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Latest Policy Publications
POGO’s experts push policymakers to enact commonsense reforms that tackle waste, corruption, and abuse of power; hold those who’ve violated the public trust accountable; protect our constitutional rights; and make the government work for all people.
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Report
At the Federal Election Commission Things Don’t Add Up
The building blocks for campaign finance disclosure–identifying who is getting money from whom, and how much–rely solely on the FEC's databases, yet this basic information is incorrect. The enormous discrepancies between the amount of money the PACs (Political Action Committee...
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Report
Heavy Lifting for Boeing: Sweetheart Deal Helps Defense Contractor and Hurts Taxpayers
A December 2000, the Air Force proposed a possibly illegal arrangement to declare Boeing's C-17 military cargo airlifter a "commercial item" -- even though the government is the only purchaser of this plane. The result would be reduced financial oversight of any futu...
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Report
Will We Ever Fly Before We Buy? F-22 Doesn’t Meet Basic Testing Criteria
The Pentagon is rushing to begin production of the F-22 fighter without first meeting all testing requirements imposed by Congress. This report exposes the plan to recommend releasing $2.1 billion for 10 F-22 fighters even though the aircraft has not met as many as five out of...
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Report
The F-22 Program: Fact Versus Fiction
A report criticizing the F-22 aircraft by legendary aircraft designer and retired Air Force Col. Everest E. Riccioni
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Report
Defense Waste & Fraud Camouflaged As Reinventing Government
Overpriced spare parts horror stories from the 1980s taught us how to prevent fraud, and led to useful reforms. By the 1990s, however, defense industry interests dovetailed with Vice President Gore's Reinventing Government campaign, and new policies bypassed some of the earlie...
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Report
Who the Hell is Regulating Who? The NRC’s Abdication of Responsibility
After a two-year investigation of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), POGO's findings proved that for nearly twenty years the NRC has acquiesced to the nuclear industry by allowing significant safety problems to fester for years before they are actually, if ever, fixed. T...
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Report
NRC Sells Environment Down the River: Radiation Flows Unchecked into the Colorado River
In 1996, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) released "Who The Hell Is Regulating Who?" The NRC's Abdication of Responsibility. This report analyzed the prolonged process by which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) identifies and addresses significant saf...
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Report
Tripwired? Document Trail of Faulty Airplane Wiring Demonstrates Need For Comprehensive Review
POGO's investigation found that the military has been aware of serious wiring problems on its aircraft since at least the early 1980s, but failed to notify regulators. Furthermore, POGO discovered that wiring experts who tried to blow the whistle on flammable wiring problems w...
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Report
Addicted to Fraud? Health Care Industry Forced to Return Nearly $2 Billion to Taxpayers Under False Claims Act
The False Claims Act (FCA) has succeeded in returning over $4 billion owed American taxpayers to the U.S. Treasury since major improvements were introduced in 1986. The FCA forces corporations, institutions and individuals to be held accountable for the goods and services the...
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Report
Re-Establishing Institutional Integrity at the FEC: Ten Common Sense Campaign Finance Disclosure Reforms
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has undertaken a major investigation into the Federal Election Commission's (FEC) Political Action Committee (PAC) contribution disclosure system. POGO found that the current status of the FEC's data creates opportunities for unfair a...
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Report
More Brass, More Bucks, Officer Inflation in Today’s Military
This report shows that our military has almost twice as many officers per enlisted personnel than at the end of World War II. In short, officer inflation in the U.S. military has reached an all-time high. At a time when pay for enlisted personnel is so low that some are on foo...
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Report
Drilling For The Truth: More Information Surfaces On Unpaid Oil Royalties
After several years of POGO's prodding, in September and October 1996, DOI sent out bills for $385 million in unpaid royalties to oil companies operating under federal leases in California.2 This $385 million is just a portion of the total amount of unpaid royalties owed to t...