December 11, 2009 2:59PM 

# This Week in Government Failure 

By [Tad DeHaven](https://www.cato.org/people/tad-dehaven) 

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Over at [Downsizing Government](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/), we focused on the following issues this week:

- Remember what happened when the government decided the “underserved” needed access to “affordable” housing? Now it says the “underbanked” need access to more “affordable” credit. [Uh-oh](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/here-we-go-again).
- Congressional logrolling — [literally](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/timber-payments-and-logrolling).
- President Obama plans to [spend our way into more debt](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/spending-our-way-into-more-debt).
- Another day brings another example of [federal health care fraud](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/more-federal-health-care-fraud).
- “The government has become an [elite island of overcompensated administrators](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-salaries-explode) immune from the competitive job realities of average families.”

##### Related Tags 

[Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) 

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