Normal, everyday bureaucrats are spooky enough. They can crush your home or business under the weight of their regulatory schemes. They can make your hard-earned taxpayer dollars disappear. However, bureaucratic ghosts are far spookier. They – much like regular ghosts – can be seemingly alive and present, but also invisible and undetectable at the same time. These bureaucratic ghosts are popping up in a number of administrative agencies. At the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, these bureaucratic ghosts are called “fellows.” These bureaucratic ghosts came in under the guise of helping staff plan priorities. However, defying the laws of transparency as ghosts are prone to do, they morphed into staffers who greatly impacted agency policymaking, despite not actually being political appointees. At the Department of Labor, Julie Su has served as acting secretary of the agency, despite it being clear, she does not have the support to pass a Senate confirmation for the role. Further, in a bid to become the most powerful bureaucratic ghost of them all, the Biden administration recently put Su in the presidential line of succession. Like a ghost, Su has just materialized and is here to haunt with policies that will doom independent contractors and franchisees across the nation. Lastly, Ann Carlson haunts the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after having been selected to lead the agency. After Biden nominated her, she – like Julie Su – failed to get Senate confirmation. Yet, she still runs the agency on an acting basis and shapes policies that make traveling and affording a car a nightmare. The federal government needs some Ghostbusters soon if they are to prevent more of these bureaucratic ghosts from haunting us all.

 

 

 

The best Halloween parties are shrouded in vapor, sparking fright in guests trying to separate friend from fiend. Unfortunately, the World Health Organization (WHO) hasn’t gotten the memo and will stop it nothing to cast a fog on reputable scientific research. Despite a wealth of evidence that harm-reduction products such as vapes are 95 percent safer than conventional tobacco products, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (the WHO’s director-general) has come out strongly against the products. He stated the organization’s opposition against THR when he said “it is not true” that vaping can be used as a public health harm reduction measure. He further stated that positioning e-cigarettes as harm reduction “is a trap." In November, the Parties of the anti-smoking contingent of the WHO – the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) – will convene their 10th Conference of the Parties (COP10) to discuss a litany of policies countries can undertake to reduce the burden of combustible cigarettes. It has been hinted that COP10 will focus on stopping the emergence of tobacco harm reduction products, specifically electronic cigarettes, heated tobacco products, and nicotine pouches. Let’s hope that the fog clears and global bureaucrats see the public health benefits of THR products with greater clarity. TPA will be in Panama with more than 30 experts and media to clear the air about vaping.

 

 

The Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Grim Auditor can’t be trusted to safeguard personal tax information or be given the responsibility to prepare taxes.  On October 12, 2023, an IRS contactor pled guilty to leaking the private tax data of thousands of wealthy Americans to the news media. While this serious crime carries up to a five-year prison sentence, the larger consequence is the continued erosion of public trust in the IRS, which has shown itself to be a flagrantly poor arbiter of taxpayer data. The IRS has spooked taxpayers and Congress by building a pilot program to push government-run tax preparation system onto Americans even before the administration’s so-called “independent” study on the subject was complete. The IRS unilaterally built a pilot program to give itself the power to prepare and file tax returns without Congressional approval and before a study on the feasibility of such a system was even completed.

 

The Grim Auditor also comes after lower income folks to haunt their fiscal dreams. According to IRS audit data, the most frequently audited county in the United States is Humphreys County, Mississippi. This rural county near the Mississippi Delta is known for catfish farming and has an average income of $18,000 per resident, making it among the poorest in the nation. Yet, Humphreys’ residents get audited far more often than those in cities such as New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig testified before Congress and was asked about the disproportionate targeting of poorer Americans for audit scrutiny. He answered bluntly, “[This is] the most efficient use of available IRS examination resources.” He would later justify this by explaining that poorer Americans from disadvantaged communities are easier to audit because they themselves do not have the resources to fight back. Thus, they require less time and money on the part of the IRS.

Treats

Monoclonal Antibodies Help Immune System Go Ghostbusters
 
“Who ya gonna call?” Hopefully the Ghostbusters, but if they’re not available, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.) is a good backup. In a recent letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the congressman along with Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) demanded information on the agency’s plan for authorizing new monoclonal antibodies and antiviral therapeutics. These biotechnologies have been critical in the fight against COVID-19 and have helped neuter the deadly disease into an annoying poltergeist. Yet, the FDA hasn’t exactly been eager to toss its risk aversion into the dust bin. The lawmakers wrote, “While the FDA has modernized its process in the past for influenza vaccines and pioneered an unprecedented public-private partnership through the multi-agency Operation Warp Speed for COVID vaccines, we fear it has not provided the same attention to other interventions. Our foremost concern is that new variants are developing faster than current FDA emergency use authorization (EUA) reviews can be completed – all despite the continued innovation to update drugs and biologics for a changing virus.” Hopefully, biotech developers won’t be haunted by beyond-the-pale regulations.
 
The Shining IG Office that Overlooks a Troubled City
 
Much like a haunted hotel, Baltimore has horrors everywhere you look. There are inspector bribes, crooked politicians, costly police misconduct, and the list goes on. Fortunately, Baltimore Inspector General Isabel Cumming is there to keep her city in high spirits. Days after being chosen as Baltimore’s IG in 2018, Cumming made clear that “nobody is off-limits. Overtime situations, theft of time. Purchase cards. There are so many areas that need to be looked atI love going after white-collar criminals.” At the time, then-Mayor Pugh sung her praises, stating Cumming “knows how to operate independently to be fair and just.” After media reports revealed that then-Mayor Pugh had cozy financial ties to the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), the IG’s office began to take a closer look at the city leader’s money dealings. Before long, Mayor Pugh was on her way to prison, and Baltimore residents were (temporarily) free of criminal leadership. Since then, the IG has saved Baltimore taxpayers millions of dollars and ramped up the fight for a fairer, more honest city administration. Over the past year, her office has saved taxpayers $7 million and fielded more than 1,000 hotline complaints. IG Cumming has shone greatly in her fight against fiscal fright.