Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to be posting excerpts and/or summaries from the 1992 and 2000 editions of Martin Gross' book, The Government Racket: Washington Waste from A to Z. My goal in doing this is two-fold, to prove that it is not all that difficult to find enough waste in the government to virtually eliminate the budget deficit, and to garner support from readers of this blog to repost these messages and to pressure their representatives and senators to cut spending, beginning with waste.
This first post begins with the Letter A.
A is for Agriculture: In 1935, there 6.3 million farmers in America, and, despite the Great Depression, we were still the breadbasket of the world. In 1935, there were 20,000 employees at the Dept. of Agriculture.... Thanks to FDR, the number was nearly 7x the number of DofA employees just 35 years earlier when we had 5 million farms in America. By 1992, the number of farms in America was just 1/3 that of 1935...2.1 million farms. But did the drop in the number of farms inspire the D of A to reduce their staff? No. On the contrary, they tripled in size to 60,000 employees. By 2040, it is estimated that there will be mere 150,000 farms in America....and an estimate 150,000 federal workers at the D of A. Isn't that sweet? THE SOLUTION: cut the number of D of A employees in half and restructure the D of A to more efficiently handle the number farms we still have in America.
A is also for Aircraft - The United States government owned, as of 1992, 1200 airplanes. No, I'm not referring to the Air Force or Navy. I'm talking about various civilian style planes used by various agencies of the government to fly the...ir executives around the country and around the world. They have hundreds of pilots and staff on standby to fly these men and women anywhere they want to go. To think, we get on AIG execs for flying their execs around on private airplanes after the taxpayers have spent billions to bail them out. Wait, isn't it taxpayer money being used to own, operate, maintain and staff these 1200 planes...at a cost of BILLIONS per year? Indeed. THE SOLUTION: do a Sarah Palin and sell most of those planes and re-assign or lay off the staff at a savings of billions per year.
A is also for Airlines - that's right, besides the 1200 small planes the federal government owns, they also own 27 large passenger planes known as the 89th Airlift Wing. Although exact figures are not released by the government (another qu...estion for another story), information we do have tells us that, on average, there are about 800 flights per year, carrying some 10,000 people (often repeats, of course). There are 6000 employees paid to run this airline, which means, that the average cost per passenger to run this airline is about $25K to $50K per flight. THE SOLUTION: keep about 5-7 planes for the super VIPs in government and sell the other planes. Set up a deal with a commercial airliner to get us good deals on travel. It would save hundreds of millions to billions each year AND be a boon for one or more airline company.
A is also for Accounting - The Grace Commission reported years ago that the federal government was using 322 DIFFERENT and mostly IRRECONCILABLE accounting systems. A two-year study by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) determined that nearly the entire federal government was AWASH in bad bookkeeping. Of the 24 cabinet level agencies, the GAO determined that only EIGHT passed muster. The rest had serious "problems with fundamental record keeping, incomplete documentation, and weak internal controls."
Here's just one example: the DFAS (Defense Finance and Accounting Service) in Indianapolis was entrusted with distributing $20 million to help Desert Storm soldiers with debt relief. $15 million of it was found to have been sent to the wrong soldiers or to pay off the wrong debts. One such soldier, who was to be paid a mere $183.69 was actually sent a check for $836,919.19. By the time they figured it out, the soldier had spent more than half the money. On another occasion, a group of finance clerks were found to have created six fictitious soldiers and went on to embezzled their salaries...including making sure they received promotions, raises and tours to locations where they could not be discovered. The amount of money WASTED by antiquated, uncoordinated and inefficient accounting systems is incalculable. This waste alone could be costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. It's already known than Medicare fraud, alone, amounts to more than $50B per year.
Can you imagine...this is just the letter A. We may have finally discovered a way to eliminate our budget deficit completely. Care to help. Send me YOUR Letter A waste stories.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Fixing Government Spending
"I can scarcely contemplate a greater calamity that could befall this country, than to be loaded with a debt exceeding their ability ever to discharge. If this be a just remark, it is unwise and improvident to vest in the general government a power to borrow at discretion, without any limitation or restriction."
(Brutus, Anti-Federalism, 1787-88)
Every year Time names its Man of the Year. No matter the character of the person, Time will choose the person who impacts news coverage more than any other person that year. The "Man" of the Year isn't always a man (Queen Elizabeth II - 1952). It isn't always a single person (Middle Americans - 1969). It isn't even always about it being a "nice" person (Adolf Hitler - 1938). And, sometimes, it's not even a human (The Computer - 1982). By the end of 2011, the federal debt/government spending may just become the first non-physical object to be named Time's Man of the Year.
It seems that a person cannot turn on the news, pick up a paper or magazine, roam through their social networking site or talk to a fellow American without the topic coming up. Everyone has their ideas.
Bring our troops home.
Eliminate Social Security
Socialize medicine
Balanced Budget Amendment
Higher taxes
No more "earmarks"
Line Item Veto
Everyone's pet idea has merit, on the surface. But none of them really address the real issues. To be honest, the "real issue" - Congress spending money in ways it was never authorized to spend it - is never really going to be addressed. At least not right now. But, that being said, the real issue of balancing the budget while limiting the degree to which such would adversely affect both the nation's economy and our individual family budgets is never really addressed by these ideas.
So how DO we balance our country's budget AND limit the "damage", so to speak? Rather than going into explicit details about what *I* would cut if *I* had the power, I'd rather provide what I believe to be some sound, sane advice on how to frame the debate. The problems with most public debates are that they are usually framed by the ones screaming loudest, rather than by the ones speaking wisdom.
1) Let's start at the beginning...the budgeting process. Currently, the federal government's idea of determining a budget is like this: Department X spent all the money we allocated to it last year. Therefore, we'll give them the same amount plus 12% more. There is no justification for the increase. The director of Department X or Agency Y just tells their superiors they spent all their money this year and their superior adds that same number back to the next budget and adds some prescribed increase, typically around 10-12% more. This is pure lunacy. No major corporation in the world would EVER survive with this sort of accounting.
In 1992, Martin Gross wrote, The Government Racket, Washington Waste A to Z. The letter Z in his book was regarding Zero Based Budgeting. To put it simply, ZBB is a method of budgeting in which all expenses must be justified for each new period. Zero-based budgeting starts from a "zero base" and every function within an organization is analyzed for its needs and costs. Budgets are then built around what is needed for the upcoming period, regardless of whether the budget is higher or lower than the previous one.
ZBB allows top-level strategic goals to be implemented into the budgeting process by tying them to specific functional areas of the organization, where costs can be first grouped, then measured against previous results and current expectations.
In the book, Gross estimates that the amount of money that could be saved by the Federal Government would be between $50B and $500B per year. Now, considering that the Federal Budget Deficit in 1992, when the book was published, was $292B, which inflates to $454B in 2010 dollars, it would seem rather safe to estimate that we could save between $500B and $1T per year merely by implementing a Zero Based Budget.
This, alone, could nearly eliminate our federal budget deficit. But I'm not done.
2) Once a ZBB budgeting system is in place, and every government agency and department is required to justify their annual budget requests, the process will begin towards trimming government waste. Above and beyond the savings mentioned above, Lewis Uhler, in his book, Setting Limits, suggests three ways to "test the propriety of federal government activities, with some objectivity, in an effort to set priorities." (pp.135-139)
The first is the "practical necessity test", meaning, what are those functions which by the nature of things only a government with broad national or federal scope can perform? The most obvious examples of this would be defense and foreign affairs. It is just not practical for anyone other than our national government to be responsible for activities such as this.
The second is the "requirements/values test", meaning whether the federal government is constitutionally or contractually obligated to perform a particular function. Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution enumerates the various functions of government that Congress is authorized to fund from the public treasury. This would represent the Constitutional requirements. But, even as we argue about other programs funded, perhaps in violation of Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution, we may, perhaps have a contractual obligation. This would be the case with regards to the interest owed on our national debt. And, while some conservatives would argue for the abolishing of certain "entitlement" programs, there is no arguing the "moral" obligation we have to keep the "promises" intrinsically made to millions of Americans currently dependent upon programs like Social Security and Medicare.
And third is the "performance test", meaning, has the function, as performed thus far by the federal government, been performed efficiently and relatively free of waste, fraud and corruption. In 1981, the National Tax Limitation Committee distributed a book to Congress entitled, "Meeting America's Economic Crisis: A 'Road Map' to Emergency Federal Spending Reductions" which espoused eight criteria for determining the efficiency of the Federal Government is running programs that could better be run in other ways.
1. The propensity of the agency to fraud and/or abuse
2. Commonness of error, inefficiency and waste
3. Massive crossovers with other agencies managing the same issues
4. Little or no cost/benefits
5. Massive and unjustified expansion of benefits
6. No real national benefit
7. Poorly defined program goals
8. Programs best performed by state/local governments or private organizations.
At this point, the debates could begin as to what could be cut from our federal budget. But at least we would have some definable criteria from which to judge each idea. It was by this criteria that Martin Gross wrote his book. And from reading Gross' book, there is little question that hundreds of billions of dollars could be saved each year by applying this criteria to our federal budget.
But, for now, let's just apply one element of this criteria to one large aspect of our national budget...Social Security. It is true, that we have a constitutional obligation to PROMOTE the general welfare. However, we are NOT obligated to PROVIDE for it. It is ALSO true that, legally, the Federal Government is not contractually obligated to pay another dime to anyone in Social Security benefits. However, we DO have a "moral" obligation to keep the promises we made to the people who have come to depend upon it. That being said, there is nothing to say we cannot adjust the details of those 'promises'. Knowing, of course, that the Social Security system was implemented at a time when the average American didn't live long enough to collect any benefits. Life expectancy in 1934 was 58 for males and 62 for females. Only those people living longer than expected collected a dime. Today, men are expected to live to age 75 and women to age 80. What harm would it be for us to raise the retirement age for full Social Security benefits to age 70 for those people currently age 55 or under? It would do little harm to most people and would save us half a trillion dollars per year by 2025.
For all the arguing and debating about how to eliminate a $1.6T budget deficit it really wouldn't take all that much work. It WOULD, however, require a certain amount of acceptance of reality...the reality being that we MUST cut waste and restore some constitutional and fiscal sanity to Congress and the Oval Office.
I have little doubt that by instituting a Zero Based Budget and by establishing some well-defined criteria for identifying and eliminating waste, fraud, corruption and inefficiency in federal spending that we could find our way to a balanced budget in very little time.
As I said before, public debates are usually framed by the people screaming the loudest. Its time for the wise in our country be given the microphone and permitted the freedom to guide the debate. The time for folly is over. We have no more time for foolish name-calling and self-serving arguments. We were given a Constitution to guide our decisions and we have a moral obligation to make sound choices for the sake of country's future.
I...place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared...And to preserve (our) independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude."
Thomas Jefferson
(Brutus, Anti-Federalism, 1787-88)
Every year Time names its Man of the Year. No matter the character of the person, Time will choose the person who impacts news coverage more than any other person that year. The "Man" of the Year isn't always a man (Queen Elizabeth II - 1952). It isn't always a single person (Middle Americans - 1969). It isn't even always about it being a "nice" person (Adolf Hitler - 1938). And, sometimes, it's not even a human (The Computer - 1982). By the end of 2011, the federal debt/government spending may just become the first non-physical object to be named Time's Man of the Year.
It seems that a person cannot turn on the news, pick up a paper or magazine, roam through their social networking site or talk to a fellow American without the topic coming up. Everyone has their ideas.
Bring our troops home.
Eliminate Social Security
Socialize medicine
Balanced Budget Amendment
Higher taxes
No more "earmarks"
Line Item Veto
Everyone's pet idea has merit, on the surface. But none of them really address the real issues. To be honest, the "real issue" - Congress spending money in ways it was never authorized to spend it - is never really going to be addressed. At least not right now. But, that being said, the real issue of balancing the budget while limiting the degree to which such would adversely affect both the nation's economy and our individual family budgets is never really addressed by these ideas.
So how DO we balance our country's budget AND limit the "damage", so to speak? Rather than going into explicit details about what *I* would cut if *I* had the power, I'd rather provide what I believe to be some sound, sane advice on how to frame the debate. The problems with most public debates are that they are usually framed by the ones screaming loudest, rather than by the ones speaking wisdom.
1) Let's start at the beginning...the budgeting process. Currently, the federal government's idea of determining a budget is like this: Department X spent all the money we allocated to it last year. Therefore, we'll give them the same amount plus 12% more. There is no justification for the increase. The director of Department X or Agency Y just tells their superiors they spent all their money this year and their superior adds that same number back to the next budget and adds some prescribed increase, typically around 10-12% more. This is pure lunacy. No major corporation in the world would EVER survive with this sort of accounting.
In 1992, Martin Gross wrote, The Government Racket, Washington Waste A to Z. The letter Z in his book was regarding Zero Based Budgeting. To put it simply, ZBB is a method of budgeting in which all expenses must be justified for each new period. Zero-based budgeting starts from a "zero base" and every function within an organization is analyzed for its needs and costs. Budgets are then built around what is needed for the upcoming period, regardless of whether the budget is higher or lower than the previous one.
ZBB allows top-level strategic goals to be implemented into the budgeting process by tying them to specific functional areas of the organization, where costs can be first grouped, then measured against previous results and current expectations.
In the book, Gross estimates that the amount of money that could be saved by the Federal Government would be between $50B and $500B per year. Now, considering that the Federal Budget Deficit in 1992, when the book was published, was $292B, which inflates to $454B in 2010 dollars, it would seem rather safe to estimate that we could save between $500B and $1T per year merely by implementing a Zero Based Budget.
This, alone, could nearly eliminate our federal budget deficit. But I'm not done.
2) Once a ZBB budgeting system is in place, and every government agency and department is required to justify their annual budget requests, the process will begin towards trimming government waste. Above and beyond the savings mentioned above, Lewis Uhler, in his book, Setting Limits, suggests three ways to "test the propriety of federal government activities, with some objectivity, in an effort to set priorities." (pp.135-139)
The first is the "practical necessity test", meaning, what are those functions which by the nature of things only a government with broad national or federal scope can perform? The most obvious examples of this would be defense and foreign affairs. It is just not practical for anyone other than our national government to be responsible for activities such as this.
The second is the "requirements/values test", meaning whether the federal government is constitutionally or contractually obligated to perform a particular function. Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution enumerates the various functions of government that Congress is authorized to fund from the public treasury. This would represent the Constitutional requirements. But, even as we argue about other programs funded, perhaps in violation of Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution, we may, perhaps have a contractual obligation. This would be the case with regards to the interest owed on our national debt. And, while some conservatives would argue for the abolishing of certain "entitlement" programs, there is no arguing the "moral" obligation we have to keep the "promises" intrinsically made to millions of Americans currently dependent upon programs like Social Security and Medicare.
And third is the "performance test", meaning, has the function, as performed thus far by the federal government, been performed efficiently and relatively free of waste, fraud and corruption. In 1981, the National Tax Limitation Committee distributed a book to Congress entitled, "Meeting America's Economic Crisis: A 'Road Map' to Emergency Federal Spending Reductions" which espoused eight criteria for determining the efficiency of the Federal Government is running programs that could better be run in other ways.
1. The propensity of the agency to fraud and/or abuse
2. Commonness of error, inefficiency and waste
3. Massive crossovers with other agencies managing the same issues
4. Little or no cost/benefits
5. Massive and unjustified expansion of benefits
6. No real national benefit
7. Poorly defined program goals
8. Programs best performed by state/local governments or private organizations.
At this point, the debates could begin as to what could be cut from our federal budget. But at least we would have some definable criteria from which to judge each idea. It was by this criteria that Martin Gross wrote his book. And from reading Gross' book, there is little question that hundreds of billions of dollars could be saved each year by applying this criteria to our federal budget.
But, for now, let's just apply one element of this criteria to one large aspect of our national budget...Social Security. It is true, that we have a constitutional obligation to PROMOTE the general welfare. However, we are NOT obligated to PROVIDE for it. It is ALSO true that, legally, the Federal Government is not contractually obligated to pay another dime to anyone in Social Security benefits. However, we DO have a "moral" obligation to keep the promises we made to the people who have come to depend upon it. That being said, there is nothing to say we cannot adjust the details of those 'promises'. Knowing, of course, that the Social Security system was implemented at a time when the average American didn't live long enough to collect any benefits. Life expectancy in 1934 was 58 for males and 62 for females. Only those people living longer than expected collected a dime. Today, men are expected to live to age 75 and women to age 80. What harm would it be for us to raise the retirement age for full Social Security benefits to age 70 for those people currently age 55 or under? It would do little harm to most people and would save us half a trillion dollars per year by 2025.
For all the arguing and debating about how to eliminate a $1.6T budget deficit it really wouldn't take all that much work. It WOULD, however, require a certain amount of acceptance of reality...the reality being that we MUST cut waste and restore some constitutional and fiscal sanity to Congress and the Oval Office.
I have little doubt that by instituting a Zero Based Budget and by establishing some well-defined criteria for identifying and eliminating waste, fraud, corruption and inefficiency in federal spending that we could find our way to a balanced budget in very little time.
As I said before, public debates are usually framed by the people screaming the loudest. Its time for the wise in our country be given the microphone and permitted the freedom to guide the debate. The time for folly is over. We have no more time for foolish name-calling and self-serving arguments. We were given a Constitution to guide our decisions and we have a moral obligation to make sound choices for the sake of country's future.
I...place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared...And to preserve (our) independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude."
Thomas Jefferson
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