It is no secret that our government wastes many of our tax dollars with wasteful and useless spending but we didn’t realize how much until we read “Federal Fumbles: 100 Ways the Government Dropped the Ball.” by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) . He found a total of 473 billion had been wasted during Obama’s final budget. The Democrats are claiming to be butt hurt over the tax reform package that would cost anywhere from 1 trillion to 1.5 trillion dollars over 10 years. Let’s use the higher figure. That means in just 3 years we could pay for 10 years of economic growth by just eliminating this waste.
We could then save nearly 3.25 trillion in the following 7 years, all of which could be allocated to pay down the deficit. What kind of economic boom would we get from such action? It’s an irrefutable fact that a high deficit weighs on the economy, therefore if we reduce the deficit, we could remove a 7th of that anchor weighing against our children and their children’s lives.
Lankford says
“Americans rightly expect great things from their leaders in Washington. I offer this book as a guide for elected officials of both parties to identify areas of improvement so we may come together to do the work our constituents expect and our country deserves.”
“There are certain things we wanted to be able to put into perspective with this. This is the to-do list for next year.”
Here are a few examples of waste documented in Lankford’s report:
Unused Vehicles: $1.6 Billion — The Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Justice, Interior and other agencies purchased an estimated 64,500 passenger vehicles, with $25,600 as the average cost for one vehicle. A GOA review of three agencies revealed there is no way to confirm if any of the vehicles were used.
Trolley Expansion: $1.04 Billion — Last year the Department of Transportation awarded a $1.04 billion grant to extend a trolley line in San Diego, California, by 10.9 miles. The report noted that a billion dollars could pay for hundreds of miles of four-lane highways across the country.
Lost Military Equipment: $1 Billion — The Office of Inspector General at the Department of Defense reported that the agency could not account for more than $1 billion in military equipment, including weapons and military vehicles. Congress appropriated the money for fiscal years 2015 and 2016 to supply equipment to security forces in Iraq.
(Author’s note: No US president has ever audited the Pentagon’s budget. President Trump has ordered the Pentagon be audited every single year)
Chimpanzee Habitat: $52 Million — Over the past 17 years the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has spent more than $52 million to support the Chimpanzee Biomedical Research Resource, despite the fact that the 139 chimpanzees housed through the program are no longer used for biomedical research.
Unused Software: $12 Million — The Internal Revenue Service spent $12 million in 2014 to purchase a two-year subscription to a cloud-based email software to replace its old system. The IG for the Treasury Department said because the software lacked compatibility and other requirements, it was never used.
Fish Research: $2.6 million — Since 2003 the National Science Foundation (NSF) has paid $2.6 million to study the stickleback fish in various habitats, including one to determine how it adapted to murky water in Iceland.
Language Studies: $1,109,792 Million — NSF awarded grants totaling more than $1.1 million dollars to study languages, including the Seenku language from the West African country of Burkina Faso, the four languages of New Guinea and the languages spoken in Nepal’s Manang district.
Mexican Plant Study: $210,968 — The NSF funded a five-year study on native plants from Mexico to determine their role in the indigenous plant trade market.
Higher Ed Aid: $138,000 — The Department of Energy (DOE) helps employees pay for educational courses to improve job skills. DOE paid one engineer $138,000 to take courses unrelated to his job, and he subsequently quit.
Chinese Culture Tour: $100,000 — In 2016 the National Endowments for the Arts (NEA) awarded $100,000 to pay for Chinese troupes to perform in communities across the United States.
Shakespeare Adaptation: $30,000 — An NEA grant was awarded to pay for the production of Doggie Hamlet. Included in the cast were humans, sheep, and dogs but no lines from Hamlet were used in the production.
For a complete list from Lankford’s study, click here.
This validates the reason that so many people voted for Donald Trump. They believed that a businessman at the head of the government, running the country more like a business and less as a crony capitalism charity would benefit the entire country and our economy.
