The U.S. government poured more than $200 million into an Iraqi police training program that was never authorized by local authorities, according to a new government audit. The Police Development Program (PDP) was blueprinted as a five-year, multibillion-dollar effort to prepare Iraqi security forces for when U.S. troops evacuated last December.

The class warfare rhetoric that accompanies the tax debate is reigniting as congressional lawmakers battle over how to address a pending increase of the estate tax, also known as “the death tax.” The current rate of the tax, which is imposed on the transfer of the estate upon an individual’s death, is a component of President George W. Bush’s tax cuts that are slated to expire at the end of the year.

In an effort to curb an array of new regulations, House Republicans passed a bill Thursday that would shackle major federal rules until the national unemployment rate falls to six percent. Authored by Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.), the legislation hones in on excessive or poorly-written rules that could halt job growth and impose burdensome costs on American businesses.

Mounting resistance against President Obama’s seemingly anti-oil agenda, the Republican-led House passed a bill Wednesday that would displace the administration’s new offshore drilling plan. However, the measure is doomed for failure in the Senate, which has prompted Democrats to blast the attempt as a political maneuver made by disgruntled Republicans who oppose the president’s energy policies.

In launching the first U.S.-based International AIDS Conference in more than 20 years, advocates are pushing for more attention and a boost in government funding for the 31-year-old epidemic. Dumping more money onto the already mounting pile of global AIDS funding could realistically cure the pandemic, supporters said Sunday during the event’s opening ceremony.

The unveiling of another lavish employee event has added to the General Services Administration’s (GSA) already scandal-ridden status as a corrupt government agency notorious for taxpayer waste. Only three months after GSA officials were exposed for having spent more than $800,000 on a Las Vegas training conference, the department’s inspector general is launching an investigation into a Washington event that cost a sizable $270,000.

Another American solar firm is purportedly in financial disarray after receiving millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Only a year after it opened, the Amonix solar manufacturing plant located in North Las Vegas has idled production, leaving serious questions about the company’s financial viability and whether taxpayers will be burdened with another multi-million-dollar DOE-subsidized boondoggle.

The Obama administration announced a new initiative Wednesday to recruit an elite group of master educators in a $1-billion effort to improve education.

As a contentious “farm” bill rages in Congress, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) argued Tuesday that unemployment insurance and food stamps (which are included in the legislation) are the two “most stimulative” measures to boost economic growth.

Last week, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney made a bold assertion: President Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus law is “widely recognized to have broken the back of the recession.” The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which was signed into law on February 17, 2009, had an original cost estimate of $787 billion, but has since been revised by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to an elevated tune of $831 billion.