The federal government hosts 47 job-training programs, 44 of which overlap. It runs 80 programs for the “transportation disadvantaged.”
Another 82 programs spread across 10 separate agencies endeavor to improve teacher quality — something hundreds of local school districts are already focused on.
These are just a few of the findings in a blockbuster report on government waste and inefficiencies released by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. The report, a summary of which was obtained by Fox News, identifies billions of dollars in potential savings if Congress just had the will to streamline initiatives that target politically popular causes.
“This report confirms what most Americans assume about their government. We are spending trillions of dollars every year and nobody knows what we are doing. The executive branch doesn’t know. The congressional branch doesn’t know. Nobody knows,” Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said in a statement Tuesday morning. “This report also shows we could save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars every year without cutting services.”
The GAO released it’s report today and found enormous amounts of waste. I know, who would have thought the Federal Government could be wasteful?
Among the redundant programs the Government Accountability office found were :
– Fifty-six programs across 20 agencies dealing with financial literacy.
– More than 2,100 data centers — up from 432 a little more than a decade ago — across 24 federal agencies. GAO estimated the government could save up to $200 billion over the next decade by consolidating them.
– Twenty programs across seven agencies dealing with homelessness. The report found $2.9 billion spent on the programs in 2009. “Congress is often to blame” for fragmentation, GAO wrote in this section, explaining that the duplicative programs in multiple agencies cause access problems for potential participants.
– Eighty-two “distinct” teacher-quality programs across 10 agencies. Many of them have “duplicate sub-goals,” GAO said. Nine of them address teacher quality in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
– Fifteen agencies administering 30 food-related laws. “Some of the oversight doesn’t make any sense,” the report stated bluntly.
– Eighty economic development programs.
Maybe they were going for the shotgun approach? If one useless program doesn’t work then maybe another useless program would? Basically, the GAO found enormous amounts of waste, overlaps, pointless spending and stupidity being sanctioned by the halls of power. None of our elected officials knew about it, even though they were paying for it with our money.
In other words, it’s Tuesday.
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