With 300 million Americans about to be unwillingly herded into a healthcare system run largely by an inept federal government, is it an unreasonable request to demand, before they start playing doctor, that the feds figure out how to tell the difference between who’s dead and who’s alive?

Three years into Barack Obama’s historic presidency and a few months after the suppository called Obamacare took up residence in the nation’s orifice, we come to find out that over the better part of the last five years, half a billion dollars have been doled out to dead people.

Seems that dead people in the US are “in a better place” to receive a hefty check from the US Treasury. That’s right, if you’re short on cash, the easiest way to earn a few bucks is to die.

Apparently, $600 million in benefit payments meant for retired or disabled federal workers have been “doled out” to room temperature individuals who won’t be stimulating the economy with federally-endowed monies anytime soon.

It’s hard to believe, but “In one case, the son of a beneficiary continued receiving payments for 37 years after his father’s death in 1971. The payments — totaling more than $515,000 — were only discovered when the son died in 2008.”

Shouldn’t a prerequisite to reassuring Americans that the government is more than capable of overseeing national health care be to establish a system that accurately differentiates between the living and the dead?

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A funny thing happened on the way to the voting booth: Americans discovered that most federal “stimulus” funds were being used to stimulate government, not the economy.

I was on the road recently, driving from my home in southeast Louisiana through a long stretch of Mississippi to Tuscaloosa, Ala., then to the outskirts of Birmingham and on to Auburn, Ala., and finally back to my home by way of Montgomery and Mobile. Along the way I was slowed from time to time as I passed by road and bridge repair projects marked with prominent signs indicating they were funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, President Obama’s so-called stimulus bill.

Naturally I was thrilled to see my tax dollars at work, although honesty compels me to report that not much actual work seemed to be going on at any of the sites. Most of the visible workers were just standing around. Of course, such standing around is typical of public construction projects, so I don’t suppose that what I saw was in any way owing to the stimulus funding in particular.

This huge legislative enactment provides for a great variety of increased spending and some reduction in taxes over a period of 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office computed that the net amount of money to be injected into, or not removed from, the economy as a result of the stimulus bill totals about $787 billion.

At the time the bill was being debated and discussed, a common plea in its defense had to do with funding so-called shovel-ready projects to repair or replace public roads, bridges and other structures widely taken to be in a state of decay or disrepair. This plea made an appealing talking point, since most Americans place at least some value on such infrastructure.

Alas, only a tiny proportion of the funds expended so far has been directed to this well-advertised objective.

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Foul! National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health study the bias of soccer referees in calling fouls

Millions of the federal dollars misspent on cars, boats and travel by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Social Security Administration overpaid millions of dollars in Supplemental Security Income payments; Thirty percent of agency’s payments miscalculated

DOJ crime prevention programs uses poetry and rap to fight crimes involving guns and gangs

Investigation into whether the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration made good use of $900 million stopped because the agency’s records are “incomplete”

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Remember the flap last summer about the $700k Social Security staff conference at the luxurious Arizona Biltmore hotel?  Reps. Johnson and Linder asked the SSA Inspector General to dig around and see what other deluxe conferences SSA runs for its staff. That led to further questions about speakers brought in address these conferences, and their expense specifically.  Below is what SSA found about the top five most expensive speaker tabs for these staff “training” conferences.  Far and away the number 1 was a “diversity conference” in Atlanta, in which the paid guests included – literally – a clown, as well as massage therapists and “a juggling stilt walker.”

Sadly, this is not made up, and paying for it does not create a “festive atmosphere” for taxpayers.

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An unlikely power figure has emerged in the Obama Administration. He’s not a great orator, nor trendy, nor well-known.  But, if the ability to influence national leaders, shape a national agenda and influence public opinion are indicators, then, Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is, arguably, the most powerful and,  potentially, most dangerous, man in Washington, DC.

As Director of OMB, Peter Orszag is the arbiter of all financial information shared with Congress.  A series of little-known, OMB “circulars”, such as A-11, have established the rules, and repercussions if violated, by which Executive branch agencies communicate with Congress, especially regarding budgets, funding and agency priorities.

OMB, the President’s gatekeeper for budget matters, executes a complicated juggling act, balancing Obama Administration priorities and budgetary spin, against agency needs.   Frequently, to secure a critical vote, an elected member may be rewarded with a pork project for the folks back home, and, often, it’s the OMB director that has to figure out how to avoid the appearance of a bald-faced bribe, while manipulating CBO scoring on infrastructure projects.  Orszag, as the former head of CBO, understands exactly how this game is played.  Thus, most of the project and budget information that Congress reviews have been shaped by OMB’s preferences.

Peter Orszag controls much of the content and quantity of the data flow to Congress, to the President and to American citizens.  Orszag has oversight over most of the federal government’s critical data reporting structures.  Apart from the ineffective and error-prone Stimulus reporting sites (data.gov, recovery.gov),, OMB oversees federal contract opportunities and federal grants.

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President Obama, in his speech on the economy, given at the Bookings Institute, once again, tried to be all things to all people.  Most of the speech was aimed at the dwindling number of devotees who were anxious to hear that additional taxpayer revenues would continue to flow to favored, pet projects.

Nor were these fans disappointed, for, despite running $1.2 trillion in annual deficits, President Obama has once again promised to borrow from the future to fund yet another round of pork and dodgy projects disguised as infrastructure and green investments.

At the same time the President was busy adding more spending programs to our bloated budget, he insisted, once again, that he was committed to fiscal discipline.  Obama said “We’ve combed the budget, cutting waste and excess wherever we could.”  Really?

What programs have been cut and what sorts of excess were eliminated?  For the curious….here goes.  After several months, Obama’s OMB has released a list of the top four programs that have been identified after an exhaustive search and combing of the federal budget.

The Administration reviewed over 38,000 different ideas, to aggressively root out wasteful practices, many of them submitted by government employees.   After much work, synthesis,and review, OMB announced the four cost-cutting idea finalists:

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Medicaid paid for prescriptions written for 1,800 dead patients and 1,200 prescriptions “written” by dead physicians

Medicare paid up to $92 million for medical services ordered by dead doctors, some of whom had been dead for more than 10 years

Social Security Administration sent out $250 stimulus checks to 10,000 people who are deceased, some of which have been dead for several decades

U.S. Department of Agriculture distributed $1.1 billion in federal farm aid to the estates or companies of deceased farmers

San Francisco receives federal funding for AIDS patients who died decades ago

Dallas Housing Authority spent federal funds to subsidize housing for 45 deceased clients