Kevin Rogers
Assistant Opinion Editor
When a family faces a budget crisis, one of the first steps to financial stability is to slash non-essential spending. Families eat out less, they buy fewer luxuries and they look to maximize the benefits for each dollar spent.
Much like this hypothetical family, the United States government is suffering from its own budget crisis. It’s spending more than a trillion dollars a year, much of it borrowed. But instead of cutting the stuff it doesn’t need, it barrels forward with wasteful spending.
On Oct. 17, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) released his annual report on wasteful spending known as the “Wastebook.” Coburn detailed 100 wasteful spending projects that cost taxpayers more than $18 billion a year. The list contains a number of projects so ridiculous that one can barely believe they were legitimate expenses.
We should question why we’re losing an estimated $91 million in taxes by letting professional sports leagues keep non-profit status, despite making billions in yearly profits. Why are we spending $947,000 for NASA to develop a menu of foods that could be consumed on Mars, a planet we’re hardly close to reaching? Why do we lose $70 million to mint new pennies to sit in couch cushions or gather dust in jars?
The rest of the 202-page report, containing more than 1,000 citations, is rife with the funding of silly studies, frivolous projects, corporate aid and other waste.
The scariest part? The $18 billion in waste is coming from 100 projects. Beyond the “Wastebook,” we’re losing many more dollars to fraud, duplicative programs and plain stupidity.
Take the Pentagon’s drone program. The Government Accountability Office found that billions of dollars are being wasted because different branches of the military aren’t coordinating efforts on aerial drone development, according to an Aug. 17 Washington Guardian story. This wastes tax dollars to get two duplicate products. If defense hawks keep defending such high military budgets, they had best make sure the money isn’t being spent on worthless duplicates.
In another instance, as much as $90 million intended for a disabled veteran small business program may have been lost to fraudulent applicants, according to an Aug. 2 Washington Guardian story. Granting funds to support veterans is admirable and justified. But if we’re throwing that money away without verifying where it’s going, we might as well be burning it.
Despite the waste and fraud plaguing the government, some may argue these instances are but a drop in the bucket and not major drivers of debt. But when these little thousand-dollar projects, million-dollar projects and billion-dollar projects add up, it’s the taxpayers that front the bill.
There’s no doubt we’re facing a spending and debt crisis. Both sides talk up the need to cut from domestic or defense spending, and both are correct. But nothing is happening on either front because neither side is willing to cut pet projects or alienate donors.
It’s hard to say if that’s going to change, regardless of who’s sitting in Congress and the White House next year.
But if politicians are going to continuously ramble about reducing debt, they should have no problem starting with the easy stuff. After all, if you don’t have the fortitude to cut funding to build a robotic squirrel to study rattlesnake behavior you probably don’t have the courage to make more serious cuts.
They need to take steps to reduce fraud, tax loopholes and duplication. Such reforms could save quite a few tax dollars and make the government run more effectively.
And when it comes to funding these frivolous projects, they, like the hypothetical struggling family, need to ask themselves one question: “Do we really need this?”
If they’re responsible, the answer should be a resounding “No.”
