RealClearInvestigations Articles

Key facts: The Department of Veterans Affairs faced one of its biggest controversies after spending over $6.2 million on in-person conferences in 2011 that allegedly included limousines and spa days. The money would have been enough to pay the annual disability compensation of 168 disabled veterans, and today would be worth $8.9 million. A January 2011 conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. cost $221,000 and was highlighted in the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. But it was two conferences held in Orlando in July and August for over $6 million that...

Topline: The State of California sent school funding to a minor-league baseball stadium as part of a potentially illegal scheme by a charter school district, according to a June 24 report from the California State Auditor. Key facts: Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools is a nonprofit that runs more than 50 schools for students aged 22 or older, but it can still access K-12 funding because of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act — a federal law meant to help job seekers improve their qualifications. The district has come under fire since 2019 for “attendance...

Topline: Sheriff departments across Massachusetts seemingly have no problem gambling away their reputation with local taxpayers. Law enforcement agencies have spent at least $21,000 at casinos around the country since January 2023, according to the Boston Herald. Key facts: Most of the money was spent on hotel stays for various conferences, including a $2,540 bill the Barnstable Sheriff’s Department racked up at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. Five employees stayed at the casino for the Daigle Law Group’s Use of Force Summit in December 2024, and most of the bill was from just a...

Topline: A Long Island fire department spent $6,725 on a two-night hotel stay 11 miles away from its firehouse, according to a new report from New York’s State Comptroller. The North Amityville department also made $59,130 in purchases without receipts or other supporting documentation from May 2023 to May 2024. All told, the questionable spending amounted to $65,855 and it wasn’t the first time for the department. The audit was a follow-up to an April 2023 report that found $586,000 in wasteful spending, including tickets to a “clothing-optional resort” and a diamond...

Topline: The federal government has spent over $91 million on implementing its cost-cutting Technology Business Management system, but the new system has not led to any identifiable cost savings because of the Office of Management and Budget’s “lack of action and guidance over the last eight years,” according to an Aug. 18 report from the Government Accountability Office. Key facts: The Technology Business Management system was developed by a nonprofit in 2012 to help companies track the value of their spending on information technology. For example, the system might help a...

Topline: Government subsidies can sometimes be useful tools to help struggling businesses or convince large companies to create jobs. There is little reason to spend taxpayer money on an industry that would be prosperous even without subsidies, but that has not stopped the Department of Agriculture’s Market Access Program from spending hundreds of millions of dollars to promote U.S. cotton abroad. Program funds have been used to subsidize an Indian reality TV show about designing clothes using cotton, among other questionable initiatives.  That’s according to the...

NEW ORLEANS, La. – On Friday, August 26, 2005, Hurricane Katrina was just another nuisance storm lurking in the Gulf of Mexico and possibly headed our way. I was more concerned about Ohio State’s first-ever game against Texas in two weeks. As people from Houston to Tallahassee have done for decades when hurricanes come calling, we planned to stock up on bottled water and batten down the hatches, then rake up piles of debris after Katrina passed. Then Katrina became a monster overnight. While I slept, the Category 3 storm intensified into a Cat 5 as its whirlpool clouds filled the...

Topline: Residents of Lanesborough, Mass., will likely be on the hook for over $1 million of their local shopping mall’s unpaid taxes. Local officials are suing the mall owners, but their own attorney told them during an Aug. 11 board meeting to "treat [the money] as though you might not get it," according to iBerkshires. Key facts: The Baker Hill Road District, an independent authority that manages the Routes 7-8 Connector road in Lanesborough, sued mall owners JMJ Holdings for $545,000 of unpaid taxes in December 2024. The road district plans to file another $500,000 lawsuit for...

Topline: A contractor that received $1.5 million from the Internal Revenue Service for computer maintenance left some computers unusable for over a year, according to an Aug. 8 report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Key facts: The IRS has 100 computer terminals located around the country that help the public file their taxes, claim their refund or answer legal questions. These Facilitated Self-Assistance Kiosks were installed in 2011, but the inspector general found at least 40 that are inoperable.  IRS employees told the inspector general that the company...

The classroom subject of “civics” evokes antiquated images of Cold War-era conformity, but Andrew Hart describes a recent teacher workshop on civics with a schoolboy’s exuberance: “It was really refreshing. I was, like, wow.” The weeklong seminar at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia delved into the writings of Aristotle and Cicero, the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and civil rights titans W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X.  “We spent the first full day just talking about...

Topline: An attorney in Syracuse, NY, gave up her law license on July 22 after she admitted to overbilling a taxpayer-funded legal program by $160,000, according to Syracuse.com. She is not expected to face criminal charges. Key facts: The Onondaga County Bar Association Assigned Counsel Program is one of many across the country that uses public funds to provide lawyers for defendants who can’t afford an attorney. The county district attorney’s office found that Marsha Hunt, 63, billed the program for more than 12 hours worked in one day several times starting in 2022. Five times,...

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week August 17 to August 23   Featured Investigation: Billionaires Backing Woke Math Doesn't Add Up Amid DEI Rollback Lee Fang reports for RealClearInvestigations that billionaire foundations are funding a radical transformation of K-12 mathematics education based on social justice principles, despite a lack of evidence showing improved student outcomes. The Heising-Simons Foundation, led by Liz Simons (daughter of deceased hedge fund legend Jim Simons), has shifted from supporting basic math and science research to funding social justice math...

Topline: Admission to the Illinois State Fair costs only $5 most days of the week, and it’s no wonder the price is so low. Taxpayers funded the fair with $140.8 million in subsidies.  Illinois Agriculture Director Jerry Costello revealed in an Aug. 7 press conference that Gov. JB Pritzker’s plan to “make the fair affordable” included $55.3 million from the state Department of Agriculture and $85.5 million from the Rebuild Illinois infrastructure fund. Waste of the Day 8.22.25 Open the Books Key facts: The money from the Department of Agriculture helped...

Topline: Most Americans have likely never wondered about the “diverse wine and food industry” in Washington State, but everyone in the country helped fund the Walter Clore Wine and Culinary Center in Prosser, WA in 2011. The self-proclaimed “destination for wine and food education” received a $2 million grant from the Department of Commerce, despite the fact that local officials were only willing to chip in $100,000. That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a...

HOLLY RIDGE, La. – More than three millennia ago, indigenous people built a massive ceremonial mound a few miles from here, an engineering marvel called Poverty Point and one of the oldest known building projects in North America. Today, this is ground zero for what may prove a defining feature of the 21st century’s landscape. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is constructing a gargantuan, $10 billion data center that tech executives, lawmakers, and business leaders say will bring much-needed prosperity to this rural area in northeast Louisiana. Set to be operational...

Topline: Following two of the largest hospital bankruptcies in recent memory, state and local governments in Massachusetts, California and Pennsylvania have been forced to spend $130 million to keep the hospitals open and avoid putting their communities in danger, according to the Wall Street Journal. Key facts: Steward Health Care, the largest for-profit hospital system in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy in May 2024. Prospect Medical Group, which owned 16 hospitals, went bankrupt in January of this year. Waste of the Day 8.20.25 Open the Books Many of the private hospitals were...

Topline: The State Department spent $1.2 million on upgrades to swimming pools in seven foreign countries in the last four years, according to an analysis from Sen. Joni Ernst’s office published in the New York Post. Key facts: Ernst’s review of federal spending data on USAspending.gov revealed 14 purchases for swimming pools at embassies or mission residences during President Biden’s administration, mostly to renovate existing pools instead of installing new ones.  A $130,000 purchase in Harare, Zimbabwe, helped buy pool covers and other upgrades. There was $40,000...

Jim Simons’ mathematical skills helped transform him from a prize-winning academic at Harvard and MIT into a legendary financier whose algorithmic models made Renaissance Technologies one of the most successful hedge funds in history. After his death last year, one of his consequential bequests went to his daughter, Liz, who oversees the Heising-Simons Foundation and its nearly billion-dollar endowment. Liz Simons is using some of the money made by her hedge fund math whiz father, Jim Simmons, to push math informed by social justice.  @CommunityChange YouTube channel What Liz...

Topline: Like a bad dream, thousands of Congressional earmarks that were thrown out during last year’s appropriation process will potentially receive federal funding next year. The fiscal year 2026 spending bills currently being debated in Congress contain 7,737 earmarks worth $13.8 billion — down from at least $30 billion that was originally requested. Key facts: Earmarks — often dubbed the “currency of corruption” or “pork barrel spending” — send billions of dollars of federal funds to local projects around the country each year. Critics argue...