter graffiti and walls that are louvered at the top and bottom to deter mischief inside stalls. However, despite these supposed benefits, cities regularly spend absurd amounts of taxpayer funds to purchase and install the bathrooms.

    Philly plans to install six Loos over the next five years as part of the city’s public restroom pilot, which Philadelphia Health and Human Services launched in January 2021. The city has budgeted $1.8 million for six units, or $300,000 per unit, including installation costs.

    According to a Portland Loo spokesperson who spoke with Reason, the total cost is around $200,000: up to $155,000 for the unit, including shipping, and between $30,000 and $80,000 for installation. Maintenance is about $14,000 annually.

    A collage of photos of The Portland Loo
    (Photos: Portland.gov)
    • $140,000
      Portland, Oregon for the original 2008 

    • $330,000
      Dayton, Ohio for two units
    • $97,000
      San Antonio, Texas for one unit
    • $290,000
      Charleston, South Carolina for one unit
    • $320,000
      Cambridge, Massachusetts for one unit

    “We had one restroom near a kid’s soccer field—a traditional brick and mortar….Unfortunately, the reality is people will spread feces all over the walls. It happened so often…just way too often. Because it’s a brick and mortar, you can never clean that off.”

    —Ventura, California, Parks and Recreation Director Nancy O’Connor in a statement to The Philadelphia Citizen

    [ad_2]

    Emma Camp

    Source link