Update on the WH's Campaign to Cut USG Waste

Ummmmm- actually not much to report here.

As predicted, the loudly touted Campaign to Cut Waste has failed to yield much by way of results. Nearly four months after it was announced via Executive Order, the Campaign has come up with savings which, when dissected, are of questionable value.

Highlighted by the Administration are:

*Department of Health and Human Services anti-fraud measures, using authority granted by Obamacare, to recover some $2.1 billion in improper claims.  Now that's a serious number, and if it were a legitimate decrease in spending or increase in revenues it would be laudable.  But a skeptical question comes to mind: is this $2.1 billion in savings money that never would have been wasted had Obamacare not been in place?

*Labor Department savings of $17 billion by decreasing the number of improper unemployment claims.  This number assumes one-hundred percent recovery of all fraudulent claims- a pure pipe dream.  Hilariously, the report cites giving three grants out to investigate fraud as an example of curbing waste!  Ya gotta spend money to make money, I suppose?

*Homeland Security "completed efficiency reviews of 36 initiatives resulting in changes such as converting print publications to online only....."  It seems every time someone sensible says "cut the size of the USG" the bureaucrats in power respond with "we'll find a way to make existing operations more efficient."  Two or three months later they come back to announce a few forms have been digitized and meetings will become virtual (save for conferences which include per diem).  This is not substantial or even notable savings.  It is status quo.  This is a decent action by a mid-level manager, not a major success the VP should be touting.

*The fact that the Census Bureau is consolidating field offices.  Which makes sense, given the census concluded last year.

*Department of Agriculture reporting a "record low error rate in food stamps."  Does a "low error rate" equate to cutting waste?  That's improved competency, not getting rid of unnecessary services.

That little fact is at the root of my complain here.  All of these changes, except the Census Bureau, simply entail improving the efficiency of existing services.  Improved efficiency is commendable, but the our present debt dilemma is not going to be solved by running government on a cheaper grade of gasoline.  We need to actually cut certain, unneeded parts of the USG.

Only the Office of Management and Budget came back with something close to what we need: reported progress in shutting down federal data centers.  Pueblo, Colorado should be known as the home of child actor Kelly Reno (The Black Stallion), not a federal information distribution center- which sound Orwellian, since it came up.

The only way to actually cut waste in the USG is to cut the USG.  These tiny, peripheral, cosmetic changes will do nothing to change our underlying problem: the government does too much at too high a cost.  Even if we were to cut that cost, we would still have Washington doing too much.

Cut the military-industrial complex excess.  Cut entitlements.  Cut the nonsense.