ICYMI: GOP Senator Unveils 'Naughty List' of Federal Agencies Wasting American Tax Dollars
Our U.S. government wastes a lot of money. It is money that we taxpayers worked hard for and could use ourselves.
I conclude this because according to the Government Accountability Office, as cited by CNBC, improper payments cost the U.S. government at least $247 billion each year. That’s a huge chunk of change to misappropriate. Anyone who really cared about the people or that money wouldn’t allow this to happen.
The GAO estimates $2.4 trillion have gone missing over the past two decades. The slap in the face continues as oversight reports from nonprofits and lawmakers like Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, unravel more wasteful practices.
Paul’s annual Festivus Report from 2022 highlighted plenty of wasteful spending. This includes $3 million spent by the National Institute of Health on a study where they watched hamsters fight while injected with steroids and $1.7 billion spent on maintaining empty government buildings.
Rand isn’t the only one highlighting how irresponsible the U.S. government is with taxpayer money. Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa and Chair of the Senate Republican Policy Committee since 2023, has recently shared a “naughty list” that she put together corroborating Rand’s disgust regarding the continued funding of empty government buildings. Ernst called Biden’s bureaucrats out.
In a press conference on Dec. 5, Ernst showed the American people what percentage of office space is being used by federal agencies. Ernst explained that, during COVID, many federal agencies temporarily shut down their offices and allowed their employees to work from home.
The panic over COVID, however, has long been over. Ernst stated, “COVID’s been over for years. Where are the workers?”
Most of the federal employees within these agencies continue to remain at home. Ernst recognizes this and stated, “But today, not a single agency has an occupancy rate of even 50 percent. That’s abysmal.”
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Ernst stated the Biden administration doesn’t want taxpayers to know any of this nor which agencies are on her naughty list. She said, “The Biden administration really doesn’t want the public to see the naughty list of no-shows.”
That, alone, hasn’t stopped her from uncovering the truth for the American people. I gather it actually fueled her even more to do her job in this regard.
Quite a list it is. “This is information we did get through a request with the Biden administration,” Ernst pointed out.
Leading the list of “Naughty List No Shows,” based on the square footage currently being used by each individual agency is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. They use only 7 percent of their office space.
“No one’s home at HUD,” Ernst remarked. It’s a reality laden with enormous expense and waste.
Equally so is the meager amount of office space being used by the Social Security Administration, which is also 7 percent. The lack of accountability reminds me of the billions we’ve given to Ukraine.
I can’t help but imagine where some of those funds have actually gone with no real oversight there, and the same goes for this particular situation. It ignites a subsequent question of bloat beyond the mere D.C. buildings alone. Maybe we actually only need a HUD team that occupies 7 percent of the building to carry on operations.
In questioning where all the workers are, Ernst suggested the sale of the buildings if these agencies don’t intend to bring their employees back to work in them. “So if we are not going to bring workers back, folks, let’s get rid of this space. It’s costing our taxpayers a lot of money,” Ernst said.
“Use it or lose it,” is what Ernst stated in her new proposal. No doubt, Paul is on her side.
Frankly, I must believe that the American people are tired of being taken to the cleaners by their own government. The policing by the citizens has become exhausting. It demonstrates how very few of our representatives are working in our best interest and drives us to believe that we need to gut more than these buildings.
This is especially in the face of Bidenomics which is costing the average family an extra $11,400 annually to afford the basics. We need to shed worthless expenses, beginning at the top, as Biden is not only worthless, in my opinion, he’s costing us our entire country to boot.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
