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The Public Policy
A Drop Here, A Drop There
Amazing how a drop in the budgetary bucket is soon worth millions and billions.
Suggest that getting rid of waste in a particular government program would result in a savings of X millions of dollars and the typical Washington green eyeshade type (or Democrat lawmaker, if it doesn’t fit his agenda) will scoff that it’s but “a drop in the bucket” —hardly worth fooling with. They forget the late Senator Everett Dirksen’s dictum, “A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”
The latest case involves the revelation that the Internal Revenue Service paid out half-a-billion dollars to first-time home buyers who weren’t. You’ll recall that this was part of the Obama 2009 “economic recovery” program, designed to jump-start home sales. First-time buyers would get credits of up to $8,000. Congress sweetened the pot by giving $6,500 to current owners who traded up to a new home.
The IRS’s inspector general recently reported finding that some credits went to prison inmates, to people who did not buy homes and others who bought before the credit program became law. In all, the IRS paid our $29 billion to more than four million people. To its credit, it denied the claims of more than 400,000. That the program did not make an appreciable difference in the housing market is not, of course, the fault of the IRS, but of incorrect policy planning of the Obama Administration and its Congressional allies. Nevertheless, tighter vetting of claims could have saved several bucketsful of taxpayer funds.
Another periodic example of drops in the bucket that add up to bucketsful are the reports of credit card abuse by government employees. The green eyeshade wearers tired of poring over expense claims for travel, so came up with the idea of distributing credit cards, then auditing their usage afterward. Not all, but some of users succumbed to temptation and ran up charges for theater tickets, clothing, personal travel, spa treatments, and expensive meals. This is the sort of outcome most folks out in Taxpayer Land would have predicted, had they been asked. The solution (and the saving of many “drops”): pre-approval of expense requests.
A source of a steady flood of drops into the bucket stopped in January: It is the lavish use of an Air Force 737 to transport then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi from Washington to her home in San Francisco and back.
Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request that resulted in a detailed Air Force accounting of her use of an aircraft over a 16-month period in 2009 and 2010. Ninety-five percent of the her trips were commutes from home to work. Total mileage: 206,264, an average of 2,427 per trip. The passenger list often included her adult children, grandchildren, in-laws, friends and family retainers. The cost of in-flight food and alcohol was $62,051 a year, more than the average American makes in that time.
As for today’s Speaker, John Boehner, he flies commercial.
The drop-in-the-bucket theory is not restricted to Washington. In California, it was recently announced that the state would no longer lease hang-the-expense automobiles for legislators, nor would they any longer have unrestricted use of gasoline credit cards. It was if the sky had fallen.
With California still facing a deficit of about $13 billion, it doesn’t seem like a lot to ask the legislators to set an example by driving their own automobiles and be reimbursed for legitimate business travel. Alas, no, this was too big a sacrifice. After all, cutting out this perquisite would provide only a drop in the bucket toward reducing that deficit. Better to raise taxes, they said.
About the Author
Peter Hannaford was closely associated for a number of years with the late President Reagan, beginning in the California Governor’s office. His latest book is Presidential Retreats.
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 4.29.11 @ 6:23AM
And this is precisely why the Republicans should have let the government shut down.
There is so much corruption, fraud and waste, the Republicans would have looked better if they simply demanded to cut that alone. They asked for little and got next to nothing.
It's becoming rather obvious that the Tea Party is a perceived albatross around the Republican Party's neck and that if the truth be known the Republicans are most likely keeping their fingers crossed in the next election cycle that the Tea Partiers go away.
I suspect that some in the Republican leadership will be gone after the next election cycle. It's not so much that they are weak, they apparently haven't got a clue how to proceed with honor.
Dee See| 4.29.11 @ 7:20AM
MEANWHILE, the illegal FED, fractional
reserve lending and those 1.4 quadrillion in
fake derivatives ---------------------------------
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 4.29.11 @ 9:07AM
As some of you here know, I'm in the Army right now, so I see and hear about some of the waste going on within the Military, but I've got to tell you, the wasteful spending isn't making it down to my particular Unit. In my Company, we've got to make a collection at least once a month, just to buy gas for our lawnmowers (which are being held together with duct tape, and plastic ties, alright, that's a slight exaggeration there, but they're not very nice at all!!), so that we can fill up the tanks, just to cut the grass for Battalion. Now I drive down the road just a little bit here on Base, and I see "other" parts of the Base, having their grass cut with new riding lawnmowers, or having Civilians cutting the grass for them, instead of the Joe's. So I guess in the Army all Companies are created equal, but some are a little more equal than others? Now I've been in the Army now for about a decade, and I've used my travel card only once in all that time, for a trip, that I begged my First Sergeant not to send me on, but he wouldn't listen to me, and sent me anyway (and it sucked, and wasn't worth the money they spent for it). It turned into a drinking party, which I suspected it would, and I don't drink, so it sucked!! So the higher up the food chain you go in the Military, the nicer the lawns and lawnmowers look, but even down here, at the "poor" Company Level, the grass still gets cut, even if the gas comes out of our own wallets. So whenever you hear anyone saying there can't be cuts in the Military Budget, they don't know what they're talking about. The "richer" parts of the Military, they can cut the grass just like we do in the "poor" parts, plus it's good for getting a nice tan for the summer!! And a lot of these Travel Card expenses are just totally frivolous, haven't they ever heard of the telephone? Not all meetings have to be face to face!! So skip the Airfare, the Rental Car, the Hotel Room, the Restaurant Bills, and make a phone call instead (they also have Video Teleconferencing now too, and it's much cheaper)!! And there's so much more waste, but I've got to get ready to go to work today, the damn grass doesn't cut itself, don't you know? Cut everybody's budget, cut budgets everywhere!! Cut here, cut now!!
Occam's Tool| 4.29.11 @ 7:35PM
Actually, it is a privilege to be taxed so that your lawns are properly mowed, LLL.
This does not hold true for subsidizing Barney (the purple Dinosaur or Frank).
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 4.30.11 @ 9:30AM
Thanks OT: But my lawn mowing example, is just my personal example of the drop(s) in the bucket, he was referring too, a lawn here, and a lawn there, and pretty soon you're talking about some real grass. The Soldiers can mow "all" the lawns here, as well as any hired contractors could (and a lot cheaper too) Hell it's a right of passage in the Army!! When you're a Private, you're out mowing the lawns in the summer (and complaining about the Sergeants who picked you to do it), and then as you move up in the ranks, you're still out there "supervising" the mowing of the lawn (and yelling at the Privates for complaining about you making them mow it). It's a vicious cycle, but it's as eternal as the grass growing!!
Now from the recent rumors I've heard about here, we're going to be hearing from the aforementioned Barney (The "Purple" Dinosaur?) very soon. I think he's going to be the Instructor, when the Army starts implementing its new policies, now that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Law has been replace. I swear, I'm not going to speak my real opinion about this new Law to Barney, because I don't want him to break into a song on me. I'd rather mow the lawn, than to be forced to listen to a bad Broadway type song!!
MATT M.| 4.29.11 @ 9:47AM
This is the same argument used against drilling for oil and gas. "If we started today we wouldn't have more gas and oil for years, so it wouldn't do any good."
If we had started drilling back when the Peanut Farmer was the National Porch Monkey we wouldn't have had it for "years" but we would have it NOW.
Steve A| 4.29.11 @ 10:47AM
Matt, Right on. I would love to be confronted with this argument were I a Conservative politician. Socialist Cap & Tax Tree Hugger: " If you drill now it will take 10 years." Me: " So, you are admitting we should have ignored your nonsense 10 years ago? I will go ahead & get started ignoring you today so we do not need to revisit this one 10 years from now. "
Additionally: Campaign slogan for 2012 GOP nominee. When Obama tells the country that Bush ran the car in the ditch, you reply: " Correct. Bush & the Democratic Congress ran it in the ditch. Now, you took over & 4 years later we are still in the ditch but the battery is dead & we are out of gas."
Al Adab| 4.29.11 @ 11:14AM
You guys have your finger on it. Lack of long term vision for short term political gain is what got us in this fix. Several solutions including zero based budgeting would be helpful in finding our way out. base next years budget on this years actual net receipts, not on mandated increases and projected revenue. At the same time, develop the oil fields, the shale reserves, refineries and nucleat plants. Stop penalizing success through taxation while rewarding indigence. All of this comes together to create a more rational national government and the states right now are helping lead the way.
Occam's Tool| 4.29.11 @ 7:33PM
Indeed, El Adab.
jolizoom| 4.29.11 @ 10:21PM
Wonderful ideas. It'll never happen.
George S| 4.29.11 @ 12:28PM
Look at the other side of the argument from the point of view of Joe Citizen: why deny me my benefit, it's just a drop in the bucket. Every lobbyist and special interest group always has a ready excuse that their benefit is meager compared to the overall budget picture, and they make a sympathetic case to lawmakers when their pie is cut but not the other guy's. But it adds up. You either have to cut everybody off or it doesn't work.
PattyMor| 4.29.11 @ 4:25PM
If the Rats do not extract significant savings NEAR TERM, the Republic is basically lost and we all become serfs. Yoked to the burden of debt. Too poor to be able to afford our own benefits and left to beg for benefits from the destitute gov'ment. At the same time there seems to be enough money to fund food stamps for illegal aliens and benefits for welfare queens. As always, its about the priorities. But a gov'ment willing to borrow money to fund Cowboy Poetry,
Planned Parenthood, Nat'l Endowment for the Arts, NPR, ACORN, and PBS (when we have literally 150 stations to watch) is a gov'ment that refuses to priortize.
As part of the Tea Party, I've begun funding my candidates for 2012. I will continue to oust the Ruling Class as best I can. But we are running out of time.
Dee See| 4.29.11 @ 10:50PM
---Now start making those plans to march on
the New York office of the FED, and the headquarters of the TAX FREE, ultra-rich,
EUGENICS driven, capstone foundations
------this July 4th.
Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 9:38PM
is good