More than $98 billion wasted by the government

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elprincipe

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091118/ap_on_bi_ge/us_government_waste

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., who chairs a Senate panel on federal financial management, said he worried that the latest numbers "may still be just the tip of the iceberg" since they don't include estimates for several programs such as the Medicare prescription drug plan.
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I know "just" $100+ billion (it surely is if we take into account programs not included in the study as mentioned in the article) doesn't seem to be that much, but try this on for size:

How to spend $75 billion over four years
When the budgetary constraints of the Copenhagen Consensus framework are applied to the
expert panel’s prioritized list, money can be allocated to thirteen of the solutions. The yearly
budget is $18.75 billion (4 years x $18.75b = $75 b), and provides for a broad range of investments.
Solution
Yearly cost in
million USD
1 Micronutrient supplements for children (vitamin A and zinc) 60
2 The Doha development agenda 0
3 Micronutrient fortification (iron and salt iodization) 286
4 Expanded immunization coverage for children 1,000
5 Biofortification 60
6 Deworming and other nutrition programs at school 27
7 Lowering the price of schooling 5,400
8 Increase and improve girls’ schooling 6,000
9 Community‐based nutrition promotion 798
10 Provide support for women’s reproductive role 4,000
11 Heart attack acute management 200
12 Malaria prevention and treatment 500
13 Tuberculosis case finding and treatment 419
Total 18,750
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http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Home.aspx

Or we could reduce our massive deficit, probably even a better idea. Anyone want to argue that government should be bigger and spend more when this is the result?
 
In all, about 5 percent of spending in federal programs in fiscal year 2009 was improper, according to new details of a government financial report that were released Tuesday.
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In college I worked for Kinkos, our store had the least loss percentage of any store in the chain, about 10% monthly due to mistakes, re-dos, theft, etc. I transfered to another location just after graduation while I hunted for a job and they had a loss of over 40%, mostly in mistakes.

5% mistakes, or waste, or mismanagement is great. You'd never get them to own up to it, but I wonder what American Express, or AT&T or GM's loss %'s are? I'd bet a dollar they are several times higher then 5%.

There's one glaring mismanagement mistake they should have accounted for under the Bush administration: IRAQ.

Imagine what we could have done if we never poured a trillion dollars and the blood of 200k people poured into the sands of Iraq (and into the pockets of the Veep's former corporation).

What do you think we could have done with a trillion dollars? Here's a few suggestions:

Gone to Mars (X5)
Paid off every homeowners mortgage in America
Created 10,000 of the best schools in the world, each with their own space program
Coke and whores for everyone!
Covered that $98 billion (x10)
give everyone on earth six bucks
Rebuilt New Orleans (out of gold)
 
You'll never get a conservative to admit that this government loses money at about the same clip than any other government we've ever had. Reagan's administration never mismanaged a dime and you'll be waterboarded if you say (or think) otherwise.

Oh, and conservatives hate illegals because they take jobs and Faux News is a the right wings nutsack.
 
More than $98 billion in taxpayer dollars spent by government agencies was wasted, much of it on questionable claims for tax credits and Medicare benefits, representing an increase of $26 billion from the previous year.
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Tax cheats and medicare fraudsters. More regulators out there on the street = problem solved.
 
[quote name='Cheese']In college I worked for Kinkos, our store had the least loss percentage of any store in the chain, about 10% monthly due to mistakes, re-dos, theft, etc. I transfered to another location just after graduation while I hunted for a job and they had a loss of over 40%, mostly in mistakes.

5% mistakes, or waste, or mismanagement is great. You'd never get them to own up to it, but I wonder what American Express, or AT&T or GM's loss %'s are? I'd bet a dollar they are several times higher then 5%.
[/QUOTE]

You're comparing the U.S. government to Kinko's... The fuck?
 
[quote name='DarkSageRK']You're comparing the U.S. government to Kinko's... The fuck?[/QUOTE]

It is an apt comparison. Both get their money through printing.
 
[quote name='perdition(troy']It's bush's fault.[/QUOTE]
Well if the problem is a lack of federal enforcement and the executive leadership for 8 of the last 9 years was as solidly against federal enforcement as possible, doesn't it stand to reason that it's a significant contributing factor?

I wholly support the hiring of tax professionals that have significant experience to track down tax cheats and to do the same for whatever the Medicare equivalent of enforcement is. It seems like they'd easily pay for themselves, no?
 
[quote name='DarkSageRK']You're comparing the U.S. government to Kinko's... The fuck?[/QUOTE]

I'm comparing a national company with thousands of employees to the gov't. I'm not saying it's a completely perfect comparison. I'm saying that the government is made up of human beings and human beings fuck up a lot, fucking up only 5% of the time is pretty reasonable by comparison.

No organization will ever be perfect, thinking that it will is objectivist retardation (a clinical condition). That said, a 95% efficiency rating is well above normal, according to my experience. Look around your place of business, are they running at 95%?
 
[quote name='DarkSageRK']You're comparing the U.S. government to Kinko's... The fuck?[/QUOTE]

Because people like to say that the government can't do anything right, that things like healthcare should be left to private corporations etc.

And that was an apt comparison that even private business have waste, there's no 100% efficient organization out there--government or private.

The best any can do is do the best they can to minimize waste.
 
[quote name='Cheese']In college I worked for Kinkos, our store had the least loss percentage of any store in the chain, about 10% monthly due to mistakes, re-dos, theft, etc. I transfered to another location just after graduation while I hunted for a job and they had a loss of over 40%, mostly in mistakes.

5% mistakes, or waste, or mismanagement is great. You'd never get them to own up to it, but I wonder what American Express, or AT&T or GM's loss %'s are? I'd bet a dollar they are several times higher then 5%.

There's one glaring mismanagement mistake they should have accounted for under the Bush administration: IRAQ.

Imagine what we could have done if we never poured a trillion dollars and the blood of 200k people poured into the sands of Iraq (and into the pockets of the Veep's former corporation).

What do you think we could have done with a trillion dollars? Here's a few suggestions:

Gone to Mars (X5)
Paid off every homeowners mortgage in America
Created 10,000 of the best schools in the world, each with their own space program
Coke and whores for everyone!
Covered that $98 billion (x10)
give everyone on earth six bucks
Rebuilt New Orleans (out of gold)[/QUOTE]

We have definitely missed you around here. You are far more coherent and fun to converse with than many posters on this forum.

Anyway, I would first note that this is only "improper payments" and doesn't include other massive sources of waste and abuse such as earmarks and legalized looting (a.k.a. "TARP" and "stimulus"). It certainly will come as no surprise that I disagree this is a good record.

While I think your 200,000 number is inflated, I do agree that we spent far too much treasure (blood is far worse, but for such a large-scale war let's face it, combat deaths weren't that many...I'm sure someone will blast me for saying that, even if 10 times as many Americans die in car accidents every year than have died in Iraq) in Iraq. It's crippled our country fiscally, and the benefits at this point (removal of Saddam Hussein from power, fledgling democracy in the country) are relatively small compared to the cost. Let's hope benefits increase (i.e. democracy spreads to Iran and Syria, although I don't expect it).

BTW, you could certainly not pay off all mortgages with $1 trillion. If only.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Because people like to say that the government can't do anything right, that things like healthcare should be left to private corporations etc.

And that was an apt comparison that even private business have waste, there's no 100% efficient organization out there--government or private.

The best any can do is do the best they can to minimize waste.[/QUOTE]

"Nobody's perfect". That's still not an argument to turn anything over to Government.
 
[quote name='Cheese']In college I worked for Kinkos, our store had the least loss percentage of any store in the chain, about 10% monthly due to mistakes, re-dos, theft, etc. I transfered to another location just after graduation while I hunted for a job and they had a loss of over 40%, mostly in mistakes.

5% mistakes, or waste, or mismanagement is great. You'd never get them to own up to it, but I wonder what American Express, or AT&T or GM's loss %'s are? I'd bet a dollar they are several times higher then 5%.

There's one glaring mismanagement mistake they should have accounted for under the Bush administration: IRAQ.

Imagine what we could have done if we never poured a trillion dollars and the blood of 200k people poured into the sands of Iraq (and into the pockets of the Veep's former corporation).

What do you think we could have done with a trillion dollars? Here's a few suggestions:

Gone to Mars (X5)
Paid off every homeowners mortgage in America
Created 10,000 of the best schools in the world, each with their own space program
Coke and whores for everyone!
Covered that $98 billion (x10)
give everyone on earth six bucks
Rebuilt New Orleans (out of gold)[/QUOTE]
So the whores get whores?
 
We'll import some whores for the whores.

Iraq war death estimates range from 30k (outlandish) to 1 million (equally outlandish), I think 200k is a reasonable compromise. I'd venture the actual number isn't too far off from that (of course if you add in deaths from depleted uranium shells from GW1, it's muuuch higher, but we'll leave them out for now). At least we can agree that including the post-invasion civil strife it's certainly six figures. While more Americans die in car deaths then in combat in Iraq, you're leaving out the Iraqis, is an Iraqi life worth less then an Americans?

The idea that Democracy would spread to Iran and Saudi Arabia from Iraq is what the whole war was about, that's the Neo-Con strategy. Sadly, the only reason the Iraqi gov't is still in power is because we're still bribing the nuttos not to blow them up. If we ever stop, look out! We don't have enough cash to bribe all the nuttos in Iran or Syria.
 
[quote name='Cheese']Iraq war death estimates range from 30k (outlandish) to 1 million (equally outlandish), I think 200k is a reasonable compromise. I'd venture the actual number isn't too far off from that (of course if you add in deaths from depleted uranium shells from GW1, it's muuuch higher, but we'll leave them out for now). At least we can agree that including the post-invasion civil strife it's certainly six figures. While more Americans die in car deaths then in combat in Iraq, you're leaving out the Iraqis, is an Iraqi life worth less then an Americans?[/quote]

I didn't say that. Two points though. (1) most people here focus on American deaths. (2) most Iraqii deaths came at the hands of other Iraqis, not Americans. Of course, you can make the argument that they wouldn't have happened without the invasion, although Saddam Hussein had millions killed himself.

The idea that Democracy would spread to Iran and Saudi Arabia from Iraq is what the whole war was about, that's the Neo-Con strategy. Sadly, the only reason the Iraqi gov't is still in power is because we're still bribing the nuttos not to blow them up. If we ever stop, look out! We don't have enough cash to bribe all the nuttos in Iran or Syria.
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We couldn't do it even if we had the money. But far more effective in deterring such an occurrence is what Syria and Iran were able to do in Iraq to the people there after the fall of Saddam.
 
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