Billions In Bloat Uncovered In Beltway
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Billions In Bloat Uncovered In Beltway
By DAMIAN PALETTA, Wall Street Journal
The U.S. government has 15 different agencies overseeing
food-safety laws, more than 20 separate programs to help the
homeless and 80 programs for economic development.
These are a few of the findings in a massive study of
overlapping and duplicative programs that cost taxpayers billions
of dollars each year, according to the Government Accountability
Office.
A report
from the nonpartisan GAO, to be released Tuesday, compiles a
list of redundant and potentially ineffective federal programs,
and it could serve as a template for lawmakers in both parties as
they move to cut federal spending and consolidate programs to
reduce the deficit.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.), who pushed for the report,
estimated it identifies between $100 billion and $200 billion in
duplicative spending. The GAO didn't put a specific figure on the
spending overlap.
The GAO examined numerous federal agencies, including the
departments of defense, agriculture and housing and urban
development, and pointed to instances where different arms of the
government should be coordinating or consolidating efforts to save
taxpayers' money.
The agency found 82 federal programs to improve teacher quality;
80 to help disadvantaged people with transportation; 47 for job
training and employment; and 56 to help people understand finances,
according to a draft of the report reviewed by The Wall Street
Journal.
Instances of ineffective and unfocused federal programs can lead
to a mishmash of occasionally arbitrary policies and rules, the
report said. It recommends merging or consolidating a number of
programs to both save money and make the government more efficient.
"Reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation
could potentially save billions of tax dollars annually and help
agencies provide more efficient and effective services," the report
said.
There have been multiple efforts to cull the number of federal
programs in recent years, but they often run into opposition from
lawmakers who rush to defend individual spending provisions. GAO's
recommendations are often ignored or postponed by agencies and
lawmakers, particularly when they could require difficult political
votes.
The report says policy makers should consider creating a single
food-safety agency because of redundancies. The Food and Drug
Administration makes sure 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."
Spokespeople for the Department of Agriculture and FDA pointed
to the Obama administration's creation of the Food Safety Working
Group, which works to better coordinate the government's
regulators.
The report says there are 18 federal programs that spent a
combined $62.5 billion in 2008 on food and nutrition assistance,
but little is known about the effectiveness of 11 of these programs
because they haven't been well studied.
The report took particular aim at government funding for surface
transportation, including the building of roads and other projects,
which the administration has made a major part of its push to
update the country's infrastructure. The report said five divisions
within the Department of Transportation account for 100 different
programs that fund things like highways, rail projects and safety
programs.
Similarly, it chided the government over encouraging federal
agencies to purchase plug-in hybrid vehicles while having policies
that agencies reduce electricity consumption.
A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation said the
president's budget for fiscal year 2012 "proposes to cut waste,
inefficiency and bureaucracy by consolidating over 55 separate
highway programs into five core programs, and by merging six
transit programs into two programs."
On teacher quality, the report identified 82 programs that often
have similar descriptions and goals and are spread across 10
federal agencies, including the Department of Education, the
Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration. Fifty-three of the programs are relatively small,
receiving $50 million or less, "and many have their own separate
administrative processes."
The GAO highlighted 80 different economic development programs
at the Department of Commerce, HUD, Department of Agriculture and
Small Business Administration, that spent a combined $6.5 billion
last year and often overlapped. For example, the four agencies
combined to have 52 different programs that fund "entrepreneurial
efforts," 35 programs for infrastructure, and 26 programs for
telecommunications.
The report took aim at several military programs, which could
prove thorny because many lawmakers from both parties are wary to
cut defense spending.
For example, it said the government "may have developed
duplicate" programs to counter improvised explosive devices, with
the Marine Corps and the Army paying to develop similar "mine
rollers." The Marine mine roller costs $85,000, and the Army mine
roller costs $77,000 to $225,000. "Officials disagree about which
system is most effective, and [the Pentagon] has not conducted
comparative testing and evaluation of the two systems," the report
said. The Pentagon didn't immediately respond to a request for
comment.