Given the lobbying power of the American Medical Association and the unimpeachable importance of their clients’ work, It’s perhaps impolitic to suggest that doctors make too much money. But what about dead doctors?

The New York Times’ Robert Pear summarizes a report from a Senate subcommittee that between 2000-07 anywhere from $60 to $92 million dollars in medicare funds went to dead doctors. Almost 500,000 deceased doctors were registered as receiving Dept. of Health and Human Services money to supply medical equipment to medicare patients.

It’s a darkly humorous story of government waste, though I’m not sure how much of a scandal it is. Was the money truly going nowhere? Or was it going to the deceased doctors’ living colleagues who then did provide the medicare services? Further inquiries with (living) doctors may be required.-MB

Ever stroll through Washington’s Capitol Hill past the Supreme Court and Senate office buildings and wonder: How do they manage to keep a place with such famous statesman safe from lunatics and even terrorists? Well, um, they don’t.

The Washington Post’s Mary Beth Sheridan has an in-depth look at what she calls stunning gaffes by the U.S. Capitol Police. These 1,600 officers used to be hired by House and Senate members, but since 9/11 the capitol police became its own federal entity with the explicit mission to prevent terrorism.  The transition has been rough.  Sheridan notes that a quarter of the Capitol Police’s recent hires failed criminal background checks and missed an IED placed in a truck near the Capitol in January.

But one theme in the article reasonates throughout the post 9/11 federal bureacracy: Terrence Gainer, the oft-criticized former capitol police chief, says the police is a success because there hasn’t been another terrorist attack. I guess you can’t argue with that.-MB

The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin reports that a former top Environmental Protection Agency official said Vice-President Cheney’s office manipulated Congressional testimony. The White House did so to play down the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming. The Vice-President’s office, and the Council of Environmental Quality, allegedly took out portions of testimony that Centers for Disease Control director Julie L. Gerberding gave to a Senate environmental committee. The whistleblower also charges that the White House did this with the intent of casting doubt about whether greenhouse gas emissions should be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The whistleblower in question is Jason Burnett, who left the EPA last year. Since then Burnett has also told Congress that the White House improperly interfered in denying California a waiver to regulate greenhouse gases. And that the White House simply ignored an email he helped write for the EPA about the dangers posed by greenhouse gases.

The Post article mentions that Burnett’s grandfather was one of the founders of Hewlett-Packard.  Understanding Government says better journalism will produce a better government. But it looks like a quicker path to government transparency is to get more whistleblowing bureacrats who aren’t financially dependent on their jobs.-MB