September 9, 2011 5:04PM # This Week in Government Failure By [Tad DeHaven](https://www.cato.org/people/tad-dehaven) --- SHARE Over at [Downsizing the Federal Government](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/), we focused on the following issues this past week: - The [child tax credit](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/spending-tax-code) started out as a Republican effort to distort the tax code in a socially conservative manner, and it has now morphed into a large welfare program. As for the earned income tax credit, any program that hands out one-quarter of its spending erroneously and fraudulently is grossly unfair to the taxpayers who are footing the bills. - The electorate — and reporters covering the president’s “jobs plan” — should understand that [subsidies to state and local government](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/no-additional-subsidies-state-local-governments) have gone through the roof since 2000. - The wonderful thing about this newly discovered feature of ObamaCare is that states don’t have to wait for Congress to act. They can reduce federal spending simply by [not creating a health insurance exchange](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/latest-obamacare-glitch-enables-states-block-new-entitlement-spending). - President Obama’s job speech was [full of bad ideas](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/obamas-job-speech-full-bad-ideas). - We should place fewer demands on our troops and recognize that our spending and our foreign policy discourage other countries from doing more. [Declaring military spending off limits](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/military-spending-discussion-set-next-week) before the Supercommittee even begins its work reveals a shocking unwillingness to reconsider the roles and missions that drive military spending. Follow Downsizing the Federal Government on Twitter ([@DownsizeTheFeds](http://twitter.com/DownsizeTheFeds)) and connect with us [on Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/pages/Downsizing-the-Federal-Government/26635669039). ##### Related Tags [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).