Posted on 02/11/2011 12:08:04 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars have been wasted on everything from doughnuts to rockets, auditors told Congress Thursday as budget-minded lawmakers prepared to slash science funding.
For example, hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent each month on a NASA program to return Americans to the moon, even though the US space agency, Congress and President Barack Obama have agreed not to proceed with it.
Old, rundown buildings are draining 300 million dollars a year from NASA in repair costs alone, and at least one space telescope project has run billions over budget, more than four times initial estimates.
The National Science Foundation, a 6.9 billion dollar federal agency that disperses grants to researchers, also came under the microscope as the House of Representatives held hearings on how to get rid of waste and fraud.
NSF is spending 500,000 dollars per year on refreshments at meetings, even though attendees are already compensated for food and other expenses, Inspector General Allison Lerner said.
Other problems include the way the agency spends half of its budget for contracts, or 204 million dollars, on pay-in-advance schemes in which contractors get paid ahead of time whether the work is finished or not.
"The risk of fraud, waste and abuse by NSF contractors will continue to be high until NSF implements fully adequate cost surveillance procedures," she told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice and Commerce.
A recent audit of large construction projects undertaken by NSF revealed more than 169 million dollars in "unallowable contingency costs," because "no barriers existed to prevent the funds from being drawn down in advance," she said.
"I am beginning to think it is a very sloppy operation out there," said Congressman Frank Wolf, the Republican chair of the subcommittee.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
There are far far worse ways to spend tax money.
If MY money is going to buy Hansen’s doughnuts, that’s a WASTE. :p
LOL.
Old, rundown buildings are draining 300 million dollars a year from NASA in repair costs alone, and at least one space telescope project has run billions over budget, more than four times initial estimates.
There is a correlation between investment in R&D and improvements in technology. I would be very careful in further eroding the capabilities of NASA. The Hubble Telescope is costly but it has advanced our knowledge of the universe a hundredfold.
We should be investing 10% of GDP in R&D, but we are at less than one quarter of 1%. Be careful lest you wipe out any hope for the next generations of Americans; we already have enslaved our grandchildren with debt.
Better to get rid of UN, HUD, EPA, NPR, and many, many other useless, unproductive programs, than to wipe out our future by further degrading investment in R&D.
Oh, naturally. Lets hack up NASA and turn whats left of it into Muslim outreach and elementary school propaganda, and lets keep intact the enormous runup in the rest of the budget which is just lathered in pork and BS, like Dept of Commerce, Education, Agriculture, HUD, and so on.
Low hanging fruit where you dont have to fight the huge collection of welfare and unionized dependents... Oh, and note that it was Obambi who slashed off a trip to the moon, not Congress. Thanks for the propaganda missive, Yahoo.
Look at the technological advances that have come out of the space program.
And yet the Hubble Space Telescope has been out there doing the job it was designed for, since 1990.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.