Posted on 04/10/2013 6:35:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Waste: How many federal agencies does it take to inspect a catfish? Three, apparently. No joke. It's just one of many outrageous but all-too-true examples of billions of dollars in waste uncovered by a new government audit.
The Government Accountability Office's latest annual report on government waste and duplication found 31 areas in the government that overlap, duplicate efforts or are egregiously inefficient. That's on top of the 131 found in its previous two annual reports.
In many cases, the government has no idea whether any of these programs actually work.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who pushed for this report, figures the latest examples alone add up to $95 billion — more than the spending cuts under this year's "sequester." There are, for example, 23 agencies pushing more than 670 renewable energy programs, a quarter of which President Obama added. In wind energy alone, nine agencies threw $4 billion at 82 wind energy projects in 2011.
Worse, the GAO found that many of these programs targeted the same wind projects, and worse still, in at least a few cases the money went to projects that likely would have been built anyway.
Meanwhile, four federal agencies run 21 separate college aid programs that cost more than $140 billion a year, including eight targeted tax breaks, four subsidized loan programs, two grant programs, and a half-dozen others run by the Veterans Administration and Defense. Yet nobody, according to the GAO, has bothered to evaluate "the effectiveness of this assistance."
Then there's the $4.5 billion spent by 15 federal agencies on 76 overlapping drug abuse programs. Since 2007, the government had evaluated just six of these programs for effectiveness.
There are six job training programs for veterans, but neither the VA nor the Labor Department has bothered to determine
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Nor do they even care.
Oh, but they do work. They buy votes.
It is extremely amusing that a government agency would be used to expose government waste. I’ve got another area to trim: The government accountability office. It duplicates the job that is supposed to be done by the national press.
Of course, they’re too busy reporting on Lindsey Lohan to dig through boring government budgets.
“What difference does it make?!”
Sequester is just another way to bring down our economy and cause discontent.
“WHEN YOUR OUTGO EXCEEDS YOUR INCOME, YOUR UPKEEP WILL BE YOUR DOWNFALL.” (Paul Harvey)
$668 Billion spent in 2011 on 126 separate anti poverty programs, and we STILL have 50 million people on food stamps.
“Billions Wasted on Duplicative Federal Programs”
Oh, does the author mean like the NLRB and the EEOC?
Scenario:
A ‘mother’ has 4 kids who are of school age. No ‘father’ is on the scene.
This ‘family’ gets Section 8 housing-—food stamps—free medical—free legal—welfare—Obamaphones—free lunches for the 4 kids at school, presumably 5 days a week. Often these same schools in the ‘poor’ areas are serving breakfast, also, and there is serious talk of sending them home with a ‘dinner’ to go...and even serving them food at the schools on ‘non-school’ days such as during the summer recess.
So—food stamps are based upon 5 people—31 days a month—3 meals a day, which equals 465 meals.
NOW—those 4 kids are in school and getting breakfast & lunch 5 days a week. That is 4 kids—2 meals a day—5 days a week which is about 20 days a month.
Those school meals, counting only 2 meals a day at school, equals 160 meals a month.
A Question:
Are the food stamp people talking to the school free lunch people & balancing the benefits against one another???
OR is this “mother’ getting food stamps for 160 more meals a month than she is serving at home???
I truly believde there is serious duplication in these 2 programs.
Someone convince me otherwise.....please....or this is another item for Sen Coburn to address.
Can anyone here on FR who is in Oklahoma please call his office with this question???
How true. Basic math with apparently most Americans can’t understand.
Not so. Average Americans use it every time that they balance their checkbook.
Same with first, second and third mortgages.
The good news after the housing bust and recession, if there is any, is that people are not allowed to be stupid any more.
” - - - they charge their credit cards to the max - - - “
Thanks for making my point: THEY DO NOT BALANCE THEIR CHECKBOOKS.
I got it. Just throwing more wood on the fire. :)
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