Over the past few days or so, we compiled a short list of topics that we thought you all might find interesting. Below is a short synopsis of each:

“50 Ways the Feds Waste Our Money“: Despite its generic title, this list is worth perusing. Seventy-two billion dollars wasted on improper payments, $25 billion a year to maintain unused and/or vacant Federal properties, $2.6 million on “training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job” (yes, you read that correctly). To see the full list, visit Heritage.org.

Massive Ford Recalls: Today, Ford added another 4.5 million vehicles to their 16-million-vehicle recall list. The recalls concern a faulty cruise control deactivation switch which has been causing fires: Read the rest of this entry »

Wasting money is the easy part; saving money is what’s hard. It’s so easy in fact that Kiplinger.com came up with a list of “20 Ways to Waste Your Money.” Here are a couple standouts from Kiplinger’s list:

2. Carrying a balance on your credit card: “If you have a $1,000 balance on a card charging 18%, you blow $180 every year on interest. That’s money you could certainly put to better use elsewhere. Get in the habit of paying off your balance in full each month.”

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The main criticism surrounding the House’s version of the stimulus package (now $900 billion) is that excess spending will not immediately contribute to stimulating the economy. Yesterday Republican leaders listed each spending measure they deemed to be wasteful.

Here are just a few:

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Concern about the sheer size of, as well as wasteful spending in, the $825-billion-and-growing stimulus package is spawning a number of reactions among a public growing uneasy about the exercise.

Read the Stimulus is a new website which invites all comers to pore over the ever-growing bill. Its tagline — “$850 Billion, 1588 pages, and counting… somebody needs to read it!” — sums up its purpose:

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With the House expected to vote and approve the Obama administration’s stimulus package today, conservative opposition is set to branch out into full-page ads in major newspapers including the Washington Post and the New York Times. The Cato Institute, “a non-profit public policy research foundation,” with the support of 200 economists, respectfully disagrees with the administration’s solution to economic recovery:

The Cato ad opens with a Jan. 9 quote from Obama:

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