Yearly Archives: 2015

According to recently released results, Medicare’s cooperative care program has failed to save American taxpayers money this year. The results, originally released in August, show that the program suffered a net loss of almost $3 million this year. Patients at 45 percent of co-ops cost Medicare more than government projections.(…)

Naturally, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is supposed to protect the environment, so lawmakers want heads to roll following the unthinkable agency blunder that left a river in Colorado polluted beyond comprehension. Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar is spearheading a campaign to impeach EPA Administrator Regina McCarthy by attempting to introduce(…)

A government audit published last week uncovered the extent of the mismanagement of the contracts used to develop healthcare.gov. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is in charge of several federal health services, is shown to have insufficiently trained employees, have poorly kept records, and were unsuccessful(…)

China’s economy continues to slow, according to recently released August trade figures. They showed imports to the country fell 13.8 % on last year in dollar terms, while exports were down 5.5 %. These results caused China’s trade surplus to increase 40 % on the previous month to $60.2 billion.(…)

The border county of Hidalgo has hit the headlines again, with the latest accusations of corruption leveled at the border’s school district. The assistant principal at the Donna North High School has been arrested for shoplifting two bottles of perfume from a JC Penney Store. It is not the first(…)

In August 2015, Kansas came up $30 million shorter than projected on tax collections. The state’s Department of Revenue believed it would haul in $448 million but was holding just $418 million when the final numbers were tallied, leaving the already-cash-strapped legislature even further behind the 8-ball than it was(…)

As the first set of full results from the Common Core initiative come in, the program does not appear to be living up to expectations. Hardly any states have posted 50 percent attainment in any subject. Worse, one of the program’s initial goals — to allow parents, educators and the(…)

Two consecutive quarters of negative growth have officially placed Canada in a recession. This year’s first quarter saw Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fall by 0.8% and the second quarter decrease by 0.5%. The country’s last recession was during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Drastically falling oil prices have been the biggest(…)

More than 307,000 U.S. military veterans may have died while their health care applications were stalled in a bureaucratic backlog at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), according to a report from the agency’s inspector general. There were a total of 800,000 records held up in total, some of which(…)

All eyes are on the Federal Reserve and chair Janet Yellen, ahead of a meeting of the central bank on September 16-17 where it may take the decision to raise interest rates for the first time since June 2006. Rates were raised to 5.25% in 2006, but soon afterwards the(…)