Wasteful programs government

According to the Michigan state government, the Snow Cone ice-making machines were intended to assist with treating heat exhaustion and other illnesses during large events including possible terrorist incidents or similar emergencies. Buying snow cone machines to deal with heat exhaustion and other emergencies seems like a questionable use of federal funds. Local officials explained that it would be used to assist in underwater rescues. While certain communities could justify the purchase of a robot for use in underwater rescues.

Columbus, Ohio is not located near any large bodies of water where underwater rescues could be a frequent occurrence. This purchase is yet another example of communities taking advantage of grants offered by the U. The Cook County initiative was replete with equipment that failed to work because of weather conditions, missing equipment records and untrained first responders, according to a report by the Inspector General of the U. Department of Homeland Security. Of municipalities in Cook County, 32 never received any equipment, and many others returned it because officers never got training on how to use it.

Other cameras often targeted police parking lots, streets and intersections with "questionable homeland security benefits. Some of the equipment failed in extremely hot or cold weather — in other words, Chicago weather. Despite reporting only a single homicide in the prior two years, the City of Keene told DHS the vehicle was needed to patrol events like its annual pumpkin festival.

Homeland Security could certainly find a better use for their funding than to provide armored vehicles to sleepy New Hampshire towns with little risk of a terrorist attack. Aspiring cartoonists and comic book artists and writers are eligible to receive federal financial aid to attend art schools across the country.

So it may be no laughing matter to taxpayers that the unaccredited cartoon school with fewer than a hundred students would receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from the U. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Local officials have said they are not working to sell the homes because they do not want to hurt current housing prices. Yet some developers have noted officials have not been acting quickly enough. Our nation currently faces many challenges; a shortage of beer and pizza, however, is rarely cited as one of them.

To say the least, Americans generally do not consider the idealized Los Angeles suburb an impoverished town, and with good reason. This black market of federal grants raises the question of whether federal funds are targeted efficiently in the first place.

CDBG funds are generally to be used for programs to benefit low- to moderate-income people, such as low-income housing and anti-poverty measures. Not for funding questionable businesses like "Fatty McGee's Restaurant". The taxpayer money will help the brewery purchase three brew tanks and install sewer connections to its 42,square-foot facility. As the federal safety net is in danger and our country faces a fiscal crisis, taxpayers do not need to be contributing to an already-successful brewing business.

Taxpayers apparently need a real watchdog to protect against more wasteful spending on pet beauty products. The federal government has no need to continue acquiring additional office space while spending billions each year to maintain vacant office space.

Enough to build four small houses at each of the stops along the route. Funds intended to help the homeless in Los Angeles should not go to a successful multinational corporation instead.

The fact that money could be paid out for fourteen years to a fishery that hadn't produced a single fish shows the lack of oversight and level of mismanagement and abuse of taxpayer money in this agency. The project has a long and troubled history of wasteful spending.

In autumn , the government came forth with another plan to get the project moving again, reducing its size and budget. However, despite the revisions the plan still exceeded the congressionally authorized size, overestimated the quantity of future judges, and had not even considered courtroom sharing among judges. Nevertheless, federal officials sprinted to spend their appropriated funds, issuing the new construction notice in January. The bureau also spends taxpayer dollars to mail the copies to different institutions when prisoners are transferred.

The bureau could cut back on waste by using digital x-rays instead of hard copies which are available for almost instantaneous analysis. Since they would be stored as computer files, the x-rays also could easily be transferred to other doctors and prisons. The multi-month investigation concluded county officials had no intent to obtain illegal audio recordings when they purchased the equipment. However, to avoid pesky constitutionality issues, the courthouse security team has decided to turn off the audio recording features of the system.

Department of Labor regulations require that unemployment benefits must be paid to all unemployed workers regardless of their income. This requirement is based upon a U. Department of Laobr DOL decision that precludes states from means-testing to determine UC [unemployment compensation] eligibility. This requirement should be removed. MTC has been found to be improperly awarding subcontracts to the highest bidders. Both centers improperly awarded about 80 percent of sub-contractor awards reviewed.

Unfortunately, every taxpayer dollar wasted by MTC is one that could be helping people train for gainful employment in the private sector. Labor Department. Better oversight and management of unemployment benefits would increase efficiency and decrease the waste of federal funds.

Government entities across three federal agencies involved in providing training to officials working for foreign governments to detect fraudulent travel documents. According to GAO, State Department officials told GAO that they were not aware of how many agencies and office were involved in providing fraudulent travel document training to foreign governments.

No official mechanism or process exists for coordinating among these agencies involved with this training. While the comedian's may have been performing their jokes in India the real joke in on the American taxpayers for paying for this trip. State Department has spent over three quarters of a billion dollars repairing historical buildings in other countries.

At a time of burgeoning deficits and with plenty of historical buildings in the U. It also seems pretty expensive for a translation. The group's activities will include performances and workshops. According to its website, the Battery Dance Company has harbored an interest in Indonesia for many years, having presented Balinese dance at its own downtown dance studio. As exciting as a taxpayer funded trip to Indonesia for may be for the Battery Dance Company, the reason this trip was funded with federal dollars remains elusive.

This funding allows high school and college students from Denmark, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom to come to the U. An airport with no planes, no terminal, one runway and that only receives one flight a month is a perfect example of government waste in in action. Department of Transportation to offer free rides on several bus routes for four days surrounding the event, including game day.

If they were not busy at the game, the referees may have thrown their yellow flags on this low-priority use of taxpayer money. Fans could have probably afforded the fare out of their own pockets. That may explain why the area has three federally funded visitors and interpretive centers.

But even the most rabid fans of the Talimena Scenic Byway are probably at a loss why the U. Department of Transportation USDOT thinks the area needs a fourth visitors center, at a cost to federal taxpayers of more than half a million dollars. The regions crumbling road infrastructure makes the area 8th in the nation for its number of structurally deficient bridges.

County officials targeted the area for a sidewalk believing the new path would alleviate the safety concerns and eliminate the need to bus the students. Neither goal is likely to pan out, making the project questionable from the beginning. This is yet another example of the perils of a central bureaucracy. Decisions such as where to build a sidewalk are best left to local governments who have knowledge of, and a vested interest in the local community. On one side of the bridge, No Trespassing signs warn people to stay away.

The sculpture garden will be located in the town of Waterloo, Iowa, and will be dedicated to former resident Lou Henry Hoover, the wife of 31st U.

President Herbert Hoover. With 2, structurally deficient or functionally obsolete bridges in West Virginia, federal transportation dollars would probably be better spent on real, rather than toy roads. The Wesley Jung Carriage Museum "will bring compelling stories within the world of horse-drawn transportation to life in vigette settings, interactive exhibits and hands-on experiences. By law, regardless of other pressing transportation needs, states must spend a certain percentage of their Surface Transportation Program STP funding on Transportation Enhancement activities.

Even then however, those activities must relate to surface transportation. While some covered bridges are still in use, others have been bypassed in favor of steel bridges. The covered bridges main function now is to look scenic and attract tourists, noted the Associated Press.

Most projects would still be eligible for highway funding, but would have to compete with other highway and bridge projects for funds. An economist with the Brookings Institution observes, "I love covered bridges, but I don't think it should be a federal responsibility to preserve them.

The display at the St. Charles County Heritage museum will explain the influence of rivers, railroads, roads, and trails in the region over the years.

The facility will contain interpretive exhibits depicting the history and culture of the steamboat era. At a time when Louisiana has 3, deficient bridges, it is unclear why taxpayers are spending millions on a Steamboat Interpretive Center. Department of Veterans Affairs attended an eleven day conference at a resort in Scottsdale, Arizona.

With the availability of teleconferencing, conferences are, in large part, no longer necessary. Its bad enough that we are funding studies on pig poop, but does it also have to be Chinese study? Because Lake Champlain falls within Adirondack Park which is a state-level protected area and not a national park funds for Lake Champlain should come from the State of New York and not from the Federal Government.

Not only did officials inaccurately estimate the cost of replacement, the cost of repair was inflated by including projects that agency guidelines excludes from estimates.

For example, upgrades to meet newer building codes do not qualify as repairs. The IG concluded FEMA should reverse its decision to replace the two buildings and instead award funds to repair them. Grant accounts that have expired and run out of undisbursed funds should be closed to avoid account maintenance costs, and this would save taxpayer dollars.

With such massive purchasing power, agencies could use group orders to secure the best deals. In , the Office of Management and Budget created the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative to leverage orders from multiple agencies to achieve such savings. GAO requested funding information for all 94 initiatives, but the agencies did not provide it and so GAO was unable to report the amount spent in Not only are these programs inefficient, duplicative and unnecessary but furthermore, two-thirds of all the programs were unable to provide a single goal or performance measure related to green building.

While painting official portraits of Presidents, Supreme Court Justices and top ranking Senators and Congressman makes sense, the lower you move down the food chain the less understandable it becomes. Since the s, the federal government has been involved in supporting affordable housing through the establishment of the Federal Housing Administration FHA , Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

While some housing assistance programs are necessary, programs spread across 20 agencies are not. This web of programs can create service gaps, additional costs, and the potential for duplication.

These programs should be examined and restructured to reduce duplication of services and to streamline housing programs. We should make the investments necessary to make government programs IRS, Medicare run more efficiently. Spending a relatively small amount to update aging computer systems will save billions of dollars in the long run.

Not only are many of these programs duplicative, but different Departments can't even agree on how many programs there are. Department of Employment Services, told the D. A case involving hundreds of government workers illegally collecting unemployment benefits while on the city's payroll shows a frightening lack of oversight within the DC city government as well as a culture of fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds. More oversight is needed to ensure this type of abuse doesn't happen again.

This example of waste could be ended to simultaneously help the environment and cut costs. The Government Printing Office prints the Congressional Record, but could save money by only printing what is necessary for archiving and then distributing the rest online. This is a waste of taxpayer dollars and it highlights the lack of government accountability. Interns in congressional offices often work out of small storage areas or spaces cleared out of a closet - they do not get sent to resorts and spas for a week on the taxpayers' dime.

This conference is yet another example of the GSA's wasteful spending habits and lack of oversight. This conference is yet another example of the GSA's wasteful spending habits and disregard for the taxpayers' money. The agency has not taken the time to determine which contracts it should no longer maintain. What began as an effort in the s to ensure that all Americans had access to telecommunications service has morphed into a new massive entitlement. Since , the total cost of the program has increased twenty-fold.

Thankfully, you can help. Learn more and join the campaign today before another cent is wasted! Select State Americans for Prosperity Select State Related Commentary. The number of earmarks in the bill increased by The amount contained in the DOD appropriations bill constitutes The late Sen.

The bulk of the FY earmarks fund the acquisition of 17 aircraft beyond the amount requested by the DOD, including 12 for the Air Force and five for the Navy. The money earmarked for the F represents 9. The JSF has attracted more bad reviews than the worst Broadway performance. The JSF has been plagued by a staggering array of persistent issues, many of which were highlighted in the FY DOD Operational Test and Evaluation Annual Report , which revealed unresolved deficiencies including 13 Category 1 items, involving the most serious flaws that could endanger crew and aircraft.

The report highlighted uncertainty regarding final program costs, as the JSF has only logged about 2 percent of the total flight hours it will accrue over its lifecycle. As usual when it comes to the JSF, the motives of members of Congress are shortsighted and parochial. The wide distribution of F supply lines across the country is no accident. Beyond specifying the broad areas in which the money will be spent, like automated textile manufacturing, there is no further information regarding the location or purpose of the funding.

While members of Congress will typically create dubious justifications for earmarking funding for programs in their districts, perhaps claiming DOD officials mistakenly failed to request funding, this effort is more transparent.

Some anonymous member of Congress deemed it necessary to supply funding for unneeded work simply to support local industries. Formerly earmarked to individual states and congressional districts, the program, which allows for the use of military personnel in domestic drug enforcement operations, is now funded in one bundle as a workaround to the earmark moratorium.

The amount supplied in FY is a Amy Klobuchar D-Minn. Keith Ellison D-Minn. The report also recommended divesting the federal government of the Washington Aqueduct, which services Washington, D.

Legislators have long treated the Army Corps of Engineers as a prime repository of pork, and it is among the most heavily earmarked areas of the federal budget.

Jeff Sessions R-Ala. Past legislators responsible for adding earmarks for this purpose include Sen. Ben Cardin D-Md. Barbara Mikulski D-Md. Norm Dicks D-Wash. The cost of the projects increased by 7. Of the previous earmarks, 16 were directed to programs in 10 states, only two of which, Arizona and New Mexico, are on the Southern border.

The FY earmark amounts to Rick Larsen D-Wash. In fact, the problem has grown exponentially, especially with the rise of opioids. In the month period ending in May , 81, Americans died of drug overdoses , the most ever during such a period.

The Trump administration launched its own advertising campaign on June 7, , warning against the dangers of opioids.

Such ad campaigns are doomed to failure. Each of those earmarks included the name of the recipient, its location, and the member of Congress responsible. The State Department purchased an original Bob Dylan sculpture to display in its embassy in Mozambique. So many of the projects detailed in the wastebook involve aid to other countries. Paul has spoken out against some of this aid many times before.

One can disagree on whether the U. One example is money spent by USAID on training cheesemakers in Serbia how to properly prepare the delicious food in line with international standards.

Make cheese safe to eat is certainly a worthwhile endeavor, but does the U.