Article 72. Examining the Results of Government Waste
If you define government waste as the inefficient use of government resources most state governments would be relatively efficient when compared to the federal government. In deed a whooping fifty percent of the nations tax dollars could go to federal government waste. Now that Senator William Proxmire is gone there is no one to give the Golden Fleece awards for government waste. The waste is so rampant that hardly anyone pays any attention any more. But there are different degrees of waste at the Federal Government level. Let’s define government waste according to who benefits and what results occur through waste.
First if the wasted tax dollars are expended within America’s borders the money gets recycled back into the economy and ultimately contributes to the economy of the state where the waste occurred. This waste is generally defined as Pork if it brings some benefit to the state. It may also be lost by lining the packets dubious persons and contractors but it ultimately finds its way back into the economy.
If the waste occurs abroad however our economy experiences no benefit and the result is a capital loss to the nation. Obviously waste which occurs in a foreign country has a greater negative impact on our economy than waste within our borders. This means that foreign aid and military bases abroad which are technically not considered as waste should be monitored scrupulously because waste benefits the economy of a foreign nation and not our own. But if it ends up in some dictator’s bank account it only benefits the dictator. We have always bribed dictators to gain some political advantage. I would define this as probably one of the worst forms of waste. Regardless of short term benefits it represents a significant capital loss to our country as well as the nation under the dictatorship. This is the case in Africa where many nations are saddled with heavy debt loads which occurred when dictators absconded with funds from monetary loans to the nations. Thus leaving these countries unable to pay debts from which they did not benefit.
The bottom line is that government waste although reprehensible is not equally bad but waste in foreign nations is the worst. We have been talking about pure waste that is easily defined and therefore it would seam to be more easily prevented. All out efforts must be expended specially by the Federal government to prevent waste before efficiency methods can be applied to government processes. How can we even think of operating efficiently with this level of waste going on around us. It is unfortunate that the tax dollars wasted at the Federal level is badly needed at the state level.
