Government Bureaucray/Partisanship Stifles Progress

Solar- and wind-energy projects in Arizona and around the country continue to hang in limbo after Congress adjourned for its summer recess without reaching agreement on legislation that would extend renewable-energy tax credits. The subsidies are considered critical for projects like the Solana Generating Station, a $1 billion, 280-megawatt plant slated for construction near Gila Bend. But extending the tax credits beyond their Dec. 31 expiration date is proving to be a difficult, if not impossible, task for Washington's elected officials. The subsidies, which have broad-based support in both the House and the Senate, provide a 30 percent rebate to anyone who installs or builds a solar- or wind-energy system. But they've become the victim of an ongoing partisan logjam between Democrats and Republicans, who have disagreed on everything from how to pay for them to whether they should be prioritized over renewed offshore-drilling efforts.

The chief executive of the mortgage giant Freddie Mac rejected internal warnings that could have protected the company from some of the financial crises now engulfing it, according to more than two dozen current and former high-ranking executives and others. That chief executive, Richard F. Syron, in 2004 received a memo from Freddie Mac’s chief risk officer warning him that the firm was financing questionable loans that threatened its financial health. Today, Freddie Mac and the nation’s other major mortgage finance company, Fannie Mae, are in such perilous condition that the federal government has readied a taxpayer-financed bailout that could cost billions. Though the current housing crisis would have undoubtedly caused problems at both companies, Freddie Mac insiders say Mr. Syron heightened those perils by ignoring repeated recommendations.

A fiscal crisis involving over $3 trillion in pension payouts threatens the financial viability of cities and states nationwide. The Per Charitable Trust now estimates that states will spend trillions of dollars “on pensions, health care, and other retirement benefits for their employees over the next three decades.” Some cities, squeezed by declining property-tax revenues and rising pension costs, have even considered another option: bankruptcy. In California, the medium-size city of Vallejo declared bankruptcy in May. The reason: a $16 million fiscal deficit stemming from the double-whammy of declining property-tax revenue due to the mortgage crisis, and excessive police and firefighter salaries and pensions which eat up nearly 80% of the city’s annual budget. In New Jersey, the state’s debt burden exceeds $32 billion and pensions are badly underfunded. The percentage of state/municipal pensions that are less than 80% funded has grown from 9% in 2000 to 42% in 2006.

Government Ineptitude

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government is hiring so many new air traffic controllers to replace departing veterans that it cannot efficiently train them, an inspector general reported Tuesday. The Transportation Department's inspector general said the Federal Aviation Administration is so swamped with new hires that it has exceeded its own maximum trainee numbers at 22% of its 314 air control facilities. The FAA uses a database replete with erroneous information to manage the training program and has failed to implement remedial steps the agency itself promised in 2004, the IG report added. Even inside the FAA, it wasn't clear who was in charge because four vice presidents at FAA headquarters have authority over some part of hiring and training controllers. "Facility managers, training managers and even headquarters officials were unable to tell us who or what office was ultimately responsible for facility training," the IG report said. In a written response, the FAA accepted most of the IG's recommendations. But the FAA rejected the idea of making public an accurate count each year of how many fully certified controllers and how many trainees work in each of its facilities.

Not Again?

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Despite more than $22 million in repairs, a levee that broke with catastrophic effect during Hurricane Katrina is leaking again because of the mushy ground on which New Orleans was built, raising serious questions about the reliability of the city's flood defenses. Outside engineering experts who have studied the project told The Associated Press that the type of seepage spotted at the 17th Street Canal in the Lakeview neighborhood afflicts other New Orleans levees, too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm. The Army Corps of Engineers has spent about $4 billion so far of the $14 billion set aside by Congress to repair and upgrade the metropolitan area's hundreds of miles of levees by 2011. Some outside experts said the leak could mean that billions more will be needed and that some of the work already completed may need to be redone.

"It is all based on a 30-year-old defunct model of thinking, and it means that when they wake up to this one — really — our cost is going to increase significantly," said Bob Bea, a civil engineer at the University of California at Berkeley. The Army Corps of Engineers disputed the experts' dire assessment. The agency said it is taking the risk of seepage into account and rebuilding the levees with an adequate margin of safety.

Infrastructure Underfunded

ST. PAUL (AP) — Transportation officials' concerns that fixing or replacing a Minneapolis bridge would be a "budget buster" may have led to bad maintenance decisions before its deadly collapse last August, a report released Wednesday concluded. The report, commissioned by the Legislature, also criticized the Minnesota Department of Transportation for bridge inspections that were mishandled or not acted upon over the years, even when they called for immediate repairs. The department has come under sharp criticism for its upkeep of the 40-year-old Interstate 35W bridge.

• JJ Commentary: The nation’s infrastructure (i.e. roads, bridges, sewers, etc.) is rapidly aging and in need of many billions of dollars of maintenance. Now that we are in recession, the likelihood of spending money for maintenance becomes even less.

Child Custody Chaos

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — An appellate court decision upended the custody case that sent more than 440 children from a polygamist sect's ranch into foster care, but it's not clear whether the children might soon return home. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds under Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action. Texas District Judge Barbara Walther now has 10 days to release the youngsters from custody, but the state could appeal to the Texas Supreme Court and keep the children from immediately going back to their parents.

Government Malfeasance

WASHINGTON (AP) — An internal audit of some $8 billion paid to U.S. and Iraqi contractors found that nearly every transaction failed to comply with federal laws or regulations aimed at preventing fraud, in some cases lacking even basic invoices explaining how the money was spent. Of the money paid during a five-year period — from 2001 through 2006 — $7.8 billion in payments skirted billing rules with some violations egregious enough to invite potential fraud, warned the Defense Department's inspector general. The findings provided fresh fodder for anti-war Democrats, who say the Bush administration has turned a blind eye to the problem of corruption and fraud by relying too heavily on contractors to manage the war. "There is something very wrong when our wounded troops have to fill out forms in triplicate for meal money while billions of dollars in cash are handed out in Iraq with no accountability," said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Spiritual Leadership

BOSTON (AP) — Republican Mitt Romney responded to questions about his faith by surging rival Mike Huckabee on Wednesday, declaring that "attacking someone's religion is really going too far." In an article to be published Sunday in The New York Times, Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, asks, "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" Romney, vying to become the first Mormon elected president, declined to answer that question during an interview Wednesday, saying church leaders in Salt Lake City had already addressed the topic.

• JJ Commentary: Huckabee is correct about Mormonism and it is indeed important. Spiritually speaking, the oil runs from the head down the entire body. If it is tainted oil, it pollutes the entire body.

FBI, Heal Thyself

WASHINGTON — Three or four FBI laptop computers are lost or stolen each month and the agency is unable to say in many instances whether information on the machines is sensitive or classified, the Justice Department's inspector general said Monday. Despite new tracking systems designed to help the FBI account for thousands of weapons and personal computers, the bureau reported that 160 firearms and an equal number of laptops were lost or stolen during a recent 44-month period, according to a new Justice Department audit. Of the computers that were lost from February 2002 to September 2005, at least 10 contained sensitive or classified information, according to the review by the Justice Department's inspector general. One of those computers, the review said, included telephone numbers and addresses of bureau employees, as well as software used to make bureau ID badges.

• JJ Commentary: So, this is the organization that is supposed to protect us?

Government Waste

WASHINGTON — One year after Katrina, the government is still squandering tens of millions of dollars in wasted disaster aid, including $17 million in bogus rental payments to people who had already received free trailers and apartments, federal investigators said Wednesday. At the same time, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has recovered less than 1% of the $1 billion it wasted on fraudulent hurricane assistance after the August 2005 storm, highlighting a need for stronger controls the next time a major hurricane strikes.

Last week, a federal judge in Washington ordered the Bush administration to resume housing payments for thousands of people displaced by Katrina, criticizing FEMA for a convoluted application process. FEMA is appealing that ruling.

• JJ Commentary: Institute stronger controls and there will be a howl of protest. Such is life in a fallen world where you’re “damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” The problem isn’t government, it’s sin, and only Jesus Christ can fix it