I honestly do not know what to say

[Quantum Windbag]

We all heard about the GAO report on government duplication that just came out yesterday.

U.S. GAO - Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue

But did you know that the government actually has 82 different programs to improve teacher quality?

the U.S. government has 82 distinct programs to improve teacher quality (which, judging from our schools, is clearly working quite well). Many of those programs “share similar goals,” according to the report, yet “there is no governmentwide strategy to minimize fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among these many programs.” Which probably helps explain how we got so many programs designed to do the same damn thing in the first place.

Federal Government's Duplicate Programs Make Dupes Out of Taxpayers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

 

[Claudette]

The Govt is a fat bloated pig. Its time to slice and dice big time.

 

[WillowTree]

We all heard about the GAO report on government duplication that just came out yesterday.

U.S. GAO - Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue

But did you know that the government actually has 82 different programs to improve teacher quality?

the U.S. government has 82 distinct programs to improve teacher quality (which, judging from our schools, is clearly working quite well). Many of those programs “share similar goals,” according to the report, yet “there is no governmentwide strategy to minimize fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among these many programs.” Which probably helps explain how we got so many programs designed to do the same damn thing in the first place.

Federal Government's Duplicate Programs Make Dupes Out of Taxpayers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

Yes? And? How's that working out? Where does the US stand in the educational world ranking? Tell's me we've pissed a lot of money away and it wasn't spent on educating the children either, it was spent on building a political machine.

 

[martybegan]

While this example is at the Federal level, the same problems exist at the state and local level, and here is where the issue with public unions meshes into the whole topic of excessive state/local spending.

The concept of a sustained budget, where items are automatically carried over (often with a set increase of 2%-5%) regardless of if they are still needed or not creates government departments that often have outlived thier usefulness, or have even been replaced by another, but are still staffed and funded. Removing them takes a dedicated effort to defund, and either remove or reassign the personnel involved.

This is where collective bargaining for public employees comes in. Between work rules negoitated into the contract, as well as bloated and complicated grievence procedures, it is often easier to leave the outdated department intact, then try to eliminate it and reassign/lay off the superflous workers in said department.

Giving an example, say you have 5 different layers of local government that look after tenants in poor income housing. each department gets its budget. Now you want to consolidate the departments, maybe reduce staff, as you have noted there is severe overlap in what each is doing. Well, at that point the people involve resist being reassigned, file grievences via the union, and then probably get thier media contacts to decry these "Terrible cuts to people who can afford it the least" Then they lay pressure on the local politicians, who at that point will likely tell whoever is trying to streamline the budget/services to lay off fixing the problem.

 

[R.D.]

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

Federal government has set “more than 20 federal agencies providing about 56 programs” related to financial literacy


Unbelievable

 

[zzzz]

The federal bureaucracy is just like the Borg. You can eliminate one part but it just replicates itself again and again. This is not a case where you need to take a surgical tool to the problem. What we need is a big hammer and attack chunks of the bureacracy at a time.

 

[JBeukema]

• 342 economic development programs;
• 130 programs serving the disabled;
• 130 programs serving at-risk youth;
• 90 early childhood development programs;
• 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities;
• 72 federal programs dedicated to assuring safe water;
• 50 homeless assistance programs;
• 45 federal agencies conducting federal criminal investigations;
• 40 separate employment and training programs;
• 28 rural development programs;
• 27 teen pregnancy programs;
• 26 small, extraneous K-12 school grant programs;
• 23 agencies providing aid to the former Soviet republics;
• 19 programs fighting substance abuse;
• 17 rural water and waste-water programs in eight agencies;
• 17 trade agencies monitoring 400 international trade agreements;
• 12 food safety agencies;
• 11 principal statistics agencies; and
• Four overlapping land management agencies.[20]

Top 10 Examples of Government Waste | The Heritage Foundation

 

[JBeukema]

Get Ready to be Outraged -- 50 Examples of Government Waste

 

[boedicca]

I know what to say.

This is why there is such a pitched battle in WI to preserve collective bargaining. The majority of America is waking up to the way we have been used and abused by Big Government Cronyism, and we've had enough. They want to keep legal mechanisms in place that make reduction virtually impossible.

Witness the inane debate to try to cut $61B out of $3.8T in spending for this year. This is the equivalent of a middle class person saving money by making coffee at home instead of buying a Starbucks Latte every morning. Yet, the Big Government Promoters claim it will be the end of civilization.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

We all heard about the GAO report on government duplication that just came out yesterday.

U.S. GAO - Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue

But did you know that the government actually has 82 different programs to improve teacher quality?

the U.S. government has 82 distinct programs to improve teacher quality (which, judging from our schools, is clearly working quite well). Many of those programs “share similar goals,” according to the report, yet “there is no governmentwide strategy to minimize fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among these many programs.” Which probably helps explain how we got so many programs designed to do the same damn thing in the first place.

Federal Government's Duplicate Programs Make Dupes Out of Taxpayers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

They're about as efficient as a square wheel. It's not difficult to understand why most people don't want to send their tax money in to Washington.

 

[blastoff]

One of the few things the government does effectively is increase the size of government.

 

[MaggieMae]

We all heard about the GAO report on government duplication that just came out yesterday.

U.S. GAO - Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue

But did you know that the government actually has 82 different programs to improve teacher quality?

the U.S. government has 82 distinct programs to improve teacher quality (which, judging from our schools, is clearly working quite well). Many of those programs “share similar goals,” according to the report, yet “there is no governmentwide strategy to minimize fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among these many programs.” Which probably helps explain how we got so many programs designed to do the same damn thing in the first place.

Federal Government's Duplicate Programs Make Dupes Out of Taxpayers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

I'm really glad this has finally become newsworthy. Many (including me) have been saying for years that there's too much duplicity and cross-coverage among agencies doing basically the same thing. The GAO dutifully reports annually after its audits, but their reporting goes ignored and recommendations unheeded. But lest you all believe it's just domestic programs that are bloated, the DoD can't even be audited for waste and duplication. It's books are that messy. The Pentagon can't produce an inventory of military Quartermaster equipment and supplies, can't determine which contractors are screwing them, or how much those contractors duplicate the work of other contractors. Hopefully, someone has the balls to attack those expenditures as well at some point in the near future.

 

[Gunny]

We all heard about the GAO report on government duplication that just came out yesterday.

U.S. GAO - Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue

But did you know that the government actually has 82 different programs to improve teacher quality?

the U.S. government has 82 distinct programs to improve teacher quality (which, judging from our schools, is clearly working quite well). Many of those programs “share similar goals,” according to the report, yet “there is no governmentwide strategy to minimize fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among these many programs.” Which probably helps explain how we got so many programs designed to do the same damn thing in the first place.

Federal Government's Duplicate Programs Make Dupes Out of Taxpayers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

Where have YOU been? I've been bitching about this shit for YEARS.

Our taxes went up this year. How come His Eminence has promised to veto government spending cuts?

As usual, we're paying a f-d up bureaucracy's bill.

 

[MaggieMae]

One way to begin the slicing and dicing is to eliminate all but ONE "Committee on [ fill in blank ]" covering the myriad domestic and foreign issues. Congresscritters just love their little "committee assignments" which look so impressive on their Wiki pages.

 

[MaggieMae]

We all heard about the GAO report on government duplication that just came out yesterday.

U.S. GAO - Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue

But did you know that the government actually has 82 different programs to improve teacher quality?

the U.S. government has 82 distinct programs to improve teacher quality (which, judging from our schools, is clearly working quite well). Many of those programs “share similar goals,” according to the report, yet “there is no governmentwide strategy to minimize fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among these many programs.” Which probably helps explain how we got so many programs designed to do the same damn thing in the first place.

Federal Government's Duplicate Programs Make Dupes Out of Taxpayers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

Where have YOU been? I've been bitching about this shit for YEARS.

Our taxes went up this year. How come His Eminence has promised to veto government spending cuts?

As usual, we're paying a f-d up bureaucracy's bill.

He said he would veto a bill if it included the deep cuts to education the Republicans first proposed a few weeks ago.

 

[Two Thumbs]

82

What's that? A 'B', 'B-'?

I'm sure with time, study and help from Mom and Dad (cloward and piven) we can get that up to 100, and on the Honor Roll.

 

[syrenn]

We all heard about the GAO report on government duplication that just came out yesterday.

U.S. GAO - Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue

But did you know that the government actually has 82 different programs to improve teacher quality?

the U.S. government has 82 distinct programs to improve teacher quality (which, judging from our schools, is clearly working quite well). Many of those programs “share similar goals,” according to the report, yet “there is no governmentwide strategy to minimize fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among these many programs.” Which probably helps explain how we got so many programs designed to do the same damn thing in the first place.

Federal Government's Duplicate Programs Make Dupes Out of Taxpayers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

It doesn't boggle my mind one bit. Its called all the pigs feeding off the fat bloated teats.

Eventually (hopefully) everything must be weened.

 

[PixieStix]

We all heard about the GAO report on government duplication that just came out yesterday.

U.S. GAO - Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue

But did you know that the government actually has 82 different programs to improve teacher quality?

the U.S. government has 82 distinct programs to improve teacher quality (which, judging from our schools, is clearly working quite well). Many of those programs “share similar goals,” according to the report, yet “there is no governmentwide strategy to minimize fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among these many programs.” Which probably helps explain how we got so many programs designed to do the same damn thing in the first place.

Federal Government's Duplicate Programs Make Dupes Out of Taxpayers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

Where have YOU been? I've been bitching about this shit for YEARS.

Our taxes went up this year. How come His Eminence has promised to veto government spending cuts?

As usual, we're paying a f-d up bureaucracy's bill.

Exactly. Meanwhile bureaucrats have job security

When is congress going to take a pay cut?

 

[MaggieMae]

We all heard about the GAO report on government duplication that just came out yesterday.

U.S. GAO - Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue

But did you know that the government actually has 82 different programs to improve teacher quality?

Federal Government's Duplicate Programs Make Dupes Out of Taxpayers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

Where have YOU been? I've been bitching about this shit for YEARS.

Our taxes went up this year. How come His Eminence has promised to veto government spending cuts?

As usual, we're paying a f-d up bureaucracy's bill.

Exactly. Meanwhile bureaucrats have job security

When is congress going to take a pay cut?

When are they going to propose cuts to existing pension plans and health benefits for those legislators who have already retired? After all, isn't that what Walker says should happen to Union pensioners? And we have all Republicans across the country lauding him for it.

 

[Claudette]

Where have YOU been? I've been bitching about this shit for YEARS.

Our taxes went up this year. How come His Eminence has promised to veto government spending cuts?

As usual, we're paying a f-d up bureaucracy's bill.

Exactly. Meanwhile bureaucrats have job security

When is congress going to take a pay cut?

When are they going to propose cuts to existing pension plans and health benefits for those legislators who have already retired? After all, isn't that what Walker says should happen to Union pensioners? And we have all Republicans across the country lauding him for it.

I laud him for it as well.

I also agree with you about our elected officials in DC. No way in hell they should be getting those platinum plated pensions or beni's at taxpayer expense.

Time to slice and dice that bs as well.

Of course all these goodies were voted in for themselves by themselves.

Hows that for a sure thing??