government

USA: Uncle Sam's Advertising

UPDATED 0:06 AM EST, November 30, 2012 | By Phillip Swarts, John Solomon and the Medill News Service

The government has spent more than $16 billion over the last decade on outside advertising, marketing and public relations contractors, feeding a cottage industry of inside-the-Beltway and Madison Avenue firms that help federal agencies burnish their images and tailor their messages, an investigation by the Washington Guardian and Northwestern University's Medill News Service has found.

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UPDATED 8:45 AM EST, November 6, 2012

The Stark Choice

After 18 months of grueling campaign travel, more than $2 billion in spending, mostly on ads, and four vigorous debates, President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney turned a razor-thin election into the hands of voters.

The estimated 133 million Americans who will head to the polls Tuesday face two stark realities: the candidates they’ll choose from offer vastly different visions about the role of government in the economy and in our lives, and the winner will almost certainly be left to work with a sharply divided Congress that agrees on little.

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UPDATED 7:51 AM EST, November 20, 2012

Stimulus Math Redux

The government's fiscal watchdogs have identified more than $5.8 billion in problematic stimulus spending, a figure that dwarfs the election-year statistics the Obama administration is using to tout the integrity of the president's signature economic recovery program, a Washington Guardian review of investigative reports has found.

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UPDATED 9:24 AM EDT, August 12, 2012

Lousy Landlord

The General Services Administration might know how to throw an expensive Las Vegas party, but it is failing in its mission to manage federal properties. 

In fact, the government's primary landlord agency knew so little about the properties under its control that it listed buildings with collapsed roofs or radioactive contamination as being in "excellent" condition, the Government Accountability Office declared Monday in testimony that admonishes the GSA for keeping inaccurate property records.

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