[Updated 1/4/2019]
Greetings to all from central New Jersey on this sunny but cold early January morning.
During my campaign for last year’s presidential election, in my platform, specifically in Section I.-B., I mentioned my plan to reduce the size of the federal government bureaucracy. As I was scanning email and commentaries this fine morning I came across something as I repurposed a little night music by Mozart to keep my mood up.
The object of my reading was the Government Accounting Office’s (GAO) 2016 Annual Report to Congress on waste and inefficiency in the federal government. The GAO is the independent auditing arm of government that evaluates how the federal government acquires and disburses taxpayer revenue, evaluates efficiency and effectiveness of those activities, settles government bidding contract disputes, investigations alleged improper activities, and so forth and so on, and on, and on, and on…
It was like music to my ears as I read the details of their findings, specifically on duplication and overlapping of efforts by the various agencies in the bureaucratic/administrative state. I have previously stated that this bureaucracy is more dangerous than any president or Congress (see this post, beginning below the line in green bold).
Some call-outs from the GAO report:
37 The number of new areas for 2016 identified by the GAO as being in need of reforms to reduce duplication, overlap, fragmentation, and to improve cost savings and revenue enhancements within the federal government.
92 The number of suggested actions made by GAO in its 2016 report to make the government more effective and efficient.
250 The total number of areas identified in past reports where reforms were needed to reduce duplication, fragmentation, and overlap, and to improve cost savings and revenue enhancements within the federal government.
636 The total number of actions identified by GAO since 2011 to improve efficiency within the 250 areas that were in need of reform.
41% Out of the GAO’s whopping 544 recommended actions, only 41% (224) have been fully addressed since 2011.
$125B The amount of savings that will be achieved by 2025 from the 224 actions (41%) that have already been implemented.
346 The total number of recommended actions to Treasury, DOD, and HHS since 2011 – of which, 220 (63%) remain open.
While I intended to approach the problem by auditing the United States Code and Code of Federal Regulations, the GAO’s mandate is to audit the agencies and their fiscal activities. Two sides of the same coin that show government is too big to succeed and breeds the problems these annual GAO reports expose every year.
The GAO also maintains the GAO Action Tracker, a tool to monitor government action/inaction on their findings and recommendations.
And if you like irony, the House of Representatives, in their ineffective oversight of the bureaucratic/administrative/”deep-state” nightmare they created over the last several decades, have spent unknown taxpayer dollars to take a disgustingly blasé and misplaced effort to be tragi-hip.
[ed note: The previous 6 words had been a live link until the morning of 8/12/18 when the link became inoperative, the content deleted. But I was able to find it archived here (Warning: the link is old, huge, and will take a long time to load, however, the part that is relevant to this discussion is ‘The Untouchable Servant’ capture image shown below) ]
Yes, this is the work of your House of Representatives presently under Republican control—not that it matters either way—who state that oversight.house.gov is:
WORKING TO ENSURE EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT
As the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, we will work with our colleagues in the minority to exercise effective oversight over the federal government and will work proactively to investigate and expose waste, fraud, and abuse.
Apparently, they will expose, but based on the thrust of the GAO reports, will do little to nothing about it.
But hey kids, here’s an interesting tidbit about the administrative state, copied as it was presented on the site (screen capture as per ‘warning’ above):
The yellow words were links to this: (this is a screen shot because this document is no longer available, the links don’t work!)
and this (what the ‘VIEW THE 2014 REPORT HERE’ link went to): FERDI-Report-2014.pdf
and this.
