Pot operators find themselves paying as much as a 70% tax on their profits, compared to about 30% for “normal” businesses, because they can’t deduct things like rent, employee salaries or utility bills. One business that oversees the operation of five marijuana shops in Colorado cost owner Bruce Nassau $275,000 in taxes. Another marijuana dispensary owner, who brought in $1.7 million in revenue last year, got hit with a federal tax bill for $866,000.   read more

By most standards, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is doing pretty well, making a profit of $313 million in the second quarter of this fiscal year. But a congressional mandate to prefund employees’ health benefits is keeping the post office in the red. Congress in 2006 adopted the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act which forced the USPS—which does not receive money from the federal budget—to prefund its health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years.   read more

The Pentagon paid $5.4 million from 2011 to 2014 to NFL teams for various kinds of military appreciation programs. For example, the New York Jets, whose home field is actually in suburban New Jersey, received $377,000 from the Department of Defense and the New Jersey National Guard to put on military appreciation days highlighting “Hometown Heroes.”   read more

Clinton has spent decades, both in her own career and as First Lady during Bill Clinton’s presidency, forging strong relationships with financial industry executives. She has maintained these ties despite recent efforts to portray herself as a populist candidate. Of the six most generous donors to her political career, four are Wall Street firms: Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. A fifth is DLA Piper, a law firm that represents big banks.   read more

How did Lockheed Martin and other huge corporations such as Boeing and General Dynamics qualify for contracts set aside for businesses of that size? At least partly due to the misconception that a small business acquired by a giant corporation may keep its status for several years. That misconception starts at the top.   read more

An investigation of Ohio universities by an investigative reporting class at the University of Cincinnati found that many of their fellow students had no idea that a portion of their fees went to subsidizing college athletics. Academic spending per student dropped 24% at Cincinnati from 2005 to 2013. Meanwhile, the school is spending $86 million to renovate its football stadium.   read more

The Pentagon inspector general’s office is about to release a report that some members of the armed services and civilian workers had charges made at casinos and at businesses offering escort services in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. A Pentagon official told Politico that it’s possible the department may not have paid the charges because those issued DoD credit cards pay their monthly bills and then request reimbursement.   read more

Of the 3.6 million Americans who illegitimately got the credits, more than 2 million did so without filing the necessary supporting paperwork, a Form 1098-T. This group got more than $3.2 billion in education credits. Another $2.5 billion was paid to 1.6 million filers for students attending ineligible institutions.   read more

Urged on by socially conservative lawmakers, Congress has again poured more money into abstinence programs that operate under the belief that teenagers won’t have sex if you just tell them it’s a bad idea. Another $25 million was appropriated last month for Title V, a federal program started in the 1990s after Republicans won control of Congress.   read more

Defense Reform Consensus, a group of 38 analysts from a list of think tanks representing all parts of the political spectrum, say the government should close more military bases and reduce the number of civilians who work for the Defense Department, among other recommendations.   read more

During the 2014 midterms, 31,976 donors (out of 323 million people) were responsible for pouring $1.18 billion in disclosed political contributions at the federal level. And that doesn’t even include dark money that was spent through the use of loopholes in federal tax laws that allow the uber-rich to avoid revealing certain contributions.   read more

What’s $300 million when a project could end up consuming more than $50 billion over its lifetime? Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) called the continued funding of the MOX facility a “zombie earmark.” DOE officials are so fed up with the project that they were ready to shut it down. But backers in Congress, including Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C), made sure there was $300 million in the 2014 year-end spending bill for MOX. They even prohibited the Energy Department from putting MOX in cold standby.   read more

The Sea-Based X-Band Radar (SBX), an enormous floating radar ship, was supposed to be able to detect even tiny incoming objects into U.S. airspace from thousands of miles away. SBX, built by Boeing and Raytheon, was going to guide rocket interceptors to enemy ballistic missiles before they could reach U.S. soil. But after a $2.2 billion investment, MDA realized SBX couldn’t distinguish between missiles and decoys. The technology has been mothballed at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.   read more

“There are at least three clear violations” of federal law that have been committed by the NRA, said campaign finance expert Brett Kappel. “First of all, they can’t be soliciting from the general public at their website. Then there’s the fact that the money is not being solicited in the name of the PAC; they have to say...what the political purpose of the PAC is. And then there are multiple missing disclaimers such as the disclaimer saying that contributions have to be voluntary.”   read more

The Department of Defense refuses to detail what it did with $1.3 billion that was supposed to be used on urgent humanitarian and reconstruction projects. Most of the funding this year for the Commander’s Emergency Response Program will be used for condolence payments when civilians are killed or injured or property is damaged by U.S. forces and to increase security for communities that happen to be located near active U.S. military bases.   read more

Big fees for handling government pensions have gone to fund managers who supported Republican Governor Chris Christie’s election campaigns. In the five years since Christie took office, the International Business Times reported, fees have quadrupled at the same time Christie has said the funds don’t have enough money to pay all the benefits to which retirees are entitled. New Jersey pension trustees have announced an investigation of the funds.   read more