Government waste at an all time high....

[Eric5273]

And in other news, the sky is blue...


Report: Wasteful Government Spending at All-Time High
June 27, 2007, ABC
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/06/report-wasteful.html

The U.S. government has committed to spend a record-high $1.1 trillion with companies holding government contracts "plagued by waste, fraud, abuse or mismanagement," according to a new report by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The report blames the rise in bad spending on a sharp increase in noncompetitive contracting and a general increase in the use of private companies to perform government functions. More than $200 billion in taxpayer money was spent on projects for which only one or a handful of companies submitted bids, the committee found. That figure has more than tripled since 2000, according to the report, and now comprises more than half of all government spending outside of entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. "The numbers -- there's not an iota of justification for more than half of all contracts being no- or limited-bid contracts," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan Washington, D.C.-based group which scrutinizes federal spending. According to the report, the committee based its findings on a federal database of government spending, and more than 700 reports by government auditing and investigations offices.

[MrLabGuy]

You're just jealous. Democrats are chomping on the bit to get their pork barrel projects off the ground. You've only managed to point out what is obvious to real Conservatives.

Bush spends like a Liberal.

[Wagner]

what will be the biggest travesty, as usual, will be the destruction of contracts from smaller projects (non LM, NG, BAH, Haliburton). Just look at the CIA, run my Gen. M Hayden who ran NSA prior to the new position. He piled on BS multi-year contracts in the 1/2 Billion dollar a contract range. When he got to the CIA he was told the 1/3 contractor workforce was too high. So they made a blanket statement to cut the contracted workforce by 10%+. The question is how will this be done? Most likely, blanket small project closures, without investigation as to the usability of the program.

More pompous liberal BS without actually saying "hey, what are we getting for the money really?". If you do some investigating you would be SHOCKED at the bullshit monies collected on legacy contracts that have little if any benefit, BUT because they have been in place so long..they don't get canceled. And why is that? Because Generals want their next star and don't want to be known as the guy that killed the previous projects that cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars. Accountability.....what a bitch.

[Eric5273]

Originally Posted by WagnerX5

what will be the biggest travesty, as usual, will be the destruction of contracts from smaller projects (non LM, NG, BAH, Haliburton). Just look at the CIA, run my Gen. M Hayden who ran NSA prior to the new position. He piled on BS multi-year contracts in the 1/2 Billion dollar a contract range. When he got to the CIA he was told the 1/3 contractor workforce was too high. So they made a blanket statement to cut the contracted workforce by 10%+. The question is how will this be done? Most likely, blanket small project closures, without investigation as to the usability of the program.

More pompous liberal BS without actually saying "hey, what are we getting for the money really?". If you do some investigating you would be SHOCKED at the bullshit monies collected on legacy contracts that have little if any benefit, BUT because they have been in place so long..they don't get canceled. And why is that? Because Generals want their next star and don't want to be known as the guy that killed the previous projects that cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars. Accountability.....what a bitch.

The key statement in the article is this one:

The report blames the rise in bad spending on a sharp increase in noncompetitive contracting and a general increase in the use of private companies to perform government functions.

There is too much money in politics, and every politician is in a hurry to hand out whatever contracts they can to their financial supporters. So whenever they can take a government function and turn it over to a private company, they do.

The problem is that the private company must make a profit, where as a government agency that would normally handle it would be non-profit. So either the private company will do less for the same money (and thus take a nice profit), or else the budget will be increased to allow for the profit.

The 2003 Medicaid bill was classic example of this. Turn over Medicaid to the HMO's so that they can make some profit off it. Put in the bill that Medicaid cannot bargain price with the drug companies, and now they can make more profit from it. So when you are done, everyone makes more profit and it costs the government hundreds of billions of dollars more than the old system. And it's such a benficial thing for the health care industry, that the congressman who sponsored the bill ends up quitting congress after serving 24 years to become the head of the pharmaceutical lobby at a multi-million dollar per year salary. You can't make this stuff up.

[Wagner]

Starts with local useless politicians....check out O'Malley in MD.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/loc...tory?track=rss

Remember B-More has one of the highest murder rates in the country and a large poor population....let's cut money to key infrastructure.

[Eric5273]

Originally Posted by WagnerX5

Starts with local useless politicians....check out O'Malley in MD.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/loc...tory?track=rss

Remember B-More has one of the highest murder rates in the country and a large poor population....let's cut money to key infrastructure.

It's called "balancing the budget". Kind of a genius political ploy by the Washington politicians. Here is the process:

1. Lower Federal taxes on the upper and middle class

2. To offset the lower taxes, cut state aid

3. State governments are forced to either cut programs or raise taxes

Thus, federal politicans are cheered for lowering taxes, while local and state politicians are boooed for raising taxes and cutting state programs. Certainly a way to shift the blame. This seemed to work very well when Bush first took office, but I think a lot of people are starting to see through the BS.

[noncom23]

Originally Posted by Eric5273

It's called "balancing the budget". Kind of a genius political ploy by the Washington politicians. Here is the process:

1. Lower Federal taxes on the upper and middle class

2. To offset the lower taxes, cut state aid

3. State governments are forced to either cut programs or raise taxes

Thus, federal politicans are cheered for lowering taxes, while local and state politicians are boooed for raising taxes and cutting state programs. Certainly a way to shift the blame. This seemed to work very well when Bush first took office, but I think a lot of people are starting to see through the BS.

(Dyin' to do this!)

[rebound]

Socialism would fix all this.

[Eric5273]

Originally Posted by rebound

Socialism would fix all this.

As the article states:

The report blames the rise in bad spending on a sharp increase in noncompetitive contracting and a general increase in the use of private companies to perform government functions

So yes, socialism would fix that problem. The government would take care of government functions instead of private companies. No more noncompetitive contracting, no more contracting at all. Government runs government functions instead of politicians handing out taxpayer money to their buddies who own private companies.

[rebound]

See? I told you so.