In the case of the Minuteman III missile, which has served as the backbone of the nation’s land-based nuclear deterrent since the 1970s, GAO auditors found the administration left out all future funding for replacing these weapons, saying the program was “not yet defined.” As for a new bomber, the Air Force said those costs were “too sensitive” to include in the report.   read more

According to a report from the Internal Revenue Service, 32,902 people whose “expanded income” exceeded $200,000 paid no income tax for 2011, the most recent year for which such figures are available. The most common reasons filers escaped having to pay tax was having their income come from tax-exempt sources, such as municipal bonds, or having sufficient medical and dental expenses to offset their income.   read more

52.4% of male doctors who made political contributions did so to the GOP during 2011-2012, while only 23.6% of women doctors chose the Republicans. While money from physicians has shifted away from the Republican Party, the profession’s overall political giving has increased dramatically. Over the course of two decades, doctors’ contributions jumped from $20 million to $189 million, according to the study.   read more

The Medicare overcharges were discovered by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services. Auditors determined that the excess billing amounted to $6.7 billion in 2010 alone. After receiving the audit’s findings, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs Medicare, announced it would not review the billings of doctors who use Level 5. The reason: It is not cost effective.   read more

An analysis by the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness found each person without a place to live wound up costing $31,000 a year in law enforcement and medical care expenses, such as emergency room services. But if local governments provide permanent housing for these individuals, the cost would amount to only about $10,000 a year per person—a savings of $20,000.   read more

Another 2012 trip was made by Blaine Collison, then EPA’s director of Green Power Partnership, to a Midland, Michigan, meeting of large corporate energy users. Altenex, a Boston-based energy management network, paid $800 for meals and transportation for Collison. Some of Collison’s expenses were also paid by Dow Chemical. Two years later, Collison left the agency and went to work for Altenex to serve as its managing director of network services.   read more

Last year, Americans holding a college degree made on average 98% more per hour than those who skipped post-secondary education, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington. That gap was the largest ever recorded. But the difference between the college grads and the high school grads has been significant for some time. In the 1980s, it was 64%. By the 1990s, it was up to 85%. And by last decade it had reached 89%.   read more

To date, 154 of the approximately 250 machines owned by TSA have been sold to state and local prisons, including those in Iowa, Virginia and Louisiana, where inmates and their visitors aren’t in a position to complain about privacy rights. TSA won’t say how much of its money has been reclaimed through the sales. But the Los Angeles Times reported that “several law enforcement agencies paid only a fraction of the original cost under a federal surplus program.”   read more

Demonstrating they value costly weapons programs—and the jobs they provide back home in their districts—more than making tough economic choices, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly agreed to adopt a new Pentagon spending plan that rejected multimillion-dollar savings provided by defense officials.   read more

The largest single contributor to Foxx’s campaign is Corinthian Colleges, based in Santa Ana, California. Corinthian is under investigation by California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who has said the company has engaged in “deceptive and false advertisements and aggressive marketing campaigns that misrepresented job placement rates and school programs.” Seventeen other states are investigating the school for various violations. The federal government is also investigating Corinthian.   read more

Even in an intractable, partisan Congress, Democrats and Republicans can find something to agree upon—that the Department of Defense needs to stop wasting money. The Pentagon’s penchant for burning through billions of dollars on bad ideas has frustrated people on both sides of the aisle, which is why Democratic and Republican lawmakers managed to find common ground on several cost-saving amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2015.   read more

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has had to maintain enough space in detention centers for 34,000 immigrants a day, as a result of legislation approved by Congress five years ago. Keeping that many beds available, regardless of the actual need, has consumed more than $2 billion a year.   read more

Three corporate players in the flour milling business, which is essential to the U.S. food manufacturing industry, have gotten provisional approval from federal anti-trust regulators to form the nation’s largest producer of wheat flour. Cargill, CHS and ConAgra Foods intend to form a joint venture called Ardent Mills that will control 40 mills and yield about $4 billion in annual sales. The new company will be responsible for about one-third of the U.S. flour business.   read more

The overcharges in some cases were absurd, like one contract employee who allegedly worked 1,208 hours over a 12-day span. In actuality, 12 days consists of 288 hours. The companies also were caught over-classifying workers for jobs for which they lacked qualifications, or claiming they held multiple jobs concurrently. One depot aircraft mechanic was also classified by Northrop as senior general engineer, an integrated logistics manager, a quality assurance manager, and three more titles.   read more

With the government mired in debt, some members of Congress have decided their colleagues shouldn’t be able to fly first class at taxpayer expense. Pending legislation would bar lawmakers from flying first class unless they pay for it themselves. That change would put them in the same position as employees working for the executive branch. However, their travel allowance isn’t being cut, so the proposal is more symbolic than anything else.   read more

Educational technology companies have hit the mother lode of data mining. Each time a pupil takes an online test, or a teacher notes a grade, those firms know about it. And data miners are striking it rich. One report concluded that the U.S. economy could grow by another $300 billion if those entities make education more efficient. One data analytics firm, Knewton, is already tracking more than four million students throughout the U.S.   read more