“Streamlining Government To Reduce Waste And Save Money”
If you were spending beyond your means and piling up ruinous debt, you would be forced to take a hard look at your expenses and eliminate all those things you really don’t need, want or use.
The federal government is spending far beyond its means, running a $1.08 trillion deficit this year and accumulating a debt of $15.3 trillion. Yet, American tax dollars continue to pay for government agencies and programs that are redundant, overlapping, and inefficient.
There has never been any doubt that wasteful duplication is a serious problem in the federal government. But the second annual report on redundancy by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) would be laughable if it did not involve taxpayer dollars in a time of economic hardship.
GAO reveals 51 new areas of overlap. At a time when every citizen’s share of the national debt tops $49,600, there simply can be no excuse for such waste. Further, given that only five percent of GAO’s 81 recommendations last year were fully implemented, it is clear that there is far more work to do in ridding the government of wasteful duplication.
This duplication and overlap serve neither the taxpayers nor the beneficiaries well. For example, America’s small businesses face a maze of 53 programs across four agencies that purport to help those enterprises grow.
If an entrepreneur wants to ship his product by truck, the shipper must deal with 55 programs in five agencies that have a hand in surface freight transportation.
Does the truck use diesel fuel? The government has 14 grant and loan programs dealing with diesel emissions.
The report offers many other examples. The feds have more than 90 initiatives to foster green building in the private sector and other energy efficient initiatives. How can such an inefficient labyrinth of programs help anyone be efficient at anything?
GAO found that across government, agencies are not coordinating when making information technology investments or managing those investments. These systems could be used by multiple agencies, affording the government economies of scale, but we don’t know.
There are many causes of duplication. At times, a President, seeking to put his own imprint on the budget to demonstrate his priorities, proposes a new program, despite the fact that similar ones already exist. In other cases, it is Congress that creates the silo of a new initiative without checking to see if a similar silo already exists. Committee jurisdictions contribute to the problem as each committee carves out its own programs to respond to its constituency.
There are no bad intentions at work here. Just the opposite - it is the proliferation of good intentions – the desire to solve problems – that has created this problem. But, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, the road to fiscal ruin could be paved with good intentions.
The web of duplication can be frustrating for citizens, and it is hardly trivial in a financial sense. One redundant federal effort to promote ethanol production, for example, cost almost $6 billion every year. Not only is that unacceptable when we have a $15 trillion debt, but it deprives other competing priorities of scarce resources. I know the people of Maine would rather have this money used to reduce the deficit or to find the next life-saving vaccine or to support our brave and dedicated troops rather than to subsidize ethanol.
Eliminating duplication and inefficiencies in government alone will not balance the budget and pay off the debt, but it is a necessary and overdue step toward fiscal responsibility. It will compel agencies to focus on their core missions and make programs easier to access for citizens. Most important, it will help restore the trust of the American people in their government.
