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Government Waste Lets Do Something
The report below highlights the fact that $55 billion dollars in checks, were sent out improperly. The report does not seem to mention that much or most of this is due to fraud, but it seems possible this is the dominant factor. GAO-Government Accountability Office GAO-08-438T  Custom Search United States Government Accountability Office Page i GAO Before the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security, Committee on Homeland Security ...http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08438t.pdf - Reports & TestimoniesBackground: The federal government is accountable for how its agencies and grantees spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and is responsible for safeguarding those funds against improper payments and recouping those funds when improper payments occur. The Congress enacted the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (IPIA) and section 831 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002, commonly known as the Recovery Auditing Act, to address these issues. GAO was asked to testify on agencies' efforts to eliminate and recover improper payments. Specifically, GAO focused on (1) progress made in agencies' implementation and reporting under IPIA for fiscal year 2007, (2) major ... WALL STREET JOURNAL By PAT TOOMEY Full article WSJ Excerpts: The Club for Growth Political Action Committee has long been attacked for intervening in Republican primaries and targeting the party's most economically liberal incumbents. In 2000, Pennsylvania Rep. Jim Greenwood called the Club "cannibals." When the Club ran ads against Ohio Sen. George Voinovich and Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe for resisting President Bush's 2003 tax cut, Karl Rove deemed the ads "counterproductive." And Newt Gingrich, the man who ushered in a conservative Republican majority in 1994, once denounced the Club. "Their strategy is explicitly wrong," he said. "The key is to elect more Republicans and have a bigger majority and be more inclusive." TOWNHOUSE.COM A Government Engineered Food Crisis By Linda Chavez March 28,2008 Full article Linda Chavez Townhouse.com Excerpts: As if a housing crisis, rising energy costs and a soft labor market weren't enough to cause economic anxiety for the average American, now consumers are feeling the pinch of rapidly escalating food costs. The United States has long prided itself in being the breadbasket of the world, and Americans have traditionally paid a smaller share of their income on food than citizens of other developed countries. But the days of cheap milk, bread, beef and poultry may well be over -- and Uncle Sam is partly to blame. In 2007, the cost of a gallon of milk increased 26 percent; eggs went up 40 percent; and a loaf of white bread went from $1.05 to $1.28 from 2006 to 2008. Steep increases in the price of oil have contributed to these higher costs, but the federal government has played a pernicious role as well. By mandating that oil companies increase the amount of ethanol they blend with gasoline, the government has not only artificially increased the cost of corn, which is what most U.S. ethanol is made of, but has driven up the cost of other grains as well. Inflated corn prices encourage farmers to divert more acreage to corn, which means they plant less soy and wheat, which, in turn, drives the prices of those commodities up as well. The aggregate price of wheat, corn, soy oil and soy meal in the U.S. will be $61.7 billion higher in the 2007/2008 crop year than it was in 2005/2006. From: James Joyner Outside The Beltway Excerpts: Full Article Below Senior government employees spent a nominal amount of money upgrading official flights from coach, the GAO has found. Federal employees wasted at least $146 million over a one-year period on business- and first-class airline tickets, in some cases simply because they felt entitled to the perk, congressional investigators say. A draft report by the Government Accountability Office, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, is the first to examine compliance with travel rules across the federal government following reports of extensive abuse of premium-class travel by Pentagon and State Department employees. The review of travel spending by more than a dozen agencies from July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2006, found 67 percent of premium-class travel by executives or their employees, worth at least $146 million, was unauthorized or otherwise unjustified. Among the worst offenders: the State Department, whose employees typically fly abroad on official business. Center for a Just Society Big Government is the Enemy of Freedom Let's face it. Americans love things that are big. We love big houses, big cars, and Big Gulps. We supersize our meals, our TV sets and even our golf clubs (Big Bertha has revolutionized the game of many a duffer). Athletes take steroids to make themselves bigger, and people who are not satisfied with their natural endowments resort to surgery to bolster their appeal. After all, in America, size matters. Regrettably, however, our love affair with all things big appears to extend to government. Government spending relative to GDP has grown dramatically in the past century—from 5.5% to 28.9%. Federal deficits have risen from $50.7 billion in 1940 to an estimated $9.3 trillion in 2007. In the past decade, total state spending increased a whopping 88%, from $628,634,000,000 to $1,184,146,000,000. Clearly, the era of big government is back. When it comes to government, however, smaller is better than bigger and you get more with less. More what? More freedom.
Each Year Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) presents its Pig Book showing the multi billions wasted on pork projects and which congressmen/woman got the money for their district. WATCH THE VIDEO Government Waste represents a danger to the future of the United States. Waste is a growing problem. We have let this problem fester for far too long. The feds, alone, now take about 20% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). GDP is essentially all the goods and services produced by everyone in the labor force. The feds, before FDR, took only 3% plus of GDP, that’s three percent. Milton Friedman, probably the world’s most respected economist, testified in the 1990’s that the national budget should be less than half of what it is each year, to still fulfill federal needs. Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), a government watchdog group rates congressmen and each year lists all waste by Congress. This group was formed in 1984 by business man J. Peter Grace, a lifelong Democrat and famous reporter Jack Anderson who passed away several months ago. The 2006 improper payment number was $41 billion. Since then CAGW has been a tireless watchdog for taxpayers. However, citizens must become much more involved in controlling the spending appetite of most congressmen. Congressmen get themselves reelected year after year by making taxpayers think they are getting something for nothing. It a is very costly to those who actually pay. Americans practically always solve problems when the problem becomes too threatening. This problem however has little momentum for a solution. A solution exists but someone or some group must step forward to get something started. Government Waste to Editorials
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