Earlier this week, the Biden-Harris administration announced the results of the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) first prescription drug price “negotiations” under Medicare. This event comes as the law’s two-year anniversary places a spotlight on its already clear record of failure for patients and taxpayers.  After two years of the IRA’s radical healthcare provisions, the fallout for the healthcare system is glaring. Disguised as negotiation, the IRA has clearly expanded government control by implementing price controls on prescription drugs as companies face a 95 percent excise tax under the law if they do not accept the government’s demands. This week’s announcement is only the beginning, with up to 15 more drugs slated to be named in the next round of negotiations. Despite the spin from the Biden-Harris administration, the IRA’s negative impacts on taxpayers are undeniable, and the aggressive push to expand these destructive drug pricing measures will only compound the damage. The administration claims the law is saving Americans money, yet Part D program premiums rose by more than 20 percent between 2023 and 2024, leaving beneficiaries with increased costs while the law’s provisions raided over $260 billion from Medicare savings. To make matters worse, the chilling effect caused by the law’s price controls has already scared off critical investments and forced medical researchers to scrap needed development projects. As the government targets more drugs in the coming years, it will further jeopardize American patients’ access to future cures and treatments. TPA urges all lawmakers to scrutinize the IRA’s implementation and prevent further expansion of these harmful policies.
 
Summer Reading: Agency Mission Creep
 
August is a great time for lawmakers to grab a boogie board and hit the waves while avoiding riptide currents (and current events). But, there’s always that overzealous lifeguard who gets in the way of a good time. Virtually all beachgoers can think of a lotion-nosed busybody who is a little too liberal with his or her whistle. Like these lousy lifeguards, bureaucrats at federal agencies such as the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) have been sticking their noses where they don’t belong and giving law-abiding taxpayers and consumers a hard time. Fear not, because the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is keeping an eye on the lifeguard chair and isn’t afraid to use the megaphone to keep these beach buffoons in check.
 
United States Postal Service
 
While it’s not easy to forget the billions of dollars in losses being racked up by the USPS, it is easy to forget all about the mail while on vacation, especially when your neighbor or relative has begrudgingly agreed to collect it on your behalf. Just because you have forgotten about the USPS doesn’t mean the USPS has forgotten about you. Back in 2021, Reason Senior Editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown reported on some troubling news: “Pop quiz: Which federal agency runs a social media surveillance unit known as the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP)?...postal inspectors have been monitoring social media platforms about U.S. protests, using tools that include a facial recognition database.”   When the USPS isn’t busy cosplaying as the Central Intelligence Agency, the agency is keen on playing banker. It has been three years since the USPS launched its postal banking pilot program. The results speak for themselves. A recent analysis by Cato Institute policy analyst Nicholas Anthony notes, “The program allows customers to transfer business and payroll checks up to $500 to gift cards for a flat fee of $5.95 at locations in Virginia, Maryland, New York, and Washington, DC... At its peak, the pilot program had only six sales. In fact, the project has only garnered seven sales across its entire three years of existence.”
 
Internal Revenue Service
 
The IRS somehow thinks it can be trusted to file Americans’ taxes, despite the agency’s poor track record with safeguarding sensitive taxpayer information, their repeated abuses of discretion, bipartisan political persecution, and false claims about not targeting the middle class with audits. As TPA’s Manager of Government Affairs Michael Mohr-Ramirez points out: Direct File is an inherent conflict of interest for the IRS to both estimate tax bills and conduct audits on incorrect returns. Further, the IRS has shown itself incapable of handling the sensitive data it already has. This includes the massive amount of data that would come with providing such a program. In May 2022, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a study finding that between fiscal year (FY) 2012 and FY2021, the IRS completed 1,694 investigations into the ‘willful unauthorized access of tax data by employees’ with 27 percent of cases being found in violation. In June 2022, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found that the IRS’s Cybersecurity Program was not effective in 17 of 20 metrics. Fortunately, the IRS Overreach Prevention Act (H.R. 9109), introduced by Reps. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) and Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.), would require the IRS to end the Direct File pilot program.
 
Federal Trade Commission
 
Hopefully, lawmakers also find time to rein in the FTC, which has embraced populist grandstanding at the expense of consumer welfare. TPA policy analyst David McGarry traces the problems of modern-day antitrust enforcement to the rise of “neo-Brandeisian” thinkers (named after Progressive-era trustbuster Justice Louis Brandeis) keen on expanding the clout of federal agencies such as the FTC and DOJ. Antitrust investigations and enforcement expand by the day, and as a result, companies must think twice before hiring workers, adjusting prices, or doing really anything else. In the past few months, the FTC and DOJ have launched investigations against bulk discounting by grocery stores, enacted broad and costly regulations on employment contracts, and obsessed over the color of text messages.
 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
 
While antitrust and securities regulators have a field day cordoning off supermarket shelves, color-shaming messaging apps, and tying up the stock market in red tape, the CFPB is using hard-earned taxpayer dollars to go after... video games and credit card rewards points. The agency is a reckless regulator, running afoul of the Constitution and evading congressional oversight. The agency was created by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 to “regulate the offering and provision of consumer financial products or services.” In an April report titled, “Banking in Video Games and Virtual Worlds,” the CFPB stretches its paper-thin mandate into the gaming world, playing up all sorts of scary scenarios regarding virtual video game currencies. Agency bureaucrats allege that “[g]aming publishers can collect a host of surveillance data about their users” and “operators of gaming and virtual worlds do not appear to provide the kinds of customer protections that apply to traditional banking and payment systems.” Like virtually all other media products, video games provide targeted advertisements based on consumer behaviors and patterns. Players can often pay to get rid of these ads, though many users prefer to endure brief ads for a free or low-cost gaming experience. Earlier this year, CFPB hosted a joint briefing with the Department of Transportation to go after travel rewards programs. The CFPB was, in all likelihood, using this as an opportunity to do through regulatory fiat what the dubiously-named Credit Card Competition Act would do if it weren’t stalled in Congress. The CFPB tried to claim these rewards programs are, in some way, predatory and anti-competitive. However, as an organization tasked with protecting consumers, the agencies glossed over the immense popularity of such programs.
 
Sadly, it never occurs to bureaucrats what consumers want or need. Instead, the name of the game is mission creep and eating up ever-expanding budgets. TPA has had to constantly blow the whistle on these wasteful activities and call for reform and increased transparency. This regulatory “Sharks and Minnows” will surely continue long after the end of summer.
 

BLOGS:     
     

Monday: Taxpayer Watchdog Launches Ad Campaign Opposing Nebraska’s Proposed Tax Increase

Tuesday: New Cato Institute Poll Shows Americans’ Preference for Trade

Wednesday: The FTC Sets the Stage for More Bad Tech Regulation

Thursday: Taxpayer Watchdog Recognizes a Not-so Happy Two-Year Anniversary to the Inflation Reduction Act

Friday: Summer Reading: Agency Mission Creep

Media:
 
August 9, 2024: NTD mentioned TPA in their story, “Speaker Johnson, Conservatives Address 2024 Gathering, Day 1.”
 
August 9, 2024: The Blaze ran TPA’s op-ed, “How bureaucracy stalls the battle against smoking.”

August 12, 2024: Issues & Insights ran TPA's op-ed, "Postal Leadership Needs To Get A Grip On Reality."
 
August 13, 2024: WBFF Fox Baltimore (Maryland, US) interviewed me about Baltimore’s $16 million payment to developer for a new city office home..
 
August 13, 2024: KLKN ABC8 (Lincoln, Neb.) mentioned TPA in their story about a digital tax.
 
August 13, 2024: ANSWER Tampa (Tampa, Fla.) ran TPA’s op-ed, “Florida legislation tackles third-party litigation funding.
 
August 13, 2024: The Black Chronicle, (Oklahoma City, Ok.) ran TPA’s op-ed, “Florida legislation tackles third-party litigation funding.”
 
August 13, 2024:  I appeared on 55KRC Radio (Cincinnati, Ohio) to talk about tariffs, IRS reform and fecal transplants. 
 
August 13, 2024:  The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, Md.) ran TPA’s op-ed, “Return USPS’s mission creep to sender.”

August 13, 2024: The Center Square ran TPA's op-ed, "Florida legislation tackles third-party litigation funding."
 
August 15, 2024: WBOB (Jacksonville, FL) interviewed me about eliminating taxes on tips and government antitrust enforcement.
 
August 15, 2024: WBFF Fox45 (Baltimore, MD) interviewed me about keeping cell phones out of schools.
 
August 15, 2024: Inside Sources ran TPA’s op-ed, “Confronting NTIA’s Unlawful Broadband Control.”

August 15, 2024: David McGarry appeared on KNRS' Rod Arquette Show (Salt Lake City, Utah) to discuss Kamala Harris' price control proposal.

August 15, 2024: Daily Union (Junction City, Kansas) ran TPA's op-ed, "Confronting NTIA’s Unlawful Broadband Control."

August 16, 2024: Patrick Hedger appeared on NewsTalkSTL's Mike Ferguson in the Morning (St. Louis, Mo.) to discuss Kamala Harris' price control proposal.

August 16, 2024: Patrick Hedger appeared on KNUS' The Jeff and Bill Show (Denver, Col.) to discuss Kamala Harris' price control proposal.

August 16, 2024: Townhall ran TPA's op-ed, "Kamala's Economic Plan Will Be a Disaster for Consumers."

Have a great weekend!