Senator from Oklahoma, creates his list of wasteful spending in Washington. As a ranking member of the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Senator Coburn has a ringside seat to some of the atrocities of U.S. government spending. His 2008 report, released in mid-December lists 65 examples of wasteful spending that add up to more than $1.3 billion in taxpayer money.
Budget insiders might say, "$1.3 billion is a drop in the bucket for a nation with a government budget of more than $3 trillion," but in a year when our U.S. government racked up more than $455 billion in deficit spending according to the Congressional Budget Office's Monthly Projections for November 2008, Senator Coburn's report is raising eyebrows on Capital Hill and beyond.
According to Senator Coburn's report, in 2008, the U.S. government provided wasteful spending for programs that continue to be ineffective, provided money to groups that mismanaged it, and subsidized programs that might be better left to the public sector.
For example, more than $39 million was provided to the National Drug Intelligence Center for the purpose of assisting federal agents with drug investigations, which according to Coburn and NDIC executives themselves, has been ineffective.
Other programs may sound like good ideas, but Senator Coburn and others in Washington question the federal government's role in funding them. For example, the federal government provided more than $300,000 to build a skate park in Los Angeles, and provided $66,000 for a "free bike library" in Fort Collins, Colorado. Although it's hard to argue the goodwill of such programs, the use of federal money in a year when so many needed programs go unfunded, is questionable.
Senator Coburn's report calls out some of the most egregious examples of wasteful spending, including:.
$9.4 million to search for outer space aliens. The California-based SETI Institute (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) received grants from several sources throughout the U.
