The Pentagon failed its seventh consecutive audit recently as the agency was unable to fully account for its massive $824 billion budget, according to a report by Fox News and other national media outlets.
This seems typical of things we have heard through the years.
The government spent $600 for a hammer and $700 for a toilet seat. I am not sure these figures are factual, but I would not doubt it.
These are just a couple of examples of government waste.
President-elect Donald Trump is pledging to put a stop to this waste. He plans to found the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with billioniare Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in charge of cutting the ridiculous waste in Washington.
Statistics from the Treasury Department show that the government spent $6.75 trillion in fiscal year 2024, which resulted in a huge deficit.
Trump said in his announcement that the office would “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before,” according to Business Insider.
Musk stated during a Trump rally before the election that he would identify at least $2 trillion in spending cuts, which would amount to nearly one-third of total government spending, according to the report.
Ramaswamy said many federal employees do not even report for work or go to an office. He is sure that once they are ordered to show up at work in person, this will eliminate much of the waste.
“If you literally just mandated that they have to show up for work, Monday through Friday, a radical idea, a good number of them would quit that way,” Ramaswamy said. He believes that about 25% of the workforce would be lost this way without needing to fire anyone.
Reportedly, many offices are rented, and utilities are being paid for, but no one is working in those spaces. If this is true, and it probably is, then that will cut a huge part of the federal government waste.
Ramaswamy, during his campaign for president, said he would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Education.
“There is massive waste, fraud and abuse right now,” Ramaswamy recently said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. “Federal contractors are really exploiting the federal government.”
“We expect certain agencies to be deleted outright,” Ramaswamy told Fox News. “We expect mass reduction in force in areas of the federal government that are bloated. We expect massive cuts among federal contractors and others who are overbilling the federal government.”
One longtime Kentucky senator has long been outspoken about this waste. U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), who is a ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has released reports in the past on needless spending and government waste.
If you do the research, you can find many ridiculous ways federal officials have spent money. It may just blow your mind and it will probably leave you scratching your head. It could also make you angry.
There is no doubt there is a tremendous amount of wasteful spending in our government. If President Trump, along with Musk and Ramaswamy, get to work that will soon change.
Until next time.
(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the newspaper’s management, staff or ownership.