Phillip Swarts

FAA faces air controller shortages: report

The Federal Aviation Administration faces ongoing challenges in staffing the nation's air traffic control towers, the transportation department's chief watchdog said, following a tumultuous few years of several high-profile examples of controllers falling asleep on the job and budget cuts that forced the agency to furlough thousands of workers. Published September 6, 2013

Golden Hammer: Army wing office buy doesn’t fly for waste watchers

Like paying for a car repair you don't need, the Army dished out $8 million for helicopter parts it wasn't going to use, the service's own investigators say. Published September 5, 2013

Watchdog questions accuracy of EPA’s scientific integrity

Scientific research and calculations done by the Environmental Protection Agency may not be accurate because its employees have trouble doing science, according to a report from the agency's internal watchdog that says the situation requires quick action to fix. Published September 1, 2013

Golden Hammer: No work and all pay at VA makes watchdog sick

If you didn't do a job, would you still get paid? That's what federal investigators fear is happening at the Veterans Affairs Department's network of health care providers, with the government paying millions of dollars for work that might not be getting done, or giving thousands to doctors who leave in the middle of surgery or make patients wait for hours. Published August 29, 2013

Long waits cause frustration at security checkpoint for March on Washington event

The sole security checkpoint set up for the public to gain access to Wednesday's event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington was bottlenecked early, with frustrated crowds angrily chanting to be admitted and reports of people fainting from the heat. Published August 28, 2013

U.S. Postal Service shops around price break on product samples

The U.S. Postal Service wants to send you a free trial. Published August 27, 2013

Yosemite blaze continues; U.S. fleet of firefighting planes depleted by years of neglect

As firefighters battle a spectacular blaze raging across Yosemite National Park, the Interior Department is trying to put out a fire of a different sort: criticism from Congress' main watchdog that officials have failed for years to plan properly for replacing the government's decrepit, undersized fleet of 50-year-old firefighting aircraft. Published August 26, 2013

Spendopedia: Federal waste collection site opens on Internet

Has government waste become so bad that we need an encyclopedia to keep track? One watchdog group seems to think so and has started a publicly edited, crowdsourced website that compiles cases of fiscal abuse, modeled after the popular site Wikipedia. Published August 25, 2013

DHS employee’s website: ‘We are going to have to kill a lot of whites’

Is an employee at the Homeland Security Department also a racist preparing blacks for a campaign of violence against whites? Published August 23, 2013

Money makers, money wasters at Bureau of Engraving and Printing

The government might have just wasted tens of millions of dollars by spending it on money. Published August 22, 2013

Hurricane Sandy roughed postal service fleet: Report

Hurricane Sandy, the massive super-storm that pounded the East Coast in 2012 and caused billions of dollars worth of damage, also managed to destroy or damage 110 delivery vehicles used by the U.S. Postal Service. Published August 19, 2013

HUD can’t prove jobs welfare plan is working

A program that helps pay poor Americans' housing bills so they can look for work has doled out more than $100 million each year, but it has no way of telling whether the aid helped improve the recipients' employment opportunities. Published August 15, 2013

Pentagon wasting $7M on unused D.C. vehicles, watchdog says

The Pentagon is spending millions on cars, trucks and buses that are sitting unused in the nation's capital. Published August 15, 2013

Pentagon takes ‘use it or lose it’ approach to funds

The "blitzkrieg" was a popular German battle tactic in World War II to attack enemies and overrun their defenses before they could fight back. Now the Pentagon has perfected its own twist on the tactic: spend money lightning fast, before anyone has a chance to respond. Published August 8, 2013

Alaska’s harbor of waste: Federal port project behind schedule, badly over budget

What happens when your project drags on eight years after its deadline and costs nearly five times its original budget? If you're the Transportation Department's Maritime Administration (MARAD), you get rewarded with more projects. Published August 6, 2013

In drugmakers’ game of delay, it’s patients and taxpayers who lose

Sports fans would be outraged if a bookie paid a boxer to throw a fight. But major drugmakers are doing something similar, increasingly paying competitors to keep cheaper generic alternatives off the shelves. The practice is costing patients and taxpayers billions of dollars in extra health care spending. Published August 1, 2013

Medicaid innovation programs ran up $32 billion tab, watchdog says

When the government approved letting states experiment with new ways to deliver Medicaid services, it promised the innovations wouldn’t cost taxpayers any extra money. Somebody in the bureaucracy, however, failed to keep track. Published July 26, 2013

Energy Department nominee struggled with financial management at NASA

Elizabeth Robinson, the woman President Obama has named to make the Energy Department's oft-criticized contracting more efficient, is leaving behind a trail of spending questions in her past job as NASA's chief financial officer. Published July 23, 2013

No proof U.S. life-saving anti-IED program ever implemented in Afghanistan

The U.S. military in Afghanistan spent $32 million to prevent Improvised Explosive Device attacks after more than 600 troops were killed, but brass has no proof the pricey effort was effective — or even implemented. Published July 23, 2013

Watchdog warns more than $1 billion going to fees and taxes in Afghanistan

So much for thanks: As the U.S. accelerates its exit from a decadelong, $100 billion reconstruction effort in Afghanistan, American generosity is getting an unwelcome penalty in the form of taxes and fees imposed by President Hamid Karzai’s government on U.S. contractors supporting the rebuilding effort. Published July 19, 2013