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The fiscal 2011 funding bill roundly hailed for its "historic" spending cuts actually raised government spending by more than $3 billion, according to a new report.The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded Monday evening, "Total discretionary outlays in 2011 will be $3.2 billion higher as a result of the legislation, CBO estimates—an increase of $7.5 billion for defense programs, partially offset by a net reduction of $4.4 billion in other spending."

America’s largest banks can engage in flagrantly criminal activity on a massive scale and emerge almost completely unscathed. The latest sickening example comes from Wachovia Bank: Accused of laundering $380 billion in Mexican drug cartel money, the financial behemoth is expected to emerge with nothing more than a slap on the wrist thanks to an official government policy which protects megabanks from criminal charges.

Politicians in Washington hardly let a few minutes go by without mentioning how broke the government is. So, it's a little surprising that they've created a stash of more than $1 billion that almost no one wants.

Unused dollar coins have been quietly piling up in Federal Reserve vaults in breathtaking numbers, thanks to a government program that has required their production since 2007.

And even though the neglected mountain of money recently grew past the $1 billion mark, the U.S. Mint will keep making more and more of the coins under a congressional mandate.

MEXICO CITY — America’s drug problem is shifting from illicit substances like cocaine to abuse of prescription painkillers, a change that is forcing policy makers to re-examine the long and expensive strategy of trying to stop illegal drugs from entering the United States. This rethinking extends beyond the United States, where policy makers are debating how to better reduce demand for painkillers.

It has emerged that the multi-billion-dollar DCGS-A military computer system that was designed to help the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan simply doesn’t work. DCGS-A is meant to accrue intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and provide real-time battlefield analysis and the current location of high-value targets. According to two former intelligence officers that have worked with the system, however, it has hindered the war effort rather than helped.

According to previously undisclosed estimates, the United States is planning to spend $6 billion annually on supporting Afghanistan’s military and police starting in 2011, an expense which given the weak Afghan economy will probably continue more or less forever.

But the estimate could also be unrealistically low, as the administration spent about $9 billion this year and is planning to spend $11.6 billion next year on this expense.

WASHINGTON – The fiscal 2011 funding bill roundly hailed for its "historic" spending cuts actually raised government spending by more than $3 billion, according to a new report.

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The U.S. Air Force has decided to scrap a major ERP (enterprise resource planning) software project after spending US$1 billion, concluding that finishing it would cost far too much more money for too little gain.