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GAO Details Billions in Federal Waste --- Report Obtained by Fox
FOXNEWS.com ^ | February 28, 2011 | by Trish Turner

Posted on 02/28/2011 7:47:44 PM PST by Son House

...Even more scathing is the duplication investigators found in the nation's biodefense efforts, with the report essentially saying that the billions of dollars spent annually is the responsibility of no one individual and that there is no plan for post-attack coordination, this on the heels of a 2010 federal commission finding that gave the U.S. a "failing grade" in its prevention measures.

...The report touches agencies and programs across the federal government, from the Transportation Security Agency to homeless programs and domestic food assistance, and what emerges is a kind of bureaucratic morass where sometimes enough is not even known about federal programs to provide an accurate evaluation.

An analysis of 18 different programs across three federal agencies that deal with domestic food assistance found that though multiple programs can ensure the needy have access to food, "administrative costs increase significantly," with GAO estimating a $62.5 billion expense to the government from overlap and duplication. Better coordination of hazardous material assessments between TSA and the Department of Transportation could save the government more than $1 million.

"Congress is often to blame," the report reads in bold type for emphasis, as the report details $2.9 billion in overlap in 20 homeless programs spread throughout seven different agencies. "Fragmentation and overlap in some of these programs may be due in part to their legislative creation as separate programs under the jurisdiction of several agencies," the report finds.

"Little is known about the effectiveness of most (federal job training and employment) programs," GAO says, resulting in a possible $18 billion in savings. The report says there are 47 programs offered currently, but 44 of those "overlap with at least one other program."

(Excerpt) Read more at politics.blogs.foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: federal; gao; report; waste
Like they couldn't have averted some accounting errors when they were writing the bills...
1 posted on 02/28/2011 7:47:49 PM PST by Son House
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To: Son House

Incompetence on a level rarely known to history.


2 posted on 02/28/2011 7:50:52 PM PST by Psycho_Bunny (Public employee unions are the barbarian hordes of our time.)
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To: Son House

Go back to 2008 spending levels, then cut 25% off the top & across the board (if not more).


3 posted on 02/28/2011 7:57:42 PM PST by DTogo (High time to bring back the Sons of Liberty !!)
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To: Son House

But we can’t fire the 3rd sub assistant to the 2nd secretary to the associate director of the office of pigeon excretion eradication! The world would come to and end if we did!


4 posted on 02/28/2011 8:03:41 PM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Islam is the religion of Satan and Mohammed was his minion.)
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To: DTogo

Every discretionary program could be cut in half and it still wouldn’t balance the budget against the entitlements.

Without reform to entitlements there is no hope of balancing the budget let alone whittling away at the national debt.

You could eliminate the military spending almost THREE TIMES and just equal the deficit.

We don’t have THREE military budgets to cut.


5 posted on 02/28/2011 8:04:39 PM PST by Sequoyah101 (Half the people are below average.)
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To: Sequoyah101

and you haven’t even added in the interest on the debt.


6 posted on 02/28/2011 8:08:56 PM PST by Son House (Finally, people lie because they feel if they tell the truth they wonÂ’t get what they want.)
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To: Sequoyah101

Without reform to entitlements there is no hope of balancing the budget

________________

Quoted for truth. Now if we could just get the rest of America to understand the truth we might salvage the future. Without addressing entitlements all of this bickering in D.C. is just worthless noise.

It’s almost hopeless watching our politicians talk about cutting the budget. They rarely mention entitlements.


7 posted on 02/28/2011 10:07:34 PM PST by volunbeer
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To: Sequoyah101; Son House
As long as it is widely known and believed that the federal government wastes billions of dollars no one is going to agree to reductions in Social Security benefits that seem to have been paid for. The bureau provides a yearly statement showing contributions and expected payout as if it were an account with your name on it. In fact, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are all pay-as-you-go. Nevertheless, most people believe they have earned Social Security payments and will not want to reduce them when they know the agencies waste money by the billions.
8 posted on 03/01/2011 4:03:01 AM PST by sefarkas (Why vote Democrat Lite?)
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To: Son House

And yet if we get rid of all this “waste”, we’d still have a trillion dollar deficit. Waste will always be there with a large government. Trying to get rid of it is tilting at windmills. The answer is to shrink government—get rid of it. Get rid of programs; get rid of bureacracies that manage them. That is the answer. Focusing on “waste” is going down the wrong road.


9 posted on 03/01/2011 5:41:44 AM PST by Opinionated Blowhard ("The time will come when Winter will ask you what you were doing all Summer" -- Henry Clay)
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To: Son House

The entire Federal Budget is a waste of money.


10 posted on 03/01/2011 5:56:36 AM PST by Roninf5-1 (If ignorance is bliss why are so many Americans on anti-depressants?)
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To: Son House
I'm not clear. Does the cost of all these duplicated programs include the salary, pension and bennies costs of all the employees as well?
11 posted on 03/01/2011 6:03:23 AM PST by mewzilla (Hey, Schumer, your Lockerbie report left quite a bit out.)
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To: Son House

They could have averted accounting errors if government was 10% of it’s current size.


12 posted on 03/01/2011 6:07:49 AM PST by listenhillary (Social Justice is the epitome of injustice.)
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To: sefarkas

Sadly, you are probably correct. Much easier to believe a lie than otherwise isn’t it?

I’m very close to retirement. I know better than to think my nearly 4 decades of maximum “contributions” is there “waiting” for me. At 6% earnings it would be about a $million. You know it isn’t worth spit right now.

Wasted.


13 posted on 03/01/2011 6:16:51 AM PST by Sequoyah101 (Half the people are below average.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

Post of the Day!


14 posted on 03/01/2011 8:41:41 AM PST by rhubarbk
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To: mewzilla

If that IS the case, my head just exploded.


15 posted on 03/01/2011 8:43:23 AM PST by rhubarbk
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