Missouri Skating Rink Uses Taxpayer Money to Stay Afloat
April 15, 2024
Topline: An ice skating rink in Maryland Heights, Missouri recently received its fifth subsidy from the city to keep it from being seized by a bank, costing taxpayers more than $2 million and counting.
Key facts: The Centene Community Ice Center opened in late 2019 using $55.5 million in bonds issued by the city. It was leased to the nonprofit St. Louis Legacy Ice Foundation and projected to generate $20 million of revenue a year, leaving taxpayers with a net profit.
Instead, low visitor numbers and large day-to-day expenses forced the rink to default on its bond last September, risking foreclosure. The rink was scheduled to make a $138,000 payment but had just $18 in its bond account, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
That was the seventh time Centene missed a bond payment and the fourth time that Maryland Heights stepped in to help. On March 15, the city spent another $223,300 to bail out the rink and committed to spending another $625,000 if necessary.
The city also lost $1.5 million in potential revenue because the rink failed to charge sales tax for four years, the Post-Dispatch found. The rink’s chairman claims a city employee told him sales tax was unnecessary because the rink is publicly-owned.
Centene Ice Center includes a 4,500-seat concert venue and hosts practices for the St. Louis Blues hockey team.
The Blues have made $500,000 from sales commissions at the rink, the Post-Dispatch found through a public records request.
The late bond payments can partially be blamed on a contract that places private interests above taxpayers. The rink must pay Oak View Group and Live Nation — which manage day-to-day operations and book concerts at Centene, respectively — before bondholders and Maryland Heights.
Supporting quote: Maryland Heights City Administrator Tracey Anderson told the Post-Dispatch that low attendance has been the biggest issue.
"I don't think that anybody over-promised anything," she said. "I think that they did the best job that they could. There's been bumps along the way. And I would also tell you that COVID played a huge role ... Nobody anticipated that."
Summary: It’s rare that sports facilities are designed in a way that taxpayers will make a direct profit. Still, Centene and Maryland Heights dropped the ball and left taxpayers with a bill over $2 million.
'The Squad' Earmarked $224 Million For Left-Wing Initiatives
April 16, 2024
Topline: A group of eight Democratic progressive U.S. House members known as “The Squad” have filed $224 million of earmarks in the federal budget since 2023 to fund pet projects based around leftist ideologies, according to OpenTheBooks.com.
Key facts: The full list of The Squad’s 203 earmarks in the last two years can be viewed here.
Twenty-one earmarks funded environmental justice and clean energy projects, focal points of the Green New Deal championed by The Squad.
That includes Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s (MA) $1 million earmark for “a network of intergenerational, trauma-informed waterfront green spaces” and $2 million to help “low-income BIPOC residents … stay cool during increasingly hot summers.”
It also includes a $1.7 million earmark from Rep. Jamaal Bowman (NY) to the Environmental Leaders of Color. The nonprofit’s goal is to “assist marginalized communities in preparing for climate change’s adverse effects … so that they can thrive like healthy plants in their natural ecosystem.”
Other earmarks from the democratic socialists went toward immigration initiatives.
Rep. Greg Casar (TX) secured $1 million for the San Antonio College Empowerment Center, which helps undocumented students enroll in the school. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez requested $500,000 for New Immigrant Community Empowerment, which has advocated for citizenship for all illegal immigrants.
Other Squad earmarks were cut from the House and reintroduced in the Senate.
Republicans refused to entertain Pressley’s request of $850,000 for affordable housing for LGBTQ seniors. So Pressley teamed with both Democratic senators from Massachusetts to pass the earmark, eviscerating Republicans for prioritizing “cruelty over compassion.”
The Squad filed a total of 113 earmarks worth $111.4 million in the 2024 federal budget. They secured 90 earmarks for $112.7 million last year when the group had only six members.
Background: Earmarks allow Congress members to use taxpayer money to fund projects in their own home district.
A bipartisan group led by the late Senator Tom Coburn and then-Senator Barack Obama helped ban earmarks in 2011 because they were often used to fund waste and corruption.
But both parties voted to reinstate earmarks in 2021, opening the pork barrel once again.
This year’s federal budget contained 8,051 earmarks worth $15.7 billion, OpenTheBooks auditors found. In 2023, lawmakers filed 7,510 earmarks for $16 billion. The dollar totals are split almost evenly along party lines.
Summary: As our national debt approaches $35 trillion, there is simply no reason that taxpayer funds should be hijacked to hand out politically-motivated freebies.
Senator Spent $210,000 On Private Jets
April 17, 2024
Topline: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) has spent $210,000 of taxpayer money on 11 private flights since 2020, according to public records reviewed by the Daily Beast.
Key facts: Sinema’s flight tab includes $116,000 just from 2023. A single trip last August for Sinema and four staffers cost $50,250.
The money came out of Sinema’s taxpayer-funded office budget, which was $4.1 million last year.
Lawmakers rarely use public money on private flights, according to the Daily Beast. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) has seemingly never done so, even though he travels to many of the same cities as Sinema.
A spokesperson for Sinema told Fox News that the air travel was a time-saving measure to help the senator “connect with as many constituents in [Arizona] as possible.” But Fox News pointed out that Sinema did not hold a single public town hall while taking the flights.
Sinema’s town halls since 2020 have mostly been over the phone. One in-person appearance was open only to employees of the technology company Honeywell, which donated $75,000 to the senator’s PAC in 2022.
Sinema backed the No Ongoing Perks Enrichment Act in 2017, which would have banned legislators from using taxpayer money on first-class flights. It seems safe to say she has no regrets that the bill failed to pass.
Sinema is not seeking reelection in 2024.
Background: The Daily Beast previously reported that Sinema often scheduled fundraisers near marathons she participated in as a runner and then listed the trip as a campaign expense.
Her campaign also spent over $100,000 on luxury items like wine and limousines, the New York Post found.
Critical quote: A former aide for Sen. Chuck Grassley criticized Sinema’s fundraising from private sources, not just her taxpayer waste.
“Sinema will have a lot of funding from Wall Street — her whole goal was to get money from these types,” Garrett Ventry told the New York Post. “Of course that is something of a turn off to everyone in this environment.”
Summary: Past examples of taxpayer-funded trips by other federal lawmakers have at least included excursions to exotic locales like the Galapagos Islands. How dull of Sinema to use $210,000 to fly around her own state.
Throwback Thursday: Millions Went To Video Game ‘Research’
April 18, 2024
Throwback Thursday!
Topline: When a federal grant makes national headlines for being wasteful, the government usually gets the hint and caps spending on the project.
But in 2008, the National Science Foundation responded to critics of its $100,000 Chinese video game research study by … investing another $2.9 million into the project, or $4.3 million in 2024 dollars.
That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.
Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname "Dr. No" by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. He included projects that he couldn't stop in his oversight reports.
Coburn's Wastebook 2008 included 65 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $1.3 billion, including the $100,000 spent studying video games.
Coburn revisited the grant in his Wastebook 2010 once the government had spent another $2.9 million.
Key facts: Bonnie Nardi, an anthropologist at the University of California at Irvine, first became interested in the game “World of Warcraft” while visiting China, where she noticed teenagers playing it differently than Americans.
What likely should have remained a personal interest quickly became a federally funded project.
Nardi published her “World of Warcraft” research in a 2010 book about “night elf priests,” in which she bragged about her three years of “participatory research” (read, playing video games).
Before the book was even released, the NSF gave Nardi and her colleagues another $2.9 million to study “game-based virtual worlds.”
The study was published in 2012. It’s 122 pages long and includes contributions from 30 video game “scholars.”
UC-Irvine even has a dedicated Institute for Virtual Environments and Computer Games and offers an undergraduate major in the subject.
Supporting quote: The lead author of the study Nardi contributed to said it was “a sign of distinction and a compliment” to be included in Coburn’s Wastebook in 2010.
“They absolutely don’t get what we’re doing, whereas anybody who works in the field gets what we’re doing,” Walt Scacchi said.
Summary: “World of Warcraft” remains hugely popular with an estimated 124 million players last year. The game has earned over $9.23 billion since it came out in 2004 — but on the back of entertainment value, not federal waste.
Navy Spent More Than Allowed On Ukraine War
April 19, 2024
Topline: Three times during 2022, the Navy accidentally spent more in Ukraine than was approved, totaling $399 million in excess spending.
Key facts: A new inspector general audit reviewed funds awarded by three 2022 spending bills that gave the Department of Defense $34.4 billion to spend in Ukraine. The Navy received $1.7 billion of that money.
Because of poor oversight, the Navy spent $2.1 billion — 24% more than allowed.
Most of the overspending came in June 2022. The errors were not caught until July, so the Navy altered its records to move money into its Ukraine account.
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service quickly contacted the Navy to ask if systems were in place to prevent further overspending. The Navy admitted that its financial system had no automated way to stop overspending and it could occur again.
That’s exactly what happened in September 2022, when the Navy overspent by $61.3 million and had to adjust its accounting records two more times.
Each time, the Navy pulled money from its operations and maintenance account to make up the $399 million difference. The account contained almost $65 billion in 2022, per budget documents, and should have been spent on U.S. defense.
The inspector general said the mistakes happened because the Navy still has not fixed an accounting issue identified in 2018 that may cause transactions to be recorded incorrectly. The Navy does not plan to fix the problem until 2026, according to the audit.
Background: The Navy has never passed a full financial audit, even though it’s required to by law. It received a “disclaimer of opinion” in 2023, meaning its accounting is so poor that auditors could not determine if the Navy’s financial statements are accurate.
Sixteen of the Pentagon’s 25 subcomponents received disclaimers last year, auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found.
The Navy’s goal is to pass an audit by 2028, the inspector general report says.
The Pentagon also previously failed to track $1 billion of weapons in Ukraine.
Critical quote: The inspector general wrote that “The Navy does not have the proper visibility of the execution of funds to prevent the over-execution of funds or a potential Antideficiency Act violation. This lack of controls also increases the likelihood that the Navy’s reporting of its execution of the Ukraine supplemental funds will be unreliable.”
The Antideficiency Act bans agencies from spending funds before they have been appropriated.
Summary: Spending $399 million on an overseas war without Congressional approval is a startling and illegal use of taxpayer money.
The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.