Tag Archives: Study

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GAO report finds that Obama’s massive spending is not sustainable

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The Government Accountability Office is a federal government agency that audits the finances of the federal government. They report to Obama and they are part of his administration. So what do they think about his plans to fix the economy?

Take a look at this article from Breitbart.

Excerpt:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO)—the personal auditor of President Obama and the federal government—released its assessment of the federal government on January 17, 2013. The report’s findings illuminate just how dire America’s spending problem is and, therefore, how little the current cuts debated by Congress do to fix it.

The findings of the paper include these excerpts (emphasis added):

  • “The projections in this Report indicate that current policy is not sustainable… Preventing the debt-to-GDP ratio from rising over the next 75 years is estimated to require some combination of spending reductions and revenue increases that amount to 2.7 percent of GDP over the period.”
  • “It is estimated that running primary surpluses that average 1.0 percent of GDP over the next 75 years would result in the 2087 debt-to-GDP ratio equaling its level in fiscal year 2012, which compares with primary deficits that average 1.7 percent of GDP under current policies.”
  • “It is noteworthy that preventing the debt-to-GDP ratio from rising over the next 75 years requires that primary surpluses be substantially positive on average. This is true because projected GDP growth is on average smaller than the projected government borrowing rate over the next 75 years.”
  • “If the primary surplus was precisely zero in every year, then debt would grow at the rate of interest in every year, which would be faster than GDP growth.”
  • “The differences between the primary surplus boost starting in 2023 and 2033 (3.2 and 4.1 percent of GDP, respectively) and the primary surplus boost starting in 2012 (2.7 percent of GDP) is a measure of the additional burden policy delay would impose on future generations. Future generations are harmed by a policy delay of this sort, because the higher the primary surplus is during their lifetimes the greater the difference is between the taxes they pay and the programmatic spending from which they benefit.”

[…]This is the reality: when President Obama’s personal auditor says the federal government has a spending problem, it indeed has a spending problem—and one that is growing rapidly.

Something to think about during the debate on sequestration. We can’t stay on the course that we’re on. Things will not be OK.

News

New study by HHS: Head Start early childhood education programs don’t work

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This story is from last month, but I wanted to post about a government study that evaluated the government’s own Head Start early childhood education programs.

Fox News reports on the study.

Excerpt:

Head Start is an $8 billion per year federal preschool program, designed to improve the kindergarten readiness of low-income children. Since its inception in1965, taxpayers have spent more than $180 billion on the program.

But HHS’ latest Head Start Impact Study found taxpayers aren’t getting a good return on this “investment.”  According to the congressionally-mandated report, Head Start has little to no impact on cognitive, social-emotional, health, or parenting practices of its participants. In fact, on a few measures, access to the program actually produced negative effects.

The HHS’ scientifically-rigorous study tracked 5,000 children who were randomly assigned to either a group receiving Head Start services or a group that did not participate in Head Start. It followed their progression from ages three or four through the end of third grade.  The third-grade evaluation is a continuation to HHS’ first-grade study, which followed children through the end of first grade.

The first-grade evaluation found that any benefits the children may have accrued while in the Head Start program had dissipated by the time they reached first grade.

The study also revealed that Head Start failed to improve the literacy, math and language skills of the four year-old cohort and had a negative impact on the teacher-assessed math ability of the three-year-old cohort.

More here from the Heritage Foundation:

In a newly released paper, Heritage’s Lindsey Burke and David Muhlhausen discuss the findings, summarized as follows:

  • Cognitive development. Of 11 measures of cognitive ability—including reading, language, and math ability—access to Head Start made no difference for either three- or four-year-old students on any outcomes.
  • Social-emotional development. Of 19 measures of social-emotional development—such as aggression, hyperactive behavior, and conduct problems—for the three-year-old cohort, access to Head Start was connected to a slight benefit in “social skills and positive approaches to learning,” as reported by parents, but it had no impact on any of the other outcomes. For four-year-olds, Head Start was associated with a small decrease in aggressive behavior but also appeared to be significantly linked to harmful impacts, including higher teacher reports of “an unfavorable impact on the incidence of children’s emotional symptoms,” as well as poorer peer relations.
  • Child health outcomes. Of five measures of health outcomes, Head Start made no difference for either group, including no impact on “receipt of dental care, health insurance coverage, and overall child health status being excellent or good.”
  • Parenting outcomes. Of the 10 measures of parental outcomes, Head Start appeared to have only one benefit for each group. Parents of the three-year-old cohort reported higher levels of authoritative parenting, and parents of the four-year-old cohort reported spending more time with their children.

After five decades, Head Start continues to default on its aim to boost school readiness. In addition to the program’s overall ineffectiveness, there are government reports of fraud in the program. Yet Head Start continues to receive billions of taxpayer dollars every year. Since Head Start began, more than $180 billion taxpayer dollars have been spent to fund it—and Congress is currently contemplating allocating millions of extra dollars to the program through the supplemental aid package for Hurricane Sandy victims.

The article also points out how the HHS sat on the report for 4 years – they finished their data collection in 2008. I found it interesting that Obama wants to spend MORE money on these programs, even though they don’t work.

News

New study: married women less likely to suffer post-partum depression

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The UK Daily Mail reports. (H/T Dina)

Excerpt:

The study of more than 6,000 women looked at the risks and benefits of marriage.

It found women who cohabited with their partners rather than being married to them were also more likely to suffer domestic abuse and/or abuse drugs. The less time they had lived together, the higher their risk.

Research leader Dr. Marcelo Urquia, from the University of Toronto, said: ‘We did not see that pattern among married women, who experienced less psychosocial problems, regardless of the length of time they lived together with their spouses.’

The study found that 10.6 per cent of married women suffering from post-natal depression.

The figure rose to 20 per cent for women cohabiting in ‘common-law’ relationships and 35 per cent for single women.

Most dramatically, it rose to 67 per cent for women who were separated or divorced in the year prior to the birth of a child.

[…]The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, coincides with the latest [UK] Census figures unveiled this week which revealed married couple households are in the minority for the first time.

While the number of married people stays constant at 21.2 million, the  number of single adults households has rises by three million compared with 2001.

The census report said there were just under 2.3 million cohabiting couples last year, compared to 2.06 million in 2001.

Cohabitees now make up 10 per cent of all households, while married couples lead 33 per cent of households.

Lone parent households make up another 10 per cent, and 30 per cent of homes have just one individual.

The troubling thing to me is that people aren’t serious about doing what it takes to prepare for marriage, and then choosing the right person for the job. Everyone knows that marriage is better for you financially, emotionally, and for your health, but somehow, people treat it as a casino game. We don’t know how to prepare for marriage with practices that work, like chastity, courting and church attendance. Bad outcomes like cohabitation, divorce and single motherhood don’t just happen by accident. People choose wrong approaches because they don’t want to do things the right way.