Unnecessary Spending in the US Governmentt - Research Paper Example

?Waste in government spending (school) Waste in government spending Government expenses are considered to be expenses which are necessary in running a nation. These expenses are mostly supported by the taxpayer’s money and by the profitable ventures and assets of the state. Government spending includes the salaries of government officials, allocations for development and social work projects, and expenses for a myriad other projects and activities necessary for governance. It is these myriad other projects, items, and activities of the government which often draw much query and criticism from the citizenry, interest groups, and government officials themselves. This paper shall specifically address the thesis: the United States government has a significant amount of unnecessary expenses which waste the taxpayers’ money. It shall discuss the fact that the US is spending unnecessarily for matters and items which can actually be discarded as government expenses. This paper is being carried out in order to establish an argumentative and logical conclusion to the thesis, setting forth a scholarly and detailed approach to the resolution of the issue raised. The US government has a significant amount of unnecessary expenses which waste the taxpayers’ money. President Barack Obama himself has acknowledged the fact that “0.004 of 1 percent of the federal budget as wasteful and proposed eliminating this $140 million from his $3.6 trillion fiscal year 2010 budget request” (Riedl, p. 1). Such waste in government spending is significantly impacting on the areas where actual and essential spending is needed and where deficiencies are impacting on the quality of government services. There are different kinds of waste seen in government spending, and many of them were specified and detailed by Senator Tom Coburn in his 2010 report entitled “Wastebook.” Some of these unnecessary expenses shall be discussed below. One of the wastes in government spending is the $175 million allocation on the upkeep and maintenance for Unused Monkey House and other buildings assigned to the Department of Veterans Affairs (Coburn, p. 3). Fox News discusses how the department is spending millions of dollars to maintain many buildings which are not being used and which have fallen into disrepair, so much so that they are considered health hazards (Winter). This is an unfortunate circumstance considering the fact that thousands of American troops injured in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are set to return to the US requiring medical and other support services (Winter). There are about 5,000 buildings owned by the Department of Veterans Affairs, but about 300 of these are vacant and dilapidated. And yet, much money is being allocated for their upkeep and no lucrative or beneficial remedies are being implemented as yet by the government to address this issue. Coburn also discusses how the government is wasting about $1.5 million in sprucing apartments before tearing them down. This practice is seen in Shreveport, LA (p. 4). Coburn (p. 4) reports how the city of Shreveport, Louisiana spent $1.5 million of stimulus funds to fix moldy houses which were already considered for demolition. The housing authority set forth that it would use stimulus money in order to improve various low-income homes. After an audit, the authorities established that the city has not spent the money allocated to it; this was against the regulations set forth by the stimulus which required the city to spend the allocated money within a year. In order to comply with such mandate, the officials implemented mold remediation for the housing units (Coburn, p. 4). An evaluation established however that the remediation was not done properly; subsequently, the demolition of the buildings was implemented. Waste in government spending is also apparent with various agencies making unnecessary printing. Such unnecessary printing amounts to $930 million annual cost (Coburn, p. 5). Based on a report by Lexmark (p. 3), there are about $440 million printing savings opportunities for employees; the federal government actually spends about $1.3 billion on a yearly basis for printing, and 440 million dollars are considered unnecessary printing. Most agencies hardly make any attempts to reduce their printing expenses; in fact about 89% of federal employees express that their agencies do not have printing policies in place (Lexmark, p. 4). In effect, these employees continue to have a limited regard for their printing activities and the unnecessary costs that these activities cause the government. Reports also indicate that the federal government is in ownership of about 50,000 vacant homes (Heath). This has primarily been caused by the collapse of the housing market which left the government with empty houses it had having trouble selling. The housing crisis prompted the Department of Housing and Urban Development to buy about 100,000 foreclosed houses; and out of these houses, there are about 38,000 left to sell. Aside from unnecessary spending in houses, waste in government spending has also been seen with more trivial matters like the Federal Communications sponsorship of NASCAR driver David Gilliland (Riedl). Legislators have also spent thousands of the taxpayer’s money for unnecessary office expenses like plasma televisions, DVD equipment, camcorders, digital cameras, personalized calendars, laptops, luxury vehicles, and other high-end electronic equipment (Radnofsky and Farnam). These are expenses which on closer look can actually be relinquished and set aside in favor of other expenses which can potentially give more benefit to the taxpayers. Other government expenses can be qualified as puzzling and grossly unnecessary. These expenses include the re-sanding of beaches, even with the sand being eventually washed back into the ocean (CBS News). Beach renourishment involves the act of pumping tons of sand from the ocean and on to the beaches. This is often done in order to keep tourism alive, however, it is a hardly sustainable activity as the dumped sand washes back into the ocean 12 times faster than natural sand (CBS News). In effect, the government as good as wasted $3 billion of taxpayer’s money for yet another unnecessary expense. According to the Department of Agriculture, unnecessary expenses which amount to $2.5 billion from the stimulus fund allocated for broadband internet in the rural area are considered a waste of government funds (Grabell). It is considered a waste because the services seem to be directed towards areas which already have broadband connections, including country clubs, hotels, and business areas. In some areas, such allocations are also being directed towards affluent communities and areas which are near big cities having internet and broadband access (Grabell). The underserved rural areas are hardly receiving loans for their broadband connections and all in all, the funding allocated for what would have been a beneficial program is actually an unnecessary expense. In a report by the General Accountability Office (p. 2), the Department of Defense had unused and unrefunded airline tickets amounting to millions of dollars. The Department of Defense has been aware of this issue and from the year 2001 to 2002, with unclaimed tickets amounting to $21 million. From 1997 to 2003, the unrefunded and unused airline tickets amounted to $100 million. In relation to health, the Congress has also refused to implement recommendations from the Department of Health and Human Services (p. 2). The department recommends management adjustments on hospice care and on conditions of participation -- recommendations which the federal government has yet to implement. Failure to improve the efficiency of its health services has cost the government potential savings amounting to $9 billion annually (Department of Health and Human Services, p. 2). This waste in spending may be considered a potential or future waste, not an actual waste as yet. Nevertheless, there are other expenses which may be counted as direct wastes in government spending, including allocations for paintings of important government officials which cost about $50,000 each (Lee, 2008). The Department of Homeland Security has not been spared these unnecessary expenses with its purchases of 63-inch plasma TVs, iPods, and even beer brewing kits (GAO, p. 3). All of these expenses are considered government waste because they are unnecessary expenses which do not benefit the people which should be the main beneficiaries of taxpayer’s money (Bandiera, et.al., p. 1279). These are also unnecessary expenses because they only serve to benefit the government officials and even then, these benefits only serve selfish or personal interests (Fisman and Miguel, p. 2). Based on the above discussion, it is appropriate to argue and conclude that the US government has a significant amount of unnecessary expenses which waste the taxpayer’s money. These expenses include unused houses which the government owns, expenditure for beach re-nourishment, unnecessary printing expenses, government allocations which do not benefit the right people, un-refunded and unused airline tickets, as well as high-end electronic gadgets like plasma TVs, iPods, laptops, and similar luxury items. Although the government officials benefitting from these services or supporting allocations for these items argue that these are important aspects of governance, further assessment reveals that they do not benefit the taxpayers, nor do they significantly improve government services. The parameters for government spending must be based on the benefits brought to the people, without such benefits, these expenses would only serve selfish and personal interests for government officials and other individuals controlling fund dispensation and allocations. Works Cited Bandiera, O., Prat, A., & Valleti, T. “Active and Passive Waste in Government Spending: Evidence from a Policy Experiment”. American Economic Review, 99.4 (2009): pp. 1278-1308 CBS News. “Beach Restoration: Sending $$$ Out to Sea?” 2009. 15 July 2011 from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/05/26/eveningnews/main5041144.shtml Coburn, T. “Wastebook: A guide to some of the most wasteful government spending of 2010”. Office of Senator Tom Coburn. 2010. 15 July 2011 from http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=774a6cca-18fa-4619-987b-a15eb44e7f18 Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General, “Compendium of Unimplemented Office of Inspector General Recommendations.” 2009. 15 July 2011 from http://oig.hhs.gov/publications/docs/compendium/compendium2009.pdf Fisman, R. & Miguel, E. “Cultures of Corruption: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets.” Working paper. Journal of Political Economy. 2006. 15 July 2011 from http://www.usc.edu/schools/business/FBE/seminars/papers/AE_4-28-06_FISMAN-parking.pdf Grabell, M. “Rural Broadband Stimulus Program Slammed in Gov’t Report.” ProPublica. 2009. 15 July 2011 from http://www.propublica.org/ion/stimulus/item/rural-broadband-stimulus-program-slammed-in-govt-report-414 Government Accountability Office. “DOD Travel Cards: Control Weaknesses Led to Millions of Dollars in Unused Airline Tickets”. 2004. 15 July 2011 from http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04398.pdf Government Accountability Office. “Purchase Cards: Control Weaknesses Leave DHS Highly Vulnerable to Fraudulent, Improper, and Abusive Activity”. 2006. 15 July 2011 from http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d061117.pdf Heath, B. “Gov’t Losses Big in Home Market.” USA Today. 2009. 15 July 2011 from http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2009-05-14-govtown_N.htm Lee, C. “Official Portraits Draw Skeptical Gaze.” The Washington Post. 2008. 15 July 2011 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/20/AR2008102003627.html Lexmark. “Government Printing Report – A Closer Look at Costs, Habits, Policies, and Opportunities for Savings”. 2009. 15 July 2011 from http://www.governmentprintingreport.com/ Radnofsky, L. & Farnam, T. “Lawmakers Bill Taxpayers for TVs, Cameras, Lexus.” The Wall Street Journal. 2009. 15 July 2011 from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124364352135868189.html Riedl, B. “50 Examples of Government Waste”. The Heritage Foundation. 2009. 15 July 2011 from http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2009/pdf/wm_2642.pdf Riedl, B. “Federal Spending Increased to $30,000 per Household in 2009”. Human Events. 2009. 15 July 2011 from http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=34848 Winter, J. “VA Spends Millions to Maintain Vacant and Hazardous Buildings -- Cites Limited Funds for Demolition”. FoxNews.com, 2010. 15 July 2011 from http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/31/veteran-affairs-spendsmillions- on-hazardous-buildings/ Read More