In Case You Missed It: Plenty to Cut
Press Release
An article in today's Wall Street Journal reports on facts uncovered in a soon-to-be-released Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation showing instances of waste and redundancy spread across federal government agencies.
"This report makes it clear that instead of fighting over whether to keep funding everything as-is or even spending more, Washington should be looking at where the waste is and cutting it, and the information here lays it all out for us," remarked Sen. Paul.
Examples of government waste found in the GAO report:
Food
"The U.S. government has 15 different agencies overseeing food-safety laws"
"The report says there are 18 federal programs that spent a combined $62.5 billion in 2008 on food and nutrition assistance, but little is known about the effectiveness of 11 of these programs because they haven't been well studied."
Education and Economic Development
" more than 20 separate programs to help the homeless and 80 programs for economic development."
" 82 federal programs to improve teacher quality; 80 to help disadvantaged people with transportation; 47 for job training and employment; and 56 to help people understand finances."
"The GAO highlighted 80 different economic development programs at the Department of Commerce, HUD, Department of Agriculture and Small Business Administration, that spent a combined $6.5 billion last year and often overlapped."
" the four agencies combined to have 52 different programs that fund "entrepreneurial efforts," 35 programs for infrastructure, and 26 programs for telecommunications."
Transportation
"The report said five divisions within the Department of Transportation account for 100 different programs that fund things like highways, rail projects and safety programs."
" the report identified 82 programs that often have similar descriptions and goals and are spread across 10 federal agencies
"and many have their own separate administrative processes."
Military
"The Marine mine roller costs $85,000, and the Army mine roller costs $77,000 to $225,000. "Officials disagree about which system is most effective, and [the Pentagon] has not conducted comparative testing and evaluation of the two systems."
Source