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A Tribute to Senator E. William Proxmire In the 1970's, Wisconsin Senator E. William Proxmire launched the "Golden Fleece Award," which highlighted some of the most outrageous examples of wasteful spending by the Federal Government. His efforts provided an immense service to taxpayers simply by identifying government waste, fraud, and abuse. Because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, House Budget Committee Republicans have launched "The Budget Boondoggle Award" in honor of the late Senator Proxmire. Launching of the Boondoggle Award: Click Here Throughout the coming year, the Members will continue to expose the worst examples of waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayers' dollars. If you have any examples of government waste, please email us your suggestions...
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| LATEST NEWS ON WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE |
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The Victims of Cash for Clunkers' 'Success' September 22, 2010 With the end of the failed “recovery summer” – and the President proposing yet another $50-billion “stimulus” – it is worth reviewing one administration economic program touted as a “success.” But even the celebrated “Cash for Clunkers” has been an expensive and bumpy ride for many American consumers, just as critics warned. With a sticker price of $3 billion, “Cash for Clunkers” has earned the latest Budget Boondoggle Award. The program – formally the Car Allowance Rebate System – paid consumers $4,500 each for trading an old auto for a new one with better gas mileage. The trade-ins were then destroyed. The government quickly fell behind on reimbursing auto dealerships. “We’re now slightly victims of success,” the President declared, “ . . . there was so much more demand than anybody expected, that dealers were overwhelmed with applications.” It was indeed successful, notes columnist Jeff Jacoby of The Boston Globe, “if you define success as getting people to take ‘free’ money to make a purchase most of them are going to make anyway, while simultaneously wiping out productive assets that could provide value to many other consumers for years to come.” In the process, a lot of Americans became victims of the administration’s attempt at market control. |
Imposing One-Size-Fits-All ‘Utopia’ on Local Communities June 16, 2010 With the Federal Government already facing $1.5-trillion deficits, $13 trillion in debt, and a workforce swollen by 15 percent, the administration’s proposed new $20-million “Office of Livable Communities” is yet another way to squander taxpayer funds – and it wins the latest Budget Boondoggle Award. Here are the details: - The administration has proposed a $527-million increase for its euphemistically named “livable communities” initiative. As benign as “livability” may sound, however, the program’s aim is to impose a Washington-based, central planning model on localities across the country. It does so by creating a new bureaucracy in the Department of Transportation, and by linking Federal transportation funds with local land use decisions to draw suburbanites into the cities, where they will stop driving their own personal cars and instead rely on taxpayer-subsidized public transportation. - When asked to define the vague term “livability,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said it “means being able to take your kids to school, go to work, see a doctor, drop by the grocery or post office, go out to dinner and a movie and play with your kids in a park, all without having to get into your car.” All of which sounds fine – except it’s not Washington’s business to dictate how local communities pursue these goals. - Local land use and zoning has always been the responsibility of local and State governments – to coordinate transportation and zoning projects, maximizing economic growth and serving community needs. But the administration’s “livable communities” initiative ignores this jurisdictional boundary by leveraging grant money to gain heavy influence over local planning decisions. - The initiative also would further burden communities’ already challenging planning and zoning efforts by adding a bureaucratic layer of three Federal agencies – the Department of Transportation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency – to coordinate the grants. - Cities and local communities clearly face major challenges with growth, congestion, and a broad range of other quality-of-life concerns. The “Office of Livable Communities” reflects Washington’s lack of trust in localities’ ability to solve their own problems; and instead it imposes an urban-utopian fantasy through an unprecedented intrusion of the Federal Government into the shaping of local communities. No one works harder than individual Americans, their families, their neighbors, and their local officials to produce livable communities. They have been doing it for hundreds of years, and they do not need the Federal Government, which fails to manage its own property, or the Department of Transportation, which paid $190 million more than it needed to for the building where this new office will be situated, to tell them how to do it. If a community decides to pursue a “livability” model, it should be free to do so. But Washington should not spend money it does not have to lord over local communities, taking their transportation tax dollars and letting them be spent only as unelected Federal bureaucrats see fit. Everyone knows how this story ends. To learn more: http://house.gov/budget_republicans/06162010boondoggledot.pdf |
Fighting Fire with... Festivals? September 22, 2009 With the unemployment rate swelling to 9.7 percent last month, Americans can be forgiven if they are unsure what job creation has come from the $787-billion deficit-financed “stimulus” bill. Likewise about their confusion over what the money is being spent for. Washington DC was the recent recipient of $2.8 million in stimulus funds from the United States Forest Service, ostensibly for “wildland fire mitigation.” The District, however, contains no national forests and has not had a wildland-scale fire since 1814, when British forces burned down U.S. government buildings, including the White House and the U.S. Capitol. So what exactly is the fire-fighting money for? As it turns out, most of it – $2.7 million – will go to Washington Parks and People, a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing and restoring public parks. Among its accomplishments, Washington Parks and People has:
Interestingly, it appears the good people at Washington Parks and People were as surprised as anyone to be getting the grant. “[W]e do not know anything beyond the information we saw on the Web site,” they reported. With an explosion of spending and debt in Washington DC, and wildfires still smoldering on the West coast, it may not have been the best use of taxpayer dollars, but it is a perfect candidate for the latest Budget Boondoggle Award. For more information, please visit:
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Cash for Clinkers September 8, 2009 Despite the heated rhetoric about the job-creating magic of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, it is clear the “stimulus” bill has failed to meet its promised goal of holding unemployment to 8 percent. Nevertheless, the bill continues to surpass predictions of
With Federal agencies directed to spend billions in “stimulus” money as fast as they can, it is not |
The Show Must Go on? July 30 , 2009 With unemployment at 9.5 percent and expected to continue rising through the end of the year, it
While the arts are an important and valuable part of American culture, it is clearly wasteful for a
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Costly Counting: The 2010 Census May 12 , 2009 In its zeal to go “high tech,” the usually redoubtable Census Bureau has already assured the 2010 head count of U.S. residents will be the most expensive in history, even after adjusting for inflation. At a projected $14.5 billion, next year’s census will cost more than twice the expenditure for the 2000 enumeration – mainly because agency officials contracted for a half-million hand-held computers, and then mismanaged production of the devices. The result is $3.6 billion in wasted taxpayers’ funds – and the latest Budget Boondoggle Award.Here is how events unfolded:
After repeating the same constitutionally required task every decade since 1790, the Federal Government should by now have a handle on how to take a census, from which congressional districts are established, and billions of dollars in State, local, and research funds are allocated. But by trying to “modernize” procedures, the Census Bureau has actually regressed. The results raise doubts about the government’s ability to run, say, auto companies, financial institutions, or U.S. health care |
Multi-Millionaire Farmers Reap What the Taxpayer Sows December 11, 2008 More than 2,700 farmers with incomes exceeding $2.5 million a year have received farm subsidy payments from the Federal Government, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office [GAO]. It is another example of wasteful government spending – a kind of Among the highlights of the GAO report:
Thus, while “wealthy” people earning $250,000 a year may worry about a forthcoming tax hike, they can make up for it by taking up farming. That way they can legally collect taxpayer-funded subsidies while earning up to $2.5 million a year – and even more if the USDA fails to fix this persistent boondoggle. |
Throwing Good Money After Chads November 20, 2008 Having spent billions of Federal dollars to “modernize” elections, State and local officials are finding much of that spending is actually creating the very problems it was intended to solve. Mechanical troubles, fraud, and voter confusion again this year plagued the taxpayer-funded electronic voting machines installed to replace the traditional manual systems. Now many States are planning to scrap the new equipment – which the Federal Government strongly encouraged them to buy – wasting those billions of taxpayers’ dollars. Here’s how it
This sad tale serves as a stark reminder of what can happen when the Federal Government throws money at a problem and imposes a “one-size-fits-all solution” on the States without fully considering the implications of its plan. If a democratic government can’t figure out how to run an election, one of its basic functions, how can it be expected to address many of the much more complicated issues facing the country? This colossal waste of Federal dollars to “Help America Vote” has earned the latest Budget Boondoggle Award. |
Subsidies for Manhattan 'Farmers' April 2 , 2008
The lastest winner of the Budget Boondoggle Award is U.S. farm policy - for handing out subsidies to hundreds of wealthy New York residents. In 2005 - the most recent year for which complete data is available - more than 300 well-heeled "farmers" on the distinctly rural island of Manhattan received subsidies from the Department of Agriculture, which notes this largesse on its website. Among the recipients were: at least two billionaires; a former CEO of Seagrams; and numberous Wall Street power brokers. Other Examples: a member of the prestigious Rockefeller family has received $228,000 in subsidies in the past 5 years; and a New York venture capitalist received nearly $75,000 in 2005. Subsidies included counter-cyclical payments, conservation payments, loan deficiency payments, and direct payments - which are principally intended to help farmers who need help. But because the payments are poorly targeted, they also find their way to the wealthy urban dwellers - earning this Budget Boondoggle Award. With an embarrassingly long list of qualified Boondoggle candidates, it was impossible to settle on a single "winner." Instead, a tie was awarded, along with an honorable mention. |
Announcing the 2007 Budget Boondoggle Award 'Winners' January 31 , 2008
Despite claims to the contrary, earmarks continued to proliferate last year, with more than 11,000 littered throughout the federal spending bills - many of which were snuck in at the last minute, dodging any kind of congressional scrutiny. These include earmarks for ferryboats, bike trails, sidewalks, museum exhibits, and countless other projects the federal government has no business funding. With an embarrassingly long list of qualified Boondoggle candidates, it was impossible to settle on a single "winner." Instead, a tie was awarded, along with an honorable mention. Winner #1: The "Ferry to Nowhere" |
Update on efforts to fight waste at the CDC November 6 , 2007
Although the Conference Report on the Labor-HHS-Education/Military Construction Appropriation bill spends $13.8 billion more than requested by the President, it includes commonsense language to help cut down on waste at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The provisions, which are based on an amendment passed by Ranking Member Ryan during House consideration of the Labor - HHS Education bill, would prevent the CDC from wasting money on mood lights, zero-gravity chairs or saunas for its employees instead of fulfilling its core mission to fight cancer and other life-threatening diseases. In addition, these provisions would discontinue the CDC's underused and overpriced Ombudsman program. These abuses were some of many highlighted by Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma earlier this year, and were also included in an amendment that Senator Coburn passed during Senate consideration of this bill. Unfortunately, the bill did not include a third provision included in the House bill that would have eliminated the CDC's $17 million Hollywood Liaison program. For more information on Rep. Ryan's efforts to fight waste at the CDC, click here: |
reverse-Robin-Hood transfer payment – earning the latest Budget Boondoggle Award.
happened: 
Launching the Boondoggle Award October 16, 2007 It is already two weeks into the new fiscal year and the Democratic Majority has failed to send the President even ONE regular appropriations bill. We are headed for a fiscal train wreck. The Democratic Majority claims that they cannot do with a penny less than the $21 billion dollars in additional spending that they are asking for over the increases proposed by the President. In fact, Speaker Pelosi has claimed that the Democrats' have already made a concerted effort to eliminate wasteful spending - before resorting to raising taxes. We think there is a little left to do. Today the House Budget Committee Republicans have initiated an effort to highlight some of the worst examples of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government with the creation of the "Budget Boondoggle Award." The first round of nominees includes an example of wasteful spending in each of the appropriation bills. This includes examples of duplicative and ineffective programs, examples of a lack of oversight, and examples of egregious earmarks. By pointing out all of this waste, we are not implying the Republicans were completely innocent of this type of behavior when we were in the Majority. Far too often, we failed to do enough to cut down on wasteful spending. But the time for excuses is over. Both Democrats and Republicans should engage in a concerted effort to fight waste, fraud, and abuse. Instead of claiming that it is impossible to get by with one dollar less than the full increase in spending the Majority is demanding, it would be much more constructive for the parties to work together to make sure that the people's money in not being squandered, but is instead being spent on our nations highest priorities. Document: - The Budget Boondoggle Award Graphs and Charts : - The Budget Boondoggle Award Document
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