Government Waste

Congress passed the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 that was intended to eliminate improper payments made by the federal government. The legislation also requires the General Accounting Office to issue an annual report on the effectiveness of the government in identifying and eliminating improper payments.

The report on Fiscal 2015 spending was recently released and the findings were not encouraging. Of the 15 agencies examined, the total improper payments were estimated to be $132 billion. This represents nearly 4% of all federal spending in Fiscal 2015. While these are only estimates, the percentage and amount is fairly consistent with prior years.

It's currently estimated the federal government made improper payments of $1.2 trillion between 2003 and 2016. This means that at least 5% of the $20 trillion national debt is a result of waste, fraud and abuse. To add more salt to the wound, there doesn't seem to be any major shift in the near future that will dramatically reduce the amount of improper payments.

What is your reaction to the federal government wasting more than $1 trillion because of financial mismanagement?