The Goldman Sachs-funded business news watchdog blog at the Columbia Journalism Review goes after a fellow non-profit news organization, ProPublica, for a ProPublica article on wasteful stimulus spending. Columbia Journalism Review criticizes ProPublica for using a quotation from a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, which Columbia Journalism Review sneeringly and condescendingly and dismissively and, well, offensively, characterizes as "some obscure tea-bagging operation." Citizens Against Government Waste has been around since 1984, and its 2007 IRS Form 990 indicates it had revenue and expenses of about $4.4 million, more if you include an affiliated 501(c)4 group. It claims "more than one million members and supporters." Its directors as of the 2007 Form 990 included Vin Weber, who is a big deal. Its annual "pig book" report is widely covered. The Columbia Journal Review, by comparison, reportedly had in 2007 "an annual budget of $2.3 million, and circulation of about 19,000, including 6,000 student subscriptions." Uh, who is calling whom obscure? That Citizens Against Government Waste is deemed obscure by the Ivy League elite trainers of journalists over at Columbia Journalism School (who, okay, also include some friends of mine) tells you more about those academic elites and the press than about Citizens Against Government Waste, which is a perfectly useful Washington advocacy group as far as Washington advocacy groups go.

Here's a great health care and business story hiding in plain sight, and the reason you haven't read it is a story of its own about how the press works. If we told you that there were a woman-owned company with 3,000 employees, an elaborately designed Google-plex like headquarters, and $500 million in annual revenues* that makes a system that one in five doctors in America will use to keep electronic medical records for patients, you might think you'd have heard of the company, or read about it somewhere other that here at FutureOfCapitalism.com. But Epic Systems, despite having such high-profile customers as Kaiser Permanente, NYU Langone Medical Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Harvard Community Health Plan, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Geisinger Health System, is a secret to readers who rely on national news organizations such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, or the Washington Post to keep them abreast of developments in health care, business, and technology. This is so even though the "stimulus" package passed earlier this year includes $19 billion in funding for electronic medial records, and even though President Obama himself showed up in Ohio and proclaimed, "Cleveland Clinic has one of the best health information technology systems in the country. And that means they can track patients and their progress. It means that they can see what treatments work and what treatments are unnecessary. It means they can provide better care for patients. They don't have to duplicate test after test because it's all online… And here's the remarkable thing: They actually have some of the lowest costs for the best care."

FutureOfCapitalism.com on Christian Science and the government health care overhaul: November 3, 11:16 p.m.

Slate's Mickey Kaus on same: November 4, 12:18 p.m.

Instapundit.com on same: November 5, 7:26 a.m.

John Goodman's Health Policy Blog on same: November 5, 9:15 a.m.

One more thought on the physician shortage: The rules -- I'm not sure if it's the government or the American Medical Association or a combination thereof -- now require foreign-trained physicians who immigrate to America to repeat their entire residencies in America before they can practice here. Changing that rule to allow a more open market would help alleviate a shortage of doctors. One could set up a system of bilateral agreements between America and other countries with good doctors, or one could set up some kind of American exam to assure that the foreign-trained doctors are up to American standards and that they hadn't been subject to any professional discipline in their countries of origin. But forcing doctors to repeat their entire residencies in America is a barrier to entry that's excessive, and if the American doctors are actually concerned about alleviating shortages rather than just enriching themselves, it's the sort of idea that at least should be up for discussion.

The chief executive of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Herbert Pardes, is a person I admire and who I've defended in the past, but his opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal, "The Coming Shortage of Doctors," strikes me as off-base. He writes:

The fundamental reason why medical students are not entering primary care on their own is that they can't afford it. Medical-school tuition can cost a student as much as $50,000 a year. Some doctors start out owing hundreds of thousands of dollars before they are even able to open a practice. Going to medical school is a little like taking out a mortgage, only without getting a house in return.

Republicans shouldn't celebrate, Daniel Henninger suggests in the Wall Street Journal: "What was learned Tuesday is that the American voter is absolutely, totally, unremittingly disgusted with both political parties." This is a point we have tried to make a theme of here at FutureOfCapitalism.com in posts like this one ("It can't be stressed enough that the issues in Washington aren't so much Mr. Bush or Mr. Obama or Democrat or Republican. Both parties and administrations are complicit and participating") and this one ("Politicians of both parties try to de-fund or shut up their opponents.") The results even suggested some disillusionment with Mayor Bloomberg, who is an independent. The idea expressed by Mr. Henninger may start to spread more when it can be boiled down to a single catch-phrase or word or Web url or bumper sticker. Something like: The problem in Washington isn't Republicans or Democrats, it's incumbents (or politicians.) Or throwthebumsout.com (which is taken). Or apoxonboththeirhouses.com. (which is available, as of this morning). The risk with this approach and those statements of it is that they flirt with cynicism or anger that can be dangerous or off-putting. On the other hand, the Obama campaign managed effectively to channel a lot of anti-Bush, anti-Washington anger the last time around. Ross Perot and Ralph Nader have tried similar campaigns with limited success, depending on how one defines success.

The TaxProf blog has coverage and links about the case of the hedge fund manager Julian Robertson, who had an apartment in Manhattan and a house on Long Island. He tried to structure his life so as to avoid spending more than 183 days a year in New York City, because if he exceeded that day count, all his earnings would be subject to New York City income tax. For the tax year 2000, the New York tax authorities tried to say he was in New York City on four days that he says he wasn't in New York City. An audit that began on May 17, 2002 was resolved in an October 15, 2009 ruling that saved Mr. Robertson $26.7 million in taxes and $21 million in interest. Had he spent those four days in New York, they would have been some pretty expensive days, tax-wise. The court documents tell the tale of the lengths that the government went to try to prove that Mr. Robertson was in New York on those four days, taking testimony from his secretaries and household staff, and even issuing subpoenas for his home phone records with letters asking the telephone companies not to inform Mr. Robertson that the records had been requested. The government may have failed in its effort to collect more taxes from Mr. Robertson, but if the goal is to discourage high-income individuals from spending more than half of their time in New York City, the tax rates in place seem to be succeeding.

The involvement of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and Goldman Sachs in both the Burlington Northern deal and the Fannie Mae tax credit deal raise some interesting questions about Goldman Sachs's role, given that Mr. Buffett's Berkshire made a $5 billion investment in Goldman last year. In the case of the railroad, the deal announcement said that Goldman Sachs was the investment banker for the railroad. I haven't heard any BNSF shareholders complaining about the price. But even so, if I'm a non-Buffett railroad shareholder, do I really want the investment banker in charge of shopping around my company to the highest bidder to be part-owned by one of the bidders? And do I even want to be a seller if Mr. Buffett is a buyer? I understand that investment bankers aren't like lawyers in terms of conflicts policy and that these deals aren't necessarily adversarial. I even understand that the highest bidder may not be the best one. And I understand that the actual shopping around, if there was any, may have even been done by Evercore, which was also listed as BNSF banker on the deal, given how these press releases are manipulated for the purpose of affecting standings in "league table" rankings for investment banker braggng rights. Still, it's a bit of an unusual situation. We've noted how Mr. Buffett is politically active and now will be an owner of a railroad that stands to benefit from all kinds of government regulations and subsidies. But it's also worth noting that he's a buyer of the company and also a strategic investor in the investment banker that is advising the company that is selling. Talk about being on all sides of the deal. Goldman, for its part, is trying to sell a railroad to someone who already owns a big chunk of Goldman. Now, you could say, if Goldman is trying to give Mr. Buffett a sweetheart deal on this railroad at the expense of BNSF shareholders, where's the competing bidder making a public higher offer? But the expense of launching that kind of takeover battle when it looks like Mr. Buffett, between his existing status as a BNSF minority shareholder and as an investor in BNSF's investment baker, already has the deal wired would be prohibitive when weighed against the chance of success.

When Warren Buffett criticized President Bush's tax cuts while plumping for the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, he garnered prominent, adulatory headlines such as "Buffett blasts system that lets him pay less tax than secretary," (The Times of London) and "Warren Buffett: The Rich Need to Pay More Taxes" (ABC News). Consider that as the context for two pieces of information: First, the observation, amid a column in today's Wall Street Journal, about Berkshire Hathaway's cash mountain:

For a moment there at the Aspen Institute event on Capitalism and the Future, it sounded like there was a corporate CEO ready to speak out publicly in defense of capitalism. Said the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi, "Most of capitalism…we've done a pretty good job." She asked, "Without capitalism, where is the job creation? Without capitalism, where is the innovation." She closed with a reference to a certain movie about Wall Street and said, "greed is not so bad, you know." Later, she said, "I don't think we can create jobs and have thriving economies without thriving capitalism."

But it was just a moment. Then she started talking about "partnerships" between business and government.

As if the 1990-page Pelosi health care bill weren't enough, Democrats today unveiled a 42-page "manager's amendment" that includes a lengthy section about tax breaks for biofuels, including "any cultivated algae, cyanobacteria, or lemna," as well as a provision that would, in essence, raise taxes on businesses by repealing something called worldwide allocation of interest. Neither of these provisions has anything whatsoever to do with health care, but they are in there because the Democrats have to find a way to pay somehow for the health care. The biofuels tax break has been scored as actually raising $24 billion over 10 years, while repealing worldwide allocation of interest reportedly gets another $26 billion. That the Democrats are throwing these revenue-raisers into the health care bill at the last minute suggests that there is some skepticism, or fear, within the Democratic caucus about the effect of the legislation on the deficit. It's worth noting, too, that these revenue-raisers kick in either immediately upon enactment or in 2010, while the health care benefits don't start flowing until much later.

The Los Angeles Times draws attention to news that, as part of the health-care overhaul, "A little-noticed measure would put Christian Science healing sessions on the same footing as clinical medicine."

The provision does not single out Christian Science, but instead requires insurance to consider coverage of "religious and spiritual healthcare."

The approach was approved by two House committees, but because of church-state concerns, government funded prayer treatments were not included in the Speaker Pelosi's bill unveiled last week. If those legal issues can be resolved, however, bipartisan proponents including Senator Orin Hatch (R-Utah) and John Kerry (D-Mass., which is home to the Christian Science "mother church" headquarters in Boston) may seek to get it into a Senate bill and ultimately, into any final legislation that may pass, when differences in the House and Senate bills are resolved.

Compare Burlington Northern Santa Fe's route map with the map of proposed high speed rail projects competing for $8 billion in federal stimulus funding and you can get a sense of some of the opportunities for Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett. Amtrak has a map showing how its Cascades line from Portland, Ore., to Vancouver, Canada, through Seattle, runs on BNSF track, and the state of Washington has a press release explaining that it has applied for more than $1.3 billion in stimulus funds to develop this service. The press release says that the Washington State Department of Transportation "has been working with the BNSF Railway and others to develop intercity passenger rail service in the Pacific Northwest for over 15 years. This successful partnership has resulted in the delivery of nearly 40 construction projects that have added rail line capacity, improved public safety, relieved rail line congestion, and allowed for faster, more frequent Amtrak Cascades intercity passenger rail service between Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, B.C."

The announcement (pdf) this morning that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is acquiring Burlington Northern railway raises some interesting questions. To begin with, if Mr. Buffett had $44 billion sitting around to spend, why did the taxpayers have to put $25 billion into Wells Fargo, $6.6 billion into U.S. Bancorp, and $3.38 billion into American Express through the Troubled Asset Relief Program? Berkshire Hathaway, as of its last annual shareholder letter (pdf), owned 13.1% of American Express, 7.2% of Wells Fargo, and 4.3% of U.S. Bancorp. These are significant positions, worth a lot more than the Buffett stakes in See's Candies or the Washington Post Company that you read more about in the newspapers because they fit with the folksy, straight-shooting image Mr. Buffett likes to project. If Mr. Buffett had all that capital to spare, why didn't he use it on propping up his own positions himself rather than accepting a government handout for which he later hailed Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner as "heroes"? And that doesn't even touch the matter of Berkshire Hathaway's investment in government-backed Goldman Sachs, on better terms than the taxpayers received for their Goldman aid.

The architecture critic for Bloomberg News has a column about Goldman Sachs's new headquarters tower in Lower Manhattan:

As I contemplated this edifice at 200 West Street, a block from Ground Zero, some numbers came to mind:

-- The $1.65 billion in tax-exempt bonds that helped build the tower and saved the firm $100 million.

-- The $115 million of tax breaks Goldman wrung from city and state officials desperate to show progress at the World Trade Center site.

-- The $16.7 billion Goldman has set aside for compensation this year.

The firm and its competitors say big paydays are essential to retain their best people. I'd argue that that is a totally fraudulent mantra insulting millions who are far less grandly paid yet glad to make a difference.