In the Press: The Fraud Crackdown's Limits, Bottomless Piggybank for Public Housing, and Quantum Lobbying
Fraud fighting is worth doing, but it won’t change the fiscal trajectory
In The Washington Post, Boccia responds in a letter to the editor to Vice President JD Vance’s Aug. 7 op-ed urging Congress to help crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse in federal welfare programs:
But the scale of the problem must be kept in perspective.
[…]
The main debt drivers are structural: an aging population, rising health care costs, flawed federal-state financing arrangements and entitlement programs whose spending grows automatically under existing law. Congress should thus go further than addressing fraud. Aligning spending authority with fiscal responsibility would do more to improve stewardship than federal fraud fighting efforts can accomplish alone.
Green New Deal for housing = a bottomless piggybank for special interest groups
In The Washington Times, Mary McCue Bell reports that Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have reintroduced their Green New Deal for Public Housing Act, which would declare housing a right and mandate net-zero retrofits across the public housing stock. She quotes David Ditch on the open-ended spending it authorizes:
David Ditch, a policy analyst at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said the proposal is a case of what he called “everything bagel liberalism” — and a budget buster that authorizes an unlimited amount of federal spending on the initiative. “This is public housing, it is the Green New Deal, it is designed to run through labor unions. This feels like it is also going to be a piggybank for various non-government organizations that work in this space,” he said.
[…]
“We are not in the position of creating new unlimited pots of money to benefit an alliance of left-leaning interest groups, or any interest groups for that matter,” Mr. Ditch said.
The federal government already controls American health care
In Fox News, Charles Creitz reports that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and other socialist candidates have made Medicare for All a centerpiece of their midterm campaigns. He quotes Michael Cannon on the misleading message:
“When Medicare-for-all supporters say that they want a European-style Medicare system, they’re already telling you they don’t know what they’re talking about because no European nation has something like [our] Medicare Program,” he said.
[…]
“If you think this is a question between should we have a government controlling our healthcare sector or not, you’ve already missed the boat. The government already controls the U.S. [health] sector.”
Americans want an independent commission to fix Social Security
In Newsweek, Aliss Higham reports that a contentious Senate Finance Committee hearing left lawmakers split over how to close Social Security’s gap before the trust fund empties in late 2032. She cites Cato’s survey on the appetite for an outside commission:
Supporters of an outside commission also point to polling conducted by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. In its survey of 2,000 Americans, 71 percent favored creating a commission of independent experts with authority to address Social Security’s funding problems, including 78 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents and 68 percent of Republicans.
Local control gives parents more say than federal rules do
In the Los Angeles Times, Kate Sequeira reports on the administration’s proposed Head Start overhaul. She quotes Colleen Hroncich on the case for devolution:
Policy analysts at conservative think tanks have long considered child care the responsibility of the states, saying that overarching federal regulations do not create enough flexibility. Colleen Hroncich, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said that local control will give parents and communities more say in how their children are educated. “When the states are designing these programs, it’s a lot easier for our constituents to weigh in on them than at the federal level,” she said.
Federal quantum grants are fueling a lobbying race
In Bloomberg, Aidan Williams reports that lawmakers in both parties want to expand federal quantum computing funding on top of the $2 billion in direct investments the administration announced in May. He quotes Tad DeHaven, whose analysis tracked those stakes, on what the money does to the incentives:
The four pure-play quantum companies slated to receive Commerce Department grants — Infleqtion, D-Wave, PsiQuantum and Quantinuum Ltd. — have recently doubled their total annual lobbying spending to $2.2 million, according to disclosures.
“When your concern is access — not just your own access, but your competitors’ access — you’re forced to consider and play that game,” said Tad DeHaven, a policy analyst at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. “It’s only logical that this environment that the White House has created is going to fuel lobbying.”
Index Social Security COLA to Chained CPI
In The Center Square, Brett Rowland walks through the competing 2027 Social Security Cost-Of-Living-Adjustment (COLA) estimates. He quotes Boccia on why the index sets the raise too high:
Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, told The Center Square the index overstates the inflation seniors actually face, meaning the COLA "increases Social Security spending by more than is necessary to make seniors whole." She points to a switch to the "chained" CPI, a slower-growing measure, which she says would ease the program's shortfall. The Congressional Budget Office, in its 2024 report on options for reducing the deficit, estimated that using it for Social Security would reduce benefit outlays by about $204 billion over a decade. CBO has also found the change would not by itself move the trust fund's depletion date.