A report from the Government Accountability Office, released on Tuesday, compiles a list of redundant federal programs. This seems to be a sort of I-told-you-so moment that everyone who feels the government is bad at what it does can shout about from the rooftops, but come on; does anyone think the government is a model of efficiency? If so, Mr. Obama, you can just go about your business. Normal people such as you or I most likely see this report as a blueprint for trimming government waste and cutting spending to reduce the deficit. For instance:
The GAO found 82 federal programs aimed at improving teacher quality – I wonder how terrible our schools would be if we only had 37?
56 federal programs exist to help people understand finances – that certainly paid off with the recent rash of “I didn’t understand what an adjustable rate mortgage was so now I can’t pay my mortgage and it’s not my fault!!!”
A big winner are the 18 federal programs that spent a total of $62.5 billion in 2008 on food and nutrition assistance – how many different programs do we have spending how much money to make Americans less fat???
The Food and Drug Administration makes sure that chicken eggs are "safe, wholesome, and properly labeled" while a division of the Department of Agriculture "is responsible for the safety of eggs processed into egg products." I’m glad that the Department of Ag is responsible for the egg products; I just don’t trust the FDA for anything other than whole eggs.
Really, though, of great concern to me is not necessarily that so many different programs exist towards the same end, but rather how duplicative they are and whether we are wasting money by running them all separately. Fortunately for us, the report also addresses this, specifically regarding the 82 programs intended to improve teacher quality - "many have their own separate administrative processes." Hmmm. . .sounds like we might be able to save a little bit of dough by consolidating the administration and getting rid of all the extra administrators.
I do wonder, honestly, how much money we could save by cutting out the extraneous waste, or how much more effective these programs could be if they didn’t just repeat what some other program is also doing? I’m all for smaller government (cutting out the waste), but at the very least, couldn’t we have more effective government (yes, I realize this is somewhat of an oxymoron, but bear with me here)? I’d like to save the taxpayers money by eliminating the multitude of redundant programs, but let’s say that you are addicted to government spending (hypothetically speaking, I’d have to assume you are a Democrat) – if we must spend the money, don’t we owe it to ourselves and whatever cause towards which we are spending the money to get the most bang for our buck? Surely paying multiple administrators to administer essentially the same project is unacceptable.
Some politicians, though, will probably see this report as what the federal government truly can accomplish – employment. After all, why hire just one guy to do a job when you can hire another 10 or 12 to do the same job? And while that was a joke, it is, I fear, why most of the reforms that pretty much just punch you in the face with obviousness will not be made. Most elected officials who attempt to address this issue will balk at making any tough decisions that are to the detriment of their constituents – “with all of this redundancy, we can get rid of three of these four guys, so let’s keep my guy.” But of course, the other politician wants to keep his guy, as do all of the other politicians, and the resulting compromise will be that everyone keeps his job and stay employed (see the redundancy?).
Although I’m sure we are all alarmed by the revelation that the government wastes money, it does make me wonder exactly how much money they spent (wasted?) trying to figure out how much money they waste (something we all know about) by doing stuff they already do.
Wow, 82 programs for teachers that's absurd.
ReplyDeleteThis is ridiculous. Good blog, but the nature of it is painfully true.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe this blasphemy. the government wasting money? pfff yeah right /sarcasm
ReplyDeleteAgree with the previous commenters, shocking! :)
ReplyDeleteyh not really breaking news :)
ReplyDeletestill, thx for the post
surprise here!
ReplyDeleteThis is actually right in my wheelhouse, and I was just talking about this with someone at work. The reason there are so many programs like this is because politicians aren't elected by people who pay attention. They are elected by people who need to be forced to pay attention. I guess I can best explain it like this: The federal government does a thing with all it's workers called "Combined Federal Campaign" (CFC) where it gives the employees a chance to have a part of their paycheck deducted for charity, and every charity in America knows this is coming so it will submit all paperwork necessary to make the CFC book. There are tons of charities, and almost every one overlaps with several others. There were 8 charities I found in the book that dealt with "helper monkeys" alone! Each one has to provide the operating expenses, and when I started doing the math I found out that if you combined all of their staffs and donated a dollar to this new helper monkey conglomerate you would only have a nickel going to train an actual monkey. If government is so horrible and privatization so great, why does private charity work in such a wasteful way too? Naming rights.
ReplyDeleteAlmost every charity has someone's name attached to it, or has some tangential connection to a name or history of a person who is dead or has only lived for this purpose. The same is true of these government programs. It's not enough that your Senator increases funding for an existing teacher program so they can now help out this segment of the population that was previously not helped, that Senator wants an all new program with their name so they can show their district what they've done in very easy to understand terms. It's easier to sell a concrete "this didn't exist until I did it" idea rather than a "Well, it used to be that you had this, which was started by this other guy, but I'm the Senator that made it great!" If Americans would pull their heads out of their asses and actually watch what government does instead of being incited by sloganeering then it wouldn't be as much of a problem in the duplication aspect.
another great post, keep em coming.
ReplyDeleteThere's so much inefficiency in government it's unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the creation of a bureaucracy to supposedly govern so many people is that they will always be horribly wasteful and inefficient. Just look at the hideously expensive and 100% ineffective war on drugs. Not an effective use of tax dollars.
ReplyDeleteevery goverment has this kind of stuff.
ReplyDeletehere the big chief of police went to a trip to Dubai costing the tax payer 90 000 euro.
The redundancy is ridiculous. We need a good spring cleaning to consolidate those programs.
ReplyDeletehaha love the amount irony in this article. so true
ReplyDeleteWho would have thought...
ReplyDeleteGovernments have never been about efficiency but this is ridiculous
ReplyDeleteShit gets created to give people jobs at some point i'm sure. just to fill a need...then they just get pointless
ReplyDelete62.5 billion? O.o
ReplyDeleteMakes me wonder what will happen once the oil runs out haha
ReplyDeletebreaking news? we've known this. Great post
ReplyDelete@ P Dubble - that's exactly it!
ReplyDelete