What Federal Spending Are We Better Off Without?
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/10/08/what-federal-spending-are-we-better-off-without
What have we learned, seven months into sequestration and one week into a government shutdown?
The Pentagon Needed to Trim the Fat
Lawrence J. Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
The Pentagon’s base budget (nonwar spending) nearly doubled in the decade after Sept. 11, 2001, allowing military and civilian leaders to avoid making tough choices or prioritizing capabilities. In the name of national security, they could have it all. This gusher of defense spending led to what Senator John McCain has called an “unaddressed culture of waste and inefficiency.” In fact, Senator McCain argues that this perception of inefficiency is one reason that sequestration occurred.
Third, sequestration has forced the Pentagon leadership to recognize that it must reform its acquisitions system, which Senator McCain notes “has been successful, for the most part, in turning taxpayer dollars into weapons systems that are delivered late, flawed, and vastly over budget, if they are delivered at all.” A prime example of this would be the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which has doubled in price and is a decade late.
The Benefits of Sequestration
Gretchen Hamel is the executive director of Public Notice.
But is the federal cupboard really bare? Consider a few of the more than 100 wasteful spending examples from a new online database of wasteful spending, Spendopedia:
· $34 million for a 64,000-square-foot building in Afghanistan that the military will not use
· $436 million for upgrading tanks the U.S. Army says it does not need
· $1.7 billion annually for vacant government office buildings
With nearly $17 trillion in debt, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warned last month that if we continued to run huge deficits and failed to address mandatory spending, our nation would face increased chances of a major fiscal crisis in coming years. Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office reports that since 2011, only 12 percent of more than 300 efficiency recommendations have been implemented.
More interesting stuff at the link.
= new reply since forum marked as read
