One quintessential example of the waste, inefficiency and unaccountability of America’s ever-growing bureaucratic and regulatory “nanny state” occurs this time every year in the run-up to the 30th of September, which is when the federal government’s fiscal year ends. As that September deadline approaches, federal regulations actually dictate that our alphabet soup of federal agencies — DOT, EPA, HHS, etc. — must hurry up and spend every taxpayer dime allotted in their annual budget.
That is because one of those federal regulations forbids federal agencies from carrying over any surplus funds in their budgets from one fiscal year to the next. So, say you are the Environmental Protection Agency and your budget for the fiscal year 2014 was $8,200,000 (which it was), but, through some egregious oversight, you have only spent $7,200,000 as the fiscal year-end approaches. That means you have a choice — don’t spend the remaining $1 million and let it go back into the Treasury as a savings to the American taxpayer. Or quickly spend the $1 million.
So you quickly spend the $1 million. Why? Not only because human nature points you in that direction, but also because if you don’t spend your entire $8,200,000 budget, members of Congress might conclude that you don’t need an annual budget of $8,200,000 million, resulting in them cutting your budget in future fiscal years.
Which would set a terrible precedent! As a result, as this September’s deadline approached, the IRS spent $2.41 million on “toner products” (whatever they are), while the Department of Homeland Security spent $251,000 for “Aeron Mesh Task Chairs” (whatever they are) and $15,198 for two pianos.
Also on the last day of the fiscal year, the Department of Defense spent $5.5 billion on various and sundry items, and, according to the Fiscal Times, DoD officials also sent out a memo urging all Pentagon employees to speedily spend as much money as they could.
Not to be outdone, the State Department spent $5 million on crystal glassware for several embassies and $1 million on a granite art installation for our embassy in London. And if the State Department’s job is to entertain foreign diplomats in order to curry their favor, it did a bang-up job in September, spending $100,000 on booze that month. And talk about money well spent, the State Department also spent nearly $25,000 for 50-inch HD televisions for our embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan!
And then there is the Department of Veterans Affairs, which spent the better part of May and June steeped in scandal over its shoddy treatment — including death by neglect — of thousands of our military veterans. And so, as the fiscal-year deadline approached, the VA Department also spent the better part of $1.8 million on artwork.
