WASHINGTON-As Congress looks for ways to cut its $1.3 trillion deficit, the federal government is paying its employees $137 million a year not to work for Uncle Sam.
Not working. That’s right. The Office of Personnel Management reports that taxpayers paid Federal workers over $137 million in 2010 to work as representatives for government unions, up from $129 million in 2009.
The time that union representatives spend not working for taxpayers is labeled “official time” by OPM. According to the report, “Official time is time spent by Federal employees performing…
More…
No Comments »
Election ‘12: One thing is certainly true about President Obama - no matter how many times people point out the falsehoods in his speeches, he just keeps making them. Case in point: his latest “economic fairness” address.
In that speech Tuesday, Obama once again tried to build a case for his liberal, big-spending, tax-hiking, regulatory agenda. But as with so many of his past appeals, Obama’s argument rests on a pile of untruths. Among the most glaring:
• Tax cuts and deregulation have “never worked” to grow the economy. There’s so much evidence to…
More…
No Comments »
Favors are the currency of business. Or at least one them. You do someone a favor, and they return it. It’s a practice as old as business itself, but as with so many parts of the business game, there are ways to improve it. Favo.rs — an aptly-named San Francisco startup — aims to do just that.
Favo.rs — an aptly-named San Francisco startup — aims to do just that. On Wednesday, as it emerged from stealth mode, the company launched an online marketplace where members can barter for favors.
More…
No Comments »
President Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday in Osawatomie, Kan. attacked Republicans, assailed Wall Street and defended the middle class while evoking President Teddy Roosevelt. In his 55-minute speech at Osawatomie high school, Obama underscored the growing inequality in this country and vowed to fight against it. “This is the defining issue of our time,” he said [...]
More…
No Comments »
Follow Yahoo!’s The Daily Ticker on Facebook here! “We are very encouraged with the progress that is being made,” Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in Paris Wednesday following a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The financial market’s aren’t so sure. After rising at the open, major averages slipped into the red by 10:00 a.m. [...]
More…
No Comments »
Optimism of small business owners remained flat in November at 53%, according to a new scorecard by SurePayroll, the leading online payroll service for small businesses with less than 100 employees. That’s fairly good news after optimism rebounded by 20% in October from an all-time low of 33% in September. The report, which measures the [...]
More…
No Comments »
As the 2012 election approaches, the mainstream media is crawling back into the tank for their guy. How do I know this? Because of a new round of articles touting the “unappreciated benefits” of President Obama’s health-care law. It is an obvious attempt to build support for the unpopular legislation and rehabilitate Obama with the independent voters who have abandoned him.
Exhibit A: the Los Angeles Times just published an op-ed by a lady with the improbable name of Spike Dolomite Ward. She’s a California artist (which explains the name, I suppose) who offers her apology…
More…
No Comments »
It’s one thing to claim that nameless, faceless government bureaucrats are overpaid. It’s quite another to argue, as Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation and I recently have, that public school teachers are overpaid by more than 50 percent. This is real money, costing state and local governments over $100 billion annually. Our study generated significant, sometimes hysterical, pushback. But our conclusions still stand, and deliver important lessons regarding education financing and reform.
The claim that teachers are underpaid rests on a single isolated fact: that on average,…
More…
No Comments »
