RPC Must Read March 1, 2011

Duplication in Washington

Previously, the Republican Policy Committee highlighted how federal outlays – money that’s gone out the door – have risen from $2.655 trillion in 2006 to an estimated $3.73 trillion in 2012 (figures from the President’s FY12 budget). Today, a report by the GAO outlines a number of examples of duplication.

Dept. of Overlap: GAO Finds Hundreds of Duplicative Programs

Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2011

By Damian Paletta

Congress’s investigative arm identified hundreds of potentially duplicative federal programs in a report to be released Tuesday.

Here are some of the highlights from that Government Accountability Office report:

1. Food safety: 15 agencies are involved in implementing numerous federal laws.

2. Defense: Numerous redundancies in the purchasing of tactical wheeled vehicles, procurement, and medical costs.

3. Economic development: 80 different programs spread across numerous agencies, often with similar goals.

4. Surface transportation: More than 100 programs run by five divisions within the Department of Transportation deal with surface transportation.

5. Energy: Eliminating duplicative federal efforts to increase ethanol production could save $5.7 billion each year.

6. Government information technology: 24 federal agencies deal with information technology.

7. Health: The Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs could work together – instead of separately – to modernize their electronic health records systems.

8. Homelessness: More than 20 federal programs deal with homelessness.

9. Transportation Security Administration: Assessments of commercial trucking overlap with another federal agency.

10. Teachers: 82 programs that deal with teacher quality, spread across multiple agencies.

11. Financial literacy: 56 programs dealing with financial literacy.

12. Job training: 44 employment and training programs.

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