The $20 million ‘Boondoggle That Won’t Die’ Finally Gets Zapped
The House on Wednesday night voted 252 to 179 to wipe out a $20 million-a-year sop to Pennsylvania’s struggling anthracite coal industry that critics had tagged “the boondoggle that just won’t die.
As The Fiscal Times reported earlier this week, the Defense Department has been required every year to ship 5,000 to 9,000 tons of coal mined from the rugged hills of Tamaqua in northeast Pennsylvania to the small town of Kaiserslauntern in southwestern Germany to be used by a local utility to heat a large U.S. military maintenance and repair installation.
The provision, for decades tucked away in the massive defense appropriations bill, was the remnant of a half-century old taxpayer rip-off that the Defense Department has been trying to get rid of for years.
Related: The $20 Million Political Boondoggle That Just Won’t Die
“For decades, the Department of Defense has urged Congress to remove this earmark and allow the use of cheaper fuel to power its military bases. Today we finally achieve that … saving taxpayers millions of dollars each year,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), who co-sponsored an amendment with Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) to eliminate the benefit to the Pennsylvania coal industry.
“The passage of this amendment is proof-positive that Republicans and Democrats can work together to cut wasteful spending while protecting the environment,” he added. “It’s about time we stopped burning dirty coal—and taxpayer dollars—to power this military base.”
Chart of the Day: SALT in the GOP’s Wounds
The stark and growing divide between urban/suburban and rural districts was one big story in this year’s election results, with Democrats gaining seats in the House as a result of their success in suburban areas. The GOP tax law may have helped drive that trend, Yahoo Finance’s Brian Cheung notes.
The new tax law capped the amount of state and local tax deductions Americans can claim in their federal filings at $10,000. Congressional seats for nine of the top 25 districts where residents claim those SALT deductions were held by Republicans heading into Election Day. Six of the nine flipped to the Democrats in last week’s midterms.
Chart of the Day: Big Pharma's Big Profits
Ten companies, including nine pharmaceutical giants, accounted for half of the health care industry's $50 billion in worldwide profits in the third quarter of 2018, according to an analysis by Axios’s Bob Herman. Drug companies generated 23 percent of the industry’s $636 billion in revenue — and 63 percent of the total profits. “Americans spend a lot more money on hospital and physician care than prescription drugs, but pharmaceutical companies pocket a lot more than other parts of the industry,” Herman writes.
Chart of the Day: Infrastructure Spending Over 60 Years
Federal, state and local governments spent about $441 billion on infrastructure in 2017, with the money going toward highways, mass transit and rail, aviation, water transportation, water resources and water utilities. Measured as a percentage of GDP, total spending is a bit lower than it was 50 years ago. For more details, see this new report from the Congressional Budget Office.
Number of the Day: $3.3 Billion
The GOP tax cuts have provided a significant earnings boost for the big U.S. banks so far this year. Changes in the tax code “saved the nation’s six biggest banks $3.3 billion in the third quarter alone,” according to a Bloomberg report Thursday. The data is drawn from earnings reports from Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.
Clarifying the Drop in Obamacare Premiums
We told you Thursday about the Trump administration’s announcement that average premiums for benchmark Obamacare plans will fall 1.5 percent next year, but analyst Charles Gaba says the story is a bit more complicated. According to Gaba’s calculations, average premiums for all individual health plans will rise next year by 3.1 percent.
The difference between the two figures is produced by two very different datasets. The Trump administration included only the second-lowest-cost Silver plans in 39 states in its analysis, while Gaba examined all individual plans sold in all 50 states.