Ryan Alexander is president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan federal budget watchdog. www.taxpayer.net
Ryan Alexander

Ryan Alexander is president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan federal budget watchdog. www.taxpayer.net
Like things you spot in your side-view mirror, many of the budget numbers flitting around the debt talks are larger than they appear.
We have to stop subsidizing people to live in harm’s way.
If lawmakers really want to stop blank checks for spending binges, they should start with the Pentagon.
Our lawmakers should spend the next month figuring out how to reduce our $16 trillion debt instead of showering special interests with even more wasteful subsidies that have nothing to do with the drought.
The United States can’t afford giveaways for mining and oil companies anymore.
The government is spending $15 billion to create a nuclear fuel derived from plutonium that we have to bribe companies to take.
Energy subsidies are obsolete, ineffective, and a huge waste of valuable public resources at a time when we are rummaging through the couch cushions to find loose change to pay for our ballooning deficits and debt.
The Pentagon is scrambling to protect its flank in these budget-cutting times.
We need to put the brakes on the Department of Energy’s flawed loan guarantee program before taxpayers lose billions.
Whether you support nuclear power or not, subsidizing and thereby artificially lessening the nuclear power industry’s financial risks is just plain fiscally irresponsible.
A $10 million earmark in another bill would stick out like a sore thumb, but in the defense bill it fits right in.
It’s well past time for the ethanol industry to grow up and stand on its own.
BP’s claim that taxpayers will pay nothing is likely to be little more than doublespeak.
If the nuclear industry is a solid investment, then it should be able to receive the backing of Wall Street.