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Supporting Passenger Mobility and Choice by Breaking Modal Stovepipes: Comparing Amtrak and Motorcoach Service

This analysis compares customer costs (fare, travel time) and societal costs (government subsidies, air emissions) associated with twenty specific trips that can currently be taken between select U.S. city pairs on both an Amtrak train and on a scheduled intercity motorcoach bus....

Golden Fleece: KABATA - Taxpayer Funded Cheerleaders for Alaska’s Knik Arm Bridge

Summary Over the last decade, the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority (KABATA) spent millions of federal taxpayer dollars on a project...

Achieving Measurable Outcomes in Agricultural Conservation Programs

All federal agricultural programs – including conservation programs - should prove that they are achieving measurable outcomes that...

Bringing Sequester in for a Landing: Congress on Verge of Avoiding FAA Furloughs with Budget Gimmicks

Update (9:03 pm): The Senate has gone with option 1 (see below), allowing for the transfer of $250 million from the Airport Improvement...

Sandy Supplemental Data

As Washington debates the merits of a supplemental spending bill in response to superstorm Sandy, this database lists of all the spending...

Analysis of Selected Provisions in Hurricane Sandy Emergency Spending Proposals

Update January 10, 2013: We’ve combed through the House Appropriations Chairman Rogers Sandy Supplemental bill (HR 152 and his...

Sliding Past Sequestration: $2 Trillion in Common Sense Cuts to Avoid the Fiscal Cliff

In the summer of 2011, Congress sent the President a bill that acknowledged failure. Instead of swallowing hard and coming up with...

Green Scissors Report 2012

Green Scissors 2012 is produced by Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and R Street to highlight and end wasteful and environmentally harmful federal spending. This diverse coalition of environmental, taxpayer and free-market groups has come together to show how the government can save billions of tax dollars and improve our environment. ...

Congress Relies on Billions from Treasury in Transportation Reauthorization

A quick note: This analysis is based upon best available data at the time it was written. As of this posting (6:20pm), the final...

MOX Misses the Mark

Despite the ever-increasing price tag, incessant delays in progress, and known safety risks, the Department of Energy continues to pour federal subsidies into the Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) program year after year. ...

Syria: Excuse 535 To Not Cut the Deficit

Volume XVIII No. 37 Possible action in Syria has become the most recent excuse du jour for Pentagon boosters...