50 Government Wastes
by Brian Riedl
Issue 142 - October 28, 2009

With federal spending topping $33,000 per household, its past time to begin streamlining government. 

 Reforming expensive entitlement programs is most important. Yet building public credibility to reform Social Security and Medicare will be extraordinarily difficult if lawmakers cannot even first pick the low-hanging fruit of government waste.

Thus, lawmakers should immediately address wasteful spending such as the:

• $72 billion in improper payments annually
• $92 billion spent annually on corporate welfare (excluding TARP) versus $71 billion on homeland security
• $25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties
• $123 billion on programs in which government audits cannot find evidence of success
•  $2.6 million training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly on the job
• $350,000 to sponsor NASCAR driver David Gilliland; and
• $3.9 million rearranging desks and offices at the Securities and Exchange Commission headquarters.

“50 Examples of Government Waste” can be found at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm2642.cfm  (click pdf for printable version)

Brian Riedl is Senior Policy Analyst and Grover Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs at The Heritage Foundation.

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