Here's an item that, unfortunately, won't get mentioned at the next Republican-sponsored "waste, fraud, and abuse in government" hearing on Capitol Hill. IRS Commissioner Mark Everson testified before Congress this week that it will cost significantly more money to use private companies to collect outstanding taxes than it would to hire additional IRS agents.

Perhaps part of the reason this is true is because those private companies will get to keep 22 - 24 percent of the taxes they collect whereas additional IRS collectors would get to keep none of it. It's hard to understand how this program, which was authorized by Congress in 2004, makes sense- unless of course you remember this Congress and president favor business interests - even at the expense of the government. It apparently does not matter if the government loses out - as long as somebody turns a profit!

IRS Says Private Debt Collectors More Costly

So here comes the case of a program rated as ineffective, by both independent researchers and even PART, although the White House claims nonetheless that it is effective and deserving of our tax dollars -- and a budget increase.

The program is a federal grant program that funds student drug testing. Common sense suggests that random drug testing programs will do little to avert drug use in teens, and so does science:

Such are the findings of two major studies. The first study, published in early 2003, looked at 76,000 students in eighth, 10th, and 12th grades in hundreds of schools, between the years 1998 and 2001. It was conducted by Ryoko Yamaguchi, Lloyd Johnston, and Patrick O'Malley out of the University of Michigan, which also produces Monitoring the Future, the university's highly regarded annual survey of student drug use, which is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and whose numbers the White House regularly cites.

The early 2003 Michigan study compared the rates of drug use, as measured by Monitoring the Future, in schools that did some type of drug testing to schools that did not. The researchers controlled for various demographic differences and found across the board that drug testing was ineffective; there was no statistically significant difference in the number of users at a school that tested for drugs and a similar school that didn't.

The White House criticized the Michigan study for failing to look at the efficacy of random testing. So, Yamaguchi, Johnston, and O'Malley added the random element and ran their study again, this time adding data for the year 2002. The follow-up study, published later in 2003, tracked 94,000 middle- and high-school students. It reached the same results as its precursor. Even if drug testing is done randomly and without suspicion, it's not associated with a change in the number of students who use drugs in any category. The Michigan follow-up found one exception: In schools that randomly tested students, 12th-graders were more likely to smoke marijuana.

The White House has devised its own rating system, known as the Program Assessment Rating Tool, to help it cull failed initiatives. (These generally turn out to be the type of programs you wouldn't expect a Republican administration to like, but that's another story.) In 2002, PART deemed "ineffective" the Safe and Drug Free Schools State Grants program, the umbrella for school drug testing. The Office of Management and Budget, which runs the PART evaluations, writes on its Web site, "The program has failed to demonstrate effectiveness in reducing youth drug use, violence, and crime." The PART evaluation did not single out drug testing, which is a small part of the overall state grants program. Still, combined with the Michigan studies, what we have here is a bureaucratic pounding.

Results like these would mean budget cuts or death for some government programs. . . . That hasn't stopped President Bush from sounding an upbeat note. In his 2004 State of the Union, he said, "I proposed new funding to continue our aggressive, community-based strategy to reduce demand for illegal drugs. Drug testing in our schools has proven to be an effective part of this effort."

Yeah, that makes sense.

Posted by Robert Shull, 06:51:38 PM



PART Strikes Again
Independent oil and gas producers are joining the chorus of voices criticizing the White House's political performance measurement tool, PART. From the industry source, here's a look at what's at stake:

Independent producers are back fighting what has become an annual spring battle to preserve federal support for domestic oil and gas research and development. But the stakes are much greater than a few tax breaks, an Independent Petroleum Association of America official said.

"This has become an ongoing dispute between the Bush administration and Congress," said Lee O. Fuller, IPAA's vice-president for government affairs. . . .

Major oil companies' R&D is targeted where they're spending money, which is mostly overseas and largely proprietary, he explained. Service companies also do a lot of research, but again it's directed to regions where their biggest customers work.

"Independent producers generally aren't structured with an R&D component. They reinvest what they earn in exploration and production," Fuller said.

The US Department of Energy's oil and gas R&D program's main contribution has been to create a structure for research, about 85% of which is directed at independent producers and 65-70% toward smaller producers in programs such as reducing environmental footprints and extending reservoirs, he said.

"It's a cooperative effort that also involves universities, which use it for petroleum engineering graduate programs. This has been steadily reduced the last 5 years," said Fuller.

This leads to questions from the White House Office of Management and Budget, which historically has had an aversion to DOE's oil and gas R&D program. "It has perceived it as corporate support for the majors. We have tried to explain that it isn't, but it's a heavy lift," said Fuller.

OMB also uses the Program Assessment Rating Tool, which the IPAA official said uses metrics that emphasize present benefits and don't recognize future contributions. Oil and gas R&D, by its nature, produces real but longer-term benefits, he observed. "The results of 3D and 4D seismic, horizontal drilling, and coalbed technologies all had their roots in 1980s R&D," he said.

"Gas hydrates, which everyone hopes will contribute to supplies in another 25 years, need to be worked on now. Yet their R&D program has been zeroed out in DOE's budget request. So has deep well data evaluation research," Fuller said.

He suspects that there's also pressure within DOE to support hydrogen and other future-fuel initiatives while meeting OMB spending reduction goals.

When kids and families struggle with substance abuse or other issues, it is a total community issue.

The Safe and Drug Free Schools Program helps school systems provide support for troubled students and families through services such as violence and drug prevention.

But the federal program, which provides for state grants and national programs, has been targeted for elimination in President Bush’s 2007 budget.

What would be lost if the program is cut?

Judy McKiernan, coordinator of the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program in Winchester Public Schools, said the schools would be directly impacted if funding was cut for the program. . . .

In 2004-2005, area schools received about $76,695 total from the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act, according to information from the VDOE.

The Commonwealth of Virginia received $8,174,905 from the federal program in 2004.

About $6 million of that money was dispersed to 132 local school divisions.

Locally, McKiernan said the money is used for Daniel Morgan Middle School’s violence and bullying prevention program called Keeping the Peace.

It is a program the school system would like to see expanded into the city’s elementary schools.

The kindergarten through fifth-grade health curriculum, “The Great Body Shop,” is a crucial piece for the city’s schools. It covers safety, nutrition, and family life.

A portion of the health curriculum is supplemented by the grant’s money.

“These help our children make healthy decisions,” McKiernan said about the curriculum and programs.

So why cut such a valuable program? The White House's Program Assessment Rating Tool is to blame:

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program, a $346 million program, was considered ineffective by the government-wide Program Assessment Rating Tool, or PART.

PART’s analysis said the program did not demonstrate effectiveness, and grant funds are spread too thinly to support quality interventions.

But the programs it helps to provide are important because incarceration and treatment are costly emotionally and financially for the community, McKiernan said.