Yesterday I looked at some criticisms of Justin Amash, a new House member from Michigan. I noted that Amash explained his votes on his Facebook page. However, I gave the wrong link for Amash’s page. His official page may be found here which comprises his explanations for his votes.

The latest from Jeffrey H. Anderson, which I’ll file under I‑Wish-I’d-Said-That:

In a newly released report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that, in fiscal year 2010, $48 billion in taxpayer money was squandered on fraudulent or improper Medicare claims. Meanwhile, the nation’s ten largest health insurance companies made combined profits of $12.7 billion in 2010 (according to Fortune 500). In other words, for every $1 made by the nation’s ten largest insurers, Medicare lost nearly $4…

Actually, it may have been even worse than that: The GAO writes that this $48 billion in taxpayer money that went down the drain doesn’t even represent Medicare’s full tally of lost revenue, since it “did not include improper payments in its Part D prescription drug benefit, for which the agency has not yet estimated a total amount.”

Courtesy of The Weekly Standard.

Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida has just responded to the Obama administration’s “motion to clarify” his prior ruling, which declared ObamaCare unconstitutional and void. That “motion to clarify” essentially asked Vinson, “Didn’t you really mean that we can keep implementing ObamaCare while we appeal your ruling?” Today, Vinson answered, “No.”

The attorneys representing the plaintiffs, who include Florida and 25 other states, argued that the administration’s “motion to clarify” was actually a veiled request to have Vinson stay (i.e., set aside) his original order blocking implementation. Vinson agreed, and therefore treated the Obama administration’s “motion to clarify” as a motion to stay, which he granted. Vinson made clear, however, that if the administration fails to file a notice of appeal by March 10 or fails to seek an expedited appeal either with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court, then his stay will lift and the administration will (once again) be barred from implementing or enforcing ObamaCare. In other words, Vinson prevented the Obama administration from treating his stay as an excuse to ignore his ruling while the further entrenching the law.

It would have been better if Vinson had stuck to his original order blocking implementation. Yet he made clear that one of the reasons he did not is that many of the states asking him to strike down the law are implementing it anyway. Vinson wrote that the case for blocking implementation:

is undercut by the fact that at least eight of the plaintiff states…have represented that they will continue to implement and fully comply with the Act’s requirements — in an abundance of caution while this case is on appeal — irrespective of my ruling.

As the Obama administration explained to the court:

[S]ince the Court entered its judgment on January 31, at least 24 of the 26 plaintiff states have applied for additional grants authorized or appropriated by the ACA, continued to draw down grant funds previously awarded under the ACA, or otherwise availed themselves of resources made available by the ACA. Indeed, South Carolina has continued to drawn down exchange planning grant funds, even though it has declared the Act “void and unenforceable.” Similarly, Utah has described the declaratory judgment as an “injunction against further implementation” of the Act, but has continued to draw down Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (“PCIP”) funds and to request Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (“ERRP”) reimbursements.

Now would be a good time for the South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R), and the governors of the other 22 plaintiff states to join Alaska and Florida in refusing to accept any further ObamaCare funds, returning the ObamaCare funds they have already received, and ceasing all implementation activities, including “planning” efforts.

Tea partiers and other conservative groups turned on House Republicans in a dispute over when the House would vote to cut off all ObamaCare spending. Where’s the outrage over the governors and state legislators that are eagerly pursuing that funding, actively implementing the law, and preventing judges from stopping implementation?

Today POLITICO Arena asks:

Are two-week budgets the new normal? The White House and congressional Democrats are looking for longer-term extensions. Are short-term extensions an irresponsible way to conduct the budget process? Or are they an opportunity for congressional Republicans to shrink the federal government, by keeping a tight grip on the nation’s purse strings?

My response:

Well how has the “old normal” worked out? Runaway spending, deficits, and debt as far as the eye can see. If it takes two-week budgets to keep the nation’s eye on the ball, so be it, as the man said. That’s what the last election was about.

But the Democrats, and some Republicans, still don’t get it. Of course they want a longer-term extension. They want us distracted. So is the two-week budget irresponsible? Not when it’s the antidote to the irresponsibility that got us into this mess. Come to think of it, how about two-week budgets right up until November 2012?

In my recent Wall Street Journal article, “The Myth of Corporate Cash Hoarding,” I quoted Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball asking Politico’s Charles Mahtesian an apoplectic question about businesses “sitting on their money” just to keep the economy weak and hurt Obama’s reelection chance in 2012. Then I carelessly added an erroneous superfluity −writing that “Mr. Mahtesian concurred.”

My apologies to Charles Mahtesian (and congratulations for having had the good sense to disagree with Chris Matthews).

In reality, Mahtesian wisely dodged Chris Matthews’ bizarre interrogation about corporations willfully refusing to spend idle cash until after 2012 election. Mahtesian instead switched to talking about business going “whole hog” during the 2010 congressional election (this show aired September 27).

Here is the transcript:

MATTHEWS: You know, a great question, Charles, that wasn‘t on my list to ask, but I‘m going to ask you because you seem like a sophisticated guy of many parts. Do you think business can sit on those billions and trillions of dollars for two more years after they screw Obama this time? Are they going to keep sitting on their money so they don’t invest and help the economy for two long years just to get Mr. Excitement, Mitt Romney, elected president? Would they do that to the country?

MAHTESIAN: Well, I won’t touch the first question, Chris, but…

MATTHEWS: That was all one question, bro!

MAHTESIAN: Oh! I prefer splitting the two. I’d say that I think what you’re going to see the business community do is really go whole hog at this election right now because either way, you know, I think they can envision a scenario in which they lose … because, for example, number one, if the president has a Republican House, that’s probably going to be a rough scenario for them anyway because that’s what the White House wants if they want to get elected in 2012 — re-elected. So, probably the best-case scenario for them.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

MAHTESIAN: So you know, either way, I mean, I think they — they weigh the equities, and you know, see it as a 50–50 endeavor.

MATTHEWS: Anyway, I just hope business starts spending.

In dribs and drabs the plot thickens in the quiet little saga surrounding the GAO’s brutal and broken August report on for-profit colleges. The latest development is the near-silent transformation of the GAO office that produced the knee-capping report that was later quietly reissued with lots of new, for-profit-exonerating material.

I say “near-silent transformation” because word about it somehow got to the Coalition for Educational Success, a career college advocacy group. Yesterday, CES issued a press release on the matter, and this morning I contacted GAO’s public affairs office about it. To the GAO’s credit, their public affairs folks quickly sent me a copy of a memo announcing the end of the Forensic Audits and Special Investigations (FSI) team. Sadly, it was clear that there would be no public announcement of the change, which is utterly consistent with the behind-your-back way GAO has handled every development in this story. Well, every development save the very public release of the original, fatally flawed report.

Especially concerning is the following passage in the memo, which suggests that the for-profit college report provided the ultimate impetus for giving the FSI a new identity. This despite the FSI having done investigations in numerous other areas:

Since the Forensic Audits and Special Investigations team was formed in 2005 the team’s body of work has resulted in numerous accomplishments and benefits to the Congress and the public. To ensure good work continues and to bring greater management attention to the group and more seamlessly integrate its work with GAO’s program teams as well as the audit and investigative sides of the unit, today I am announcing several changes. These enhancements will also ensure greater attention to the issues that led to the need to produce the errata to the for-profit schools report and by the subsequent inspection.

So why does the group need “greater management attention”? And what exactly are “the issues that led to the need to produce the errata” to the August report?

As a member of the public it sure would be nice to know the answers to these questions, especially since these are the guys who are supposed to be holding the rest of the federal government “accountable.” For proprietary schools’ employees and investors — the people who were most hurt by the dubious August report — these are thing they absolutely should know. But the GAO insists on telling us that nothing major went wrong while refusing to share information we’d need to confirm that. It’s not only totally unsatisfactory, it only makes you even more suspicious.

Just over a week ago, Politico ran a story noting that Justin Amash, a newly-elected House member from Michigan, had already voted “present” more often than his predecessor had in eight years. The story suggested that Amash was trying to avoid electoral responsibility for tough votes by voting present. In general, the story suggested that his “present” votes were a failure in some way to meet his responsibilities as a representative.

You can read Amash’s take on all this at his Facebook page. Although I have never met Amash, I have followed his political career over the past year or so. In Michigan, he emphasized transparency and accountability. He reported and explained his votes on his Facebook page. He is continuing to do that here in Washington. Does that sound like a politician trying to avoid accountability?

Politico also reported some of Amash’s reasons for voting “present”: when he does not have “reasonable” time to review the legislation, when called upon to choose “between programs he hasn’t been given time to study,” when he has “procedural or constitutional concerns about a piece of legislation that has desirable ends,” and when he has a “substantial conflict of interest” — a situation that has not yet happened.

Amash sounds like a representative trying to take his obligations seriously. Apparently he feels he owes his constituents his best judgment about bills before the House and, absent enough time, he refuses to delegate his judgment to party elders or to mere caprice. It says something about the culture of the capital that Amash’s sense of fidelity to those who elected him occasions complaint.

The latest from Politico on Justin Amash confirms this impression. Among House GOP freshmen, he is the least likely to vote for the position taken by a majority of his class. That might be cause for concern since the GOP freshmen seem intent on cutting government spending. But I really doubt that Amash has gone native in DC. He is voting with the other GOP freshmen 70 percent of the time. It is possible that the other 30 percent of his votes reflect a concern for liberty or what he sees as the good of his constituents. Sometimes there is a great difference between being a party man and being a friend of liberty and a faithful representative.

More than a few Washington insiders are probably saying Amash is off to a rough start in his congressional career. I disagree. What I have seen so far, including these criticisms of him, confirm what I have thought for some time: Justin Amash is one of the most interesting and potentially important representatives to come to DC in a long time.