The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction just put out their semi-annual report on reconstruction. The report is on the web here, and it ain't pretty. The Washington Post has some lurid examples of the fraud and waste that the report exposes. And to think that just a few months ago the special inspector general's office was on the chopping block... One important note: it's tempting to see contracting waste and abuse as an Iraqi reconstruction problem, or a Halliburton problem, or even a defense problem. But really it's a contract administration and oversight problem.

Constitutional scholars agree: Congress has the power to shape war policy. Army Times has more. A panel of constitutional scholars said Tuesday that Congress clearly has the power, if it chooses to use it, to stop the war in Iraq. The difficulty in exercising the power is political, not constitutional, in getting a veto-proof majority in the House and Senate to agree on binding legislation to either cut off funding for combat operations or repeal the previously passed authorization to use force, the legal experts said in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Tax Foundation's blog has an aggravating but typical post up. The basic claim is that spending has risen faster than tax revenues over the last 6 years. Therefore, it's spending that's out of balance, not revenues. So, implicitly, spending should be reduced to eliminate the deficit.

Tom Paine has an interesting article on an overlooked government handout to the oil and gas industry. When the U.S. House of Representatives voted to eliminate $14 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for the oil and gas industry on January 18, it left at least one item off its target list: a billion-dollar handout to a research consortium that includes publicly traded companies that reaped $100 billion in profits in 2005.