Quote:
Originally Posted by djplong
Richie, I'll help you out here. For one, I would start by gathering up every federal study done on fraud and waste. But even to start with that might be a bit daunting.
Tell you what - a little Googling found this:
Fraud and Abuse in Federal Programs | Downsizing the Federal Government
It's from the CATO Institute. While I might not agree with their politics (if I remember them correctly and I might not), anti-fraud measures should be something we ALL agree on. |
Good article, djp.
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the second largest privately held company by revenue in the United States. Koch and his brother are huge contributors to the most conservative causes and candidates.
So what does Cato say about waste and fraud? They estimate the amount of "improper payments" among all the varioius government programs to total about $100 billion per year. That amounts to 2.8% of federal spending.
Whoops! We better keep looking, Richie. We're not going to balance the budget by just eliminating waste and fraud. Looks like we'll have to cut stuff that affects all of our lives, including the entitlements that somehow have escaped the scrutiny of our feckless Congress.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaleMN
Richie, How about we cut it all from Social Security & Medicare? That should get widespread support.  |
Yeah, Dale. Richie says the government should stay out of our lives, that everyone should take care of themselves. So that would be a good idea...eliminate Social Security and Medicare. Richie says that the government can't run programs like that anyway. And hey, if you cut just those two programs the budget would be balanced. Voila!