Recently, the Heritage Foundation posted a list of "50 Examples of Government Waste." Some of these examples are absolutely absurd. Some of the highlights include:
#7 Washington will spend $2.6 million training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job.What you just read is only 1/10th of the examples provided by The Heritage Foundation. There are 45 more in the article, guaranteed to make you take a second look at the deductions section of your paycheck. Taking things a step further, these examples are only a small portion of the total waste and abuse of our money that takes place in Washington. Also note that they are almost exclusively dealing with the federal government here. Tack on state and local waste, and you've got hundreds of billions of dollars that belong to you and me being wasted every year.
#15 The refusal of many federal employees to fly coach costs taxpayers $146 million annually in flight upgrades.
#23 Fraud related to Hurricane Katrina spending is estimated to top $2 billion. In addition, debit cards provided to hurricane victims were used to pay for Caribbean vacations, NFL tickets, Dom Perignon champagne, "Girls Gone Wild" videos, and at least one sex change operation.
#24 Auditors discovered that 900,000 of the 2.5 million recipients of emergency Katrina assistance provided false names, addresses, or Social Security numbers or submitted multiple applications.
#49 The Conservation Reserve program pays farmers $2 billion annually not to farm their land.
Do you really think a government takeover of our healthcare system will reduce costs?
I agree with you on all of these except for #49. There's a lot more that goes in to the argument than what is stated. I'm sure there are tons of abuses, but the statement that farmers are paid not to farm their land may be true, but there's more to the story. It's because of the Feds meddling in the small family farmers way of life that there's no market for tobacco and many other crops. The subsidies they receive amount to about enough to pay the taxes on their land. Also, it's not an accurate comparison of net worth and income from farmers to other occupations. Land has value, but produces no income if it's not being farmed. Land value is part of their net worth.
ReplyDelete