Posted on 02/14/2011 7:14:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
It’s enough to make a budget hawk lose his feathers.
Notwithstanding President Obama’s promise in his State of the Union address to freeze domestic discretionary spending for five years, Vice President Joseph Biden Tuesday proposed $53 billion in high-speed-rail projects — atop $8 billion so previously “invested.” This is every boy’s dream: the ultimate train set. Thank you, Santa!
For their part, congressional Republicans struggle to find $100 billion in budget cuts, even though their promise to do so fueled their historical election victories last November. So far, they have proposed just $74 billion in cuts for fiscal year 2011, $26 billion below this minimum threshold.
Meanwhile, more than $700 billion gathers dust in accounts all around Washington.
That’s right. An arcane budgetary category called “unobligated funds” includes money that Congress has appropriated for agencies and programs in every corner of the federal government. When that money goes unspent, it just sits there — like an ancient wooden chest on a Caribbean island, just waiting to be pried open.
Senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) holds the treasure map. He and his team cite an Office of Management and Budget document with the riveting title “Balances of Budget Authority — Budget of the U.S. Government — Fiscal Year 2011.”
On page 8, Table 1 indicates in black and white that this fiscal year’s federal budget contains $703,128,000,000 in “unobligated balances.” Thus, more than $703 billion languishes in department, agency, and program ledgers. This includes $12.2 billion unspent at the Agriculture Department, $16.4 billion at Labor, $25.2 billion at Housing and Urban Development, $71.4 billion at Defense, and $309.1 billion at Treasury.
While unspent obligated money must be stewarded for specific purposes for up to five years, these unobligated funds “have not yet been committed by contract or other legally binding action by the government,” OMB explains. Nonetheless, it might be wise to husband some of this money for legitimate purposes, such as military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Still, if only 20 percent of these funds could be liberated, then some $140.6 billion could be redirected immediately to reduce the deficit, freeze the national debt limit, or cut the corporate tax, and thus fortify America’s anemic economy.
In fact, Senator Coburn’s office estimates that $82.4 billion of these funds are between six and 20 years old! You read correctly: At this very second, the federal budget contains $82.4 billion that has hibernated in numerous accounts between FY 1991 and FY 2005. While agency chiefs and lobbyists might scream that these funds are sacred, such arguments become hilarious when applied to taxpayer dollars that have remained untouched for at least half a dozen years.
Team Coburn reckons that at least $100 billion of these unobligated funds safely could be applied to budget reduction. This could be done without padlocking the Smithsonian, dismissing air-traffic controllers, or showing Granny to her new home atop a subway grate. Hardly anyone would notice this simple act of accounting hygiene.
“Congress is approving increases in government funding faster than bureaucrats can spend it!” Senator Coburn told colleagues in January 2010. “While it is laudable that government bureaucrats are not spending every dollar that they are entrusted, this staggering amount of unspent money exposes the mismanagement of our national finances by Congress.”
Capitol Hill oversight committees should ask cabinet secretaries and agency heads a simple question: How much of the unobligated money on their books do they urgently need for vital public purposes, and how much can they relinquish at once for the overriding greater good — either making a significant down payment on America’s $14 trillion national debt or providing badly needed relief for this country’s fatigued individual and corporate taxpayers?
If Washington budget cutters get lucky, trunks full of gold doubloons may start washing up on federal property in Key West. Until that happy day, they should squeeze federal balance sheets for the hundreds of billions in unobligated funds available right now.
— New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.
I’m trying to understand. Does this mean that this $$ has been appropriated, and is not yet spent. So that means that we’ve borrowed the money, and are paying interest on the debt, while it sits there unused?
Unobligated balances! That muffled laughter sound you hear is George Orwell laughing in his grave.
Yep, the money is in multiyear or revolving accounts so the balances can be brought forward at the end of the fiscal year. Most funds must be obligated by the end of the fiscal year or they are “lost.”
Meanwhile, more than $700 billion gathers dust in accounts all around Washington.
physically ‘gathering dust’ or just ‘metaphorically’? You know it they invested that in a Brazillian account it could have been earning 11% interest!
Last week, the GOP debated $74B vs $100B in spending cuts. If they debate this topic for 20 days, the national debt will have increased $100B. ($5B/day avg.)
This is how out of touch with reality these people are.
However, new to me is that the agency must re-appropriate this "budget" in the new current year. So my opinion, it is not real dollars but appropriation.
However, these appropriations are concerning because the article implies that bureaucrats/congress could redirect the appropriations to something else. As the article states, the bureaucrats can't spend money as fast as congress appropriates it. We also know from stimulus 1, 2 and 3, that budget was set aside for the same things. So in the future, congress could just re-appropriate these redundant items to somewhere else.... stunning...
Hig Speed rail is BS. So they cut off 1/2 an hour off a 3 hr. trip.
Is anyone really in need of that 1/2 hr.?
Dear Mr. Obama.
Find enclosed my Paypal address. If you would transfer the amount immediately, I promise to buy a showel. It’s been snowing, and I feel it is just about showel-ready.
And, if they are, let THEM pay for the full cost of the high-speed rail service, not the rest of us who either don't or won't use it.
Not all the money gets spent... By a particular account trick, unspent money is never shown on the revenue side of the ledger!
Go figure.
High Speed Rail is the new boondoggle after Global Warming & Carbon Credits.
It will NEVER support itself—you can bet on that.
monies are appropriated by congress for one, two, five, multi-year, or “No-year” purposes. a one year appropriation means you can only spent it on what it was appropriated for for THAT YEAR, up to but not to exceed the ammount appropriated. for FIVE years after that, the balance of the “Account” is held for adjustments to the “purchases” (illustrative term only) made during the original one year. only once this time is up is the account “expired”...this of course gets more complicated with multi-year and “no -year” appropriations, but it would take another law to re-direct the funds in question...not that i don’t support that, just trying to provide a simplified model.
You are correct. I worked 36 years for the USG. As long as you obligate the money, it can be spent in outyears. No year or multiyear appropriations are a different matter. You can carry over money from one fiscal year to the next without obligating it.
Dear [First Name] [Last Name]:
I write to seek your cooperation as my foreign partner and your assistance to enable us to own properties and invest in the stable economy of your country. I apologize if this mail does not suit your personal or business ethics.
My names are Dr. John Smith. We are making this venture proposal to you in strict confidence. As senior civil servants in the United States Government, the United States civil service laws (Code of Conduct bureau) forbid us to own a foreign account. The money we have in our possession is unobligated funds totaling Seven Hundred Billion US Dollars (US$700,000,000,000.00) which we want to transfer abroad with the assistance and co-operation of a company/or an individual to receive the said funds, via a reliable Bank Account.
If you will like to assist us as a partner, then indicate your interest after which we shall both discuss on the modalities. All other information to facilitate the remittance of the funds will be revealed to you in due course. For your assistance, you shall receive 30% amounting to US$210,000,000,000.00 of the US$ Seven Hundred Billion, 60% amounting to US$420,000,000,000.00 for us and 10% amounting to US$70,000,000,000.00 will be used to settle taxation and other miscellaneous expenses in the course of transferring the funds to your account.
Please indicate your direct telephone and direct fax number when replying this business proposal preferably through my alternative address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I will call you when necessary. If you are not interested, please also indicate so that it will enable me to contact other foreign partner with recommendations to carry out this deal.
A swift acknowledgment on the receipt of this mail will be appreciated.
You will of course recognize that in an endeavor such as this, confidentially is of upmost important. Thank you and God bless you.
Best regards,
Dr. John Smith
White House wants high-speed rail funding
Section 16: Rescission of unspent and uncommitted federal funding (PDF)
Just right click on the printer friendly page. A drop down menu will provide the option to "View Source." Click on that. A new Notepad window will open for National Review Online(NRO) stories with the source code, text, links, italics, blockquotes, etc. Copy it. I scroll down and start with the title. That way I get the original subtitle too.
It's a little different according to the site.
P.S. While NRO always seems to give absolute hyperlinks, some websites give you relative hyperlinks that need to be converted to absolute hyperlinks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.