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Subscribe to RSSWhat if a member of Congress pulls strings to make sure that a state gets money for a road project, but that road never gets built? The state loses the money, which it could have used for another project.
USA Today investigative writer Gregory Korte and NBC's Tom Costello found that this sort of careless good intentions are commonplace. One out of every three dollars that Congress has earmarked for highway projects over the past 20 years has gone unspent. It adds up to $13 billion of unspent money, in effect trapped in projects that never got built.
Here's a link to Korte's original article, which gives the amount each state has lost to these “orphan earmarks.”
As Korte describes one example:
Almost 13 years ago, Rep. David McIntosh, R-Ind., directed $375,000 in federal funding "to improve State Road 31" in Columbus, Ind., a city at the edge of his district.
The McIntosh "earmark" seemed routine at the time, like almost 2,000 other congressional pet projects that lawmakers inserted into the 1998 highway bill. But there was a problem: "There is no State Road 31 that travels through Columbus, only U.S. 31," says Will Wingfield, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation.
The cost?
The money not only remains unspent, but because Congress counts money earmarked for highway projects against a state's share of federal gas tax revenue, the amount of the earmark reduced what Indiana would have received in federal funding — almost dollar for dollar.
Below are two videos, Costello's report for Nightly News as well as Korte discussing his findings:
While many members of the incoming congress have made it clear they want to do away with earmarks, an NBC News/USA Today investigation has found that billions of dollars allocated for those projects over the past 20 years have gone unspent. NBC's Tom Costello reports.
USA Today Investigative writer Gregory Korte discusses congressionally earmarked funds for road projects that have been wasted, while other bridges and roads are crumbling.
Most of this is money the Federal Government should have never had to begin with. I am all for everyone paying his fair share, but local taxes are usually spent with more care than federal earmarks. The whole system is broken.
Send it back to China and lets start paying them back.
That is all.
Politicians are like diapers, they often need to be changed for all the same reasons!
Should we expect any less from these dunder heads and their red tape.
"One out of every three dollars that Congress has earmarked for highway projects over the past 20 years has gone unspent. It adds up to $13 billion of unspent money, in effect trapped in projects that never got built."
Some good news for a 'change'. That's $13 Billion our kids and grandkids won't have to repay - with the interest saved, it's probably more like $20 Billion.
This is humorous. They bum the money from taxpayers for projects that never get done. Actually, that is a net net. No money went anywhere. I can't believe the accountancy that our country does. In theory, a country should set a budget and tax accordingly. How did these "men and women of honor" ever screw this thing up so badly. When I type the whole thing out--$14,000,000,000,000.00 in debt--it's crazy. Why did they let it go this far? Why do we have to be the "super-power" that polices the world? We are no longer the "Big Guys" on the block. We're dirt poor. Is there a World Bankruptcy Court that would let the US file a Chapter 7? We could give up all the Presidential Libraries in return. I don't think anyone--Washington, (slave owner) and forward has done their best.
They have all sucked.
rather humorous. I have a friend how worked fot the USDA who always said that their was a big rush to spend $ at the end of the fiscal year on anything buyable. As I thought this to be strange I asked him why the USDA couldn't just hold it over into the next year so to buy something they really needed. His reply... If we don't spend it now our next years budget will be reduced by what we didn't spend. And some wonder why we run a deficit.
Wouldn't it have made sense to reward them for being frugal? This whole thing sucks--
Back in the 1980s at an air station that will go nameless, the same sort of thing was commonplace. The command had additional funds in the operations budget at the end of the year that they had to spend, or would be taken off their budget for the following year. What did they do? The department bought 400 flight suits. No big deal..... but there were only 12 pilots in the operations department at the time.
The 400 dollar hammers were cheaper......
American
That is commonplace in all areas of the Government. They spend/waste money so that they can have the same or bigger budget the next year.
FlyNavy
Every post I have ever been at did the same. We used to have to go to the range and burn off all the ammo just before the end of each fiscal year. I have always loved to shoot so it was great for me but still seemed a huge waste when the higher ups were not concerned with making sure the soldiers could hit the broad side of a barn just as long as we had no brass no ammo at the end of the day.
I also closed a post in Germany in 1997. I was responsible for closing Kirchgoens, (the Rock). If you want to see how the Military can waste money, try turning in property that was bought illegally (Officer used Training Funds). I was told to throw away, as in have it taken to the land fill, millions of dollars in furniture purchased to fill the barracks for an entire Infantry Battalion. This was nice matching oak sets for every soldier living in the barracks not the regular run of the mill furniture that most units have. The warehouses would not take it and I had to have the post closed by the 30th of Sept. To take it to the landfill would cost transportation costs, plus thousands in costs for the land fill to accept the furniture. Instead I found a school that had lost a lot of desks and chairs in a fire and took those items to them. I had beds taken to local battered women's shelters. In other words I found a home for everything the Army would not take back.
I saved the Army thousands in extra costs. Turned in every item on the entire post including hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property that wasn't supposed to be there. Turned the post over to the Host Government on time and way under budget and did it with minimum manpower.
Had I listened to the "experts" from Hanau, Weisbaden, Heidelberg, and the post closing crew from Frankfurt I would have been up to my neck in Reports of Survey and would never have been on time.
The bottom line is there is waste in every branch of the Government and it should be a duty for each individual to find ways to do things without wasting tax payers dollars. I think there should be private citizens that are able to do oversight in every part of the government and any ways they find to cut costs or stop fraud waste and abuse should be given a dollar cost estimate and the person stopping that fraud waste and abuse should get a percentage saved. I would bet that there would be billions of dollars saved!
Yes Sucks is the word and we live in the sucky country.................Wife worked in govt and all you read is TRUE
Thank you for seeing it as it really was: waste. You gave it to those in need, instead of burying it in a landfill and feeding the soil microbes.
Hey American...
Check your local school district... 10 out of 10 times... they do the exactly the same thing... It happens in State governments as well.... This is why we have a Debt of 14 Trillion... Everybody has been cooking the books for the last 100 Years....
Ps... We were debt free in 1865... and Never a day since then.... And everyone calls themselves a Conservative.... LOL LOL LOL!!
Americans have become a "throw away" society. Everyone figures it's cheaper to "buy new" than it is to have anything fixed! Alas this is often true.
Watch repairmen are a dying breed (of course this is also due to "ever smaller handheld devices"!) TV & small appliance repairmen are going going almost gone . . . With the economic downturn, shoe repairmen have been given a slight reprieve as they were also on the brink of extinction.
QUALITY goods have given way to CHEAP - and often poorly made products. CONSUMERISM at its best . . . or worst.
Have to agree that there must be more vigilant and diligent oversight of WASTEFUL SPENDING.
But is the UNSPENT EARMARK MONEY floating around in limbo year after year? The article made it sound like it was NOT reallocated elsewhere? Are they "reabsorbed" into the budget? However if the road funds went unspent - it probably indicates that the pet projects were not "overly in need" in the first place! Meanwhile the "truly in need of repair" infrastructure in America continues crumbling away. Yes, our tax dollars at work . . . or NOT.
here are some additional highlights from the original USA Today article
'Earmarks' to nowhere: States losing billions on ORPHAN EARMARKS
The McIntosh 'earmark' seemed routine at the time, like almost 2,000 other congressional pet projects that lawmakers inserted into the 1998 highway bill. But there was a problem: There is no State Road 31The error hurt all of Indiana and has wrapped the earmark in red tape to this day. The money not only remains unspent, but because Congress counts money earmarked for highway projects against a state's share of federal gas tax revenue, the amount of the earmark reduced what Indiana would have received in federal funding — almost dollar for dollarThe problem is so pervasive that almost 1 in 3 highway dollars earmarked since 1991 — about $13 billion — remains unspentThe federal government treats an unspent earmark like an undated check that could be cashed at any timeDuring the past 20 years, orphan earmarks reduced the amount of money that states would have received in federal highway funding by about $7.5 billion, USA TODAY found. That's $7.5 billion that states could have used to replace obsolete bridges, repair aging roads and bring jobs to rural areas." that money never gets spent," Pennsylvania Governor Rendell says. "Most of this money is doing nobody any good."Heth's Run Bridge in Pittsburgh was built in 1914. An $11 million planned upgrade could make use of "orphan earmark" funds that are held up on other projects.
Last May, Governor Rendell listed 449 bridges and 806 miles of road projects in Pennsylvania that are unfunded because of what he calls a "transportation funding crisis."
Earmarks outlive sponsors . . . Fixing an orphan earmark is difficult, too. A sitting member of Congress can sometimes correct a typographical error with a letter to the Department of Transportation clarifying his or her intent — or, for bigger problems, insert a new project into a technical corrections bill. But once the earmark sponsor leaves Congress, fixing the problem is almost impossible.Efforts to get Congress to free up the orphan earmarks have proved fruitless, as former U.S. Transportation secretary Mary Peters will attest. "We said to Congress, 'Give us the authority to pull this money back in and redistribute it,' " she says. "And they said no."Some earmarked money has been sitting idle for decades.Oberstar, who was chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, was supporting a bill that would have canceled more than $700 million in orphan earmarks from 1987 on.
Obama's proposed 2011 budget would cancel $263 million in orphan earmarks that were more than 20 years old.oops my bad!! editing run amok lol
here are some additional highlights from the original USA Today article 'Earmarks' to nowhere: States losing billions on ORPHAN EARMARKS
well still not as planned unless anyone likes run on sentences!!
. . . this is what happens when one blogs while watching the morning news;-)
mea culpa
These are the IDIOTS we put in office. Then after years of wasting our money they retire on a fat pension. Does any body besides me something wrong here? Instead of being on a pension most of them should be in jail for throwing away hard earned tax money like it was theirs to through away.
I am starting to get the feeling that when I hear the words--"I am here today to declare my candidacy---", I think--in advance, How much are you going to pi$$ away? and Are there any jobs that you can't ship overseas?
sandtrich
Yea like the $98 million dollar contract for the making of TSA uniforms that was bidded to overseas companies in China and Mexico
the whole system is corupt . You cannot get elected to office without huge amounts of money, whoever puts up the money does it so their interests are taken care of. All the earmarks are, is office holders paying for your vote, they dont even lie about it." Vote for me, I got all these funds for our state".
the sad thing is , the money they bribe us with is ours to begin with. or borrowed from us
the only way to stop it is to set a spending limit and have the government supply the funds. no special interest, no outside spending .
I do not trust these folks to manage a fish bowl.
Rephrase there LAOS DEO should be Empty Fish bowl.
So where's the money? Or where's the credit for not using it? Its got to be sitting somewhere,think of how many citizens could have benefitted that if the earmarks are NOT used,it goes to the local government services programs? More health-care for kids/adults? Food/shelter for homeless? Help save families from foreclosure? Use it to bounce the idiotic politicians out of the state?
Unfortunately, it usually goes into the states general fund and can be spent by the state legislature for any of "Their Earmark Projects". Trust me, it is already spent and long gone. They don't let it sit in the bank drawing interest.
Looking for Truth
Exactly. That money has been spent on someone else's pet projects somewhere else in the State or Federal Govt.
In regards to the USDA, I recently applied for food stamps, which is funded by the USDA, who pays the state, who pays the county, who pays the city to administer the program. Something tells me that a HUGE portion of money meant to go to hungry Americans are going to Administrators who drag their feet and treat needy people like they are giving away their paychecks to us. Nothing in our country or our government is done in a fiscally prudent manner as long as we keep electing the same greedy rich guys over and over again.
Nick, I don't think any federal agency has their priority's in order these days.. On behalf of my employer, I had to call the unemployment agency yesterday, the woman on the other end of the phone was down right rude, crude and obnoxious. I was transferred around that agency to 5 different people because each one of them didn't handle my issue. I finally got transferred to a voice mail and left a message telling them that I needed to get my problem resolved because there were human beings depending on those UI checks to buy groceries to feed their families. An hour later a tech returned my call and as it turned out, it was their internal tax department that created the problem. They act as if UI checks come right out of their pockets...
Our Federal Government is one of the most dysfunctional and disorganized organizations there is.. And the State Governments are only 2 steps behind them...
That is due to the extraordinarily large size. Peter and Paul don't communicate anymore, they just think they know what the other is doing.
I was at a DES office in Willcox, AZ and saw three vehicles with plates that started with G and had a combination of five numbers after it. This indicates to me that the employees are all driving vehicles that belong to the Government and we pay for it. Since when do people sitting in the DES office all day need a vehicle that is provided by the Government, possibly with paid insurance. What else are we getting gouged for?
In regards to not spending money earmarked for improvement projects, FIRE the state/county controllers who are too lazy or stupid to realize they have millions/billions to spend on infrastructure and create jobs. I've worked in a government accounting office and the most important part of a government officials job is to figure out what to have for lunch, how can I make it last 4 hours, who can I take and how can I charge it to an expense account. After lunch, it's about leaving early to go have dinner and drinks with politicians. BTW, does anyone know anyone personally who has ever been fired from a government job?
As a matter of fact, I do know some one that was sudo fired. When I got out of the military in 1973 I took a job at the VA Hospital in Atlanta. I worked in the file room, (keeping in mind-well before computers as you know). My boss hired a hooker, let her in the file room and he was getting a hummer, (not the failed GM product). He had this old white lady as a boss. She was batty as hell. She walked into the file room and went back to his office and screamed at the top of her voice. He was "allowed" to resign. I remember fights, drinking and drug use on the job, rarely showing up. It really takes a conscience effort to get fired from a government job--talking extra effort.
yes I actually do know a guy who was escorted away from his cubicle in a county office building i'm not sure something about the lady in the next cubucle and a ball bat and her panties and the details really don't matter i get your point that it's nearly impossible to get canned from a government job ut some people seem to need to go the distance...
Seriously, once, about 20 years ago and he got fired for fighting. I have been a federal employee since 1980 (left for about 14 years) and firing anyone is practically unheard of. The workload in most agencies is disporportionate; many are very overworked while others just warm seats. The whole federal work system needs to be overhauled.
That's why we have toll roads popping up everywhere. The Federal Government built highways with TAX dollars (yes, they've been collecting them forever...) during the first 35 years of my life. Now they can't build any new roads without also installing toll booths or electronic toll systems. So we get to pay taxes AND toll charges, where taxes alone used to be enough. I call that "highway" robbery.
Sorry, but REALITY IS TELLING US TO SCRAP BIG GOVERNMENT, big government projects, and get back to the basics. That means some people who sit at home and collect their "paychecks" are going to have to get off their butts and work - that is, if they want to eat. Nancy Pelosi and her ilk need to be kicked out of government and barred for life. We can't afford the Washington nonsense any more; the only question is, will the revolution be with or without violence? I pray that the rule of law will prevail.
Friend--that's your state collecting those tolls and using the money--not the bigger crooks
The Federal Governtment charges a gas tax, the states also charge a gas tax, and any toll booths belong to the state. Sounds like Taxation without representation to me.
Agree with "SANDTRICH"-!!!So these dollars set aside for a project that never happened, this was part of the federal budget, was it not? So where did these dollars go? To whom??? Which coverup is in place right now??? Folks need to realize that government as currently designed and operated is totally dysfunctional and is a broken system that probably needs major revision! All for one and one for all concept doesn't work here.
So, $13 billion didn't get spent. Sorry for your loss. I am happy.
I'll admit 13 billion is a fair sum of money but it's a drop in the bucket in the scope of things. I want to see some investigative reporting on the massive military boondoggles. You know, things like a $50,000 missiles to kill 1 "alleged" terrorist, 3 women and 4 kids. Or 100 million dollar fighters chasing a guy on a dirt bike. Military budget, including "off the books" spending is in the area of 1 trillion. Way, way too many fat cat jobs with big salaries and out of control pension/benefit plans.
I really suspect any reporter trying touch that sacred cow will be looking for work in a week.
What they need to do is hire a competent auditing firm--go through every department and find the loads of waste. Take all the youth graduating from college and give them the jobs of the thieves that they would get to fire. Reduced salaries and forgive part of their student loans.
No one should be able to attach riders on a bill- period!
No earmarks for anyone!
The sad part is "THEY" will now form a committee to "study" this problem(?)
. . . and the "study" will end up costing more than the original earmarks!
and then they will have to form another committee to "decide what to do" about the findings of the first committee? and on . . . and on . . . and on
alas all talk . . . never any action.
our government in "inaction" (state - county - local - feds . . . take your pick - it's all dysfunctional)
Here is one perfect reason why we need our reporters be able to dig as far and low as possible to tell us what is happening in our government. There are pet projects that do not warrant public funding until security and trade secret conserns areaddressed. For example: few US universities with research grant coming to them as pet projects do not allocate the fund to professors with appropriate security clearance and national interest. As a result, a research that is funded by US tax payers ends up at the desk of a Taiwanese, Chinese, Indian, German, and Islamic countries manufacturers before a US manufacturers even heard of the project. That puts the US technological lead behind despite the fact the US public funded the project.
More like he will be found in a dumpster.
they say the intitlement programs like ssi and medicare is cripling the economy' but i say baby boomers that are retired, didnt ask for anything for free, we saved for our retirement benefits with ssi deductions from our paychecks. the bastards took my money and baught a yat with it or gave it to some @!$%# to study why snails leave a slimy trail. bail out banks,crap just payback what you stole from us and we wont bother you anymore
NOV. of 2010, we removed a lot of republican incumbents in the primaries, they can take care of business, or they will be gone in the primaries in 2012.
Oh yeah--can't wait until the baggers go into action---I say with a smirk
The problem is that news agencies are so cheap that they don't hire any competent reporters/writers. Look at all of the holes in every "news report" these days due to lackluster reporting and the number of typos/poor grammar in writing. I wouldn't be too surprised if most of the news outlets are outsourcing their work overseas.
What? The liberal government spending machine wasting money? Oh say it isnt so.
Liberieral--shut up, already. In Washington's letter he spoke of the merits of Liberalism--of which he consider himself. CONservatives, even in those days hated change--so much that they joined The Queens Army and fought against the Patriots---read idiot or listen to that Fat Drug Addict--but learn history before you bring that banter out.
The beast has grown too big to fix. The only way that some sort of meaningful change will come about is for a global event to occur. It will take a meteor, pandemic, or world war class event to change what is in place currently. Even then, the change would last only until the rich and powerful reorganize. Governments and their corporate puppet-masters are far too rich and powerful for the unwashed masses to affect any change to their benefit. It's been this way for thousands of years and will continue as such until we destroy ourselves or Mother Nature beats us to it. Why do people have such a hard time accepting what history proves to be true?
Fluff news when will we ever get good investigative news. What is the big news they did not spend money we don't have. How about telling us what the crooks are really up to .
Here in central Illinois our city leaders don't pass on anything. We just got over $400,000 in unneeded landscaping and concrete planters approved because if was not city funds but federal funds. Instead of turning down the money they just suck it up. The leaders of this country that make this pork need to all be thrown out of office and so do city leaders that accept it. You can read all about it in the Pantagraph newspaper. Just totally unbelievable about all the wasteful spending! I think we need to send these people on a spaceship to join life on another planet.
This is exactly the kind of wasteful government spending that had been bothering me for so long. Why should anyone, rich or poor, pay more taxes when the government has literally billions of dollars laying around that it has more or less forgotten to spend?
And yet, in a recent survey, 60% of Americans are in favor of increasing taxes on the wealthy (this includes families with a combined income of $150,000 or more which I maintain is middle class).
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40888787/
I can't help but to feel that this is an absurd position to take when the government does such a poor job of managing the revenue that it already collects.
Here's a nice illustration of how the tax burden is currently distributed:
http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/howtaxes.asp
The answer to our economic trouble is not to increase the tax rate for the wealthy (actually middle class). This would backfire when the wealthy decide that they don't want to play any more.
The answer is actually very simple: we need politicians that have experience not just with managing a budget, but being accountable for a budget. Have you ever heard of a corporation that has forgotten to spend billions of dollars? I sure haven't...
There must be someone out there that can be accountable for our wealth and also believes in civil rights, equality for all Americans, world peace, and freedom of and from religion. When this person arrives, he/she will have my vote.
Hey Blackhand...
So you think you are Over Taxed.... Because if anyone 1944 made more then $400,000.00 dollars, they paid a tax rate of 91%...They had One War....
LOL LOL LOL!!! Your ancestors PAID way more then anyone Today ever Paid....
I don't even know where to start with this...
First, did I ever say that I think that I'm over taxed? Nope, in fact I'm very happy with the amount of taxes that I pay. You should go back and read what I have to say again.
Second, you are very incorrect. First of all, $400,000 in 1944 is the equivalent of $5,000,000 today when adjusted for inflation (I used the CPI as my source). This is truly a tax on only the super-wealthy and a far cry from a tax on the middle class which is what I'm concerned about.
Also, the top-tier income tax rate didn't reach 91% until 1951 (not during the "golden years" of the economic boom caused by WWII, as I'm sure you were attempting to allude to) and it stayed there until 1964 when our politicians realized that they were providing a disincentive toward productivity. Really, who wants to work hard and be productive when they only get to keep $9 out of every $100 earned? It was a bad policy then and it would still be a bad policy now. 1965 saw a top-tier income tax of 70%, which was lowered again in 1980 to 50%. It has ranged from 31% to almost 40% ever since.
Consider this example of the consequences of an inequitable distribution of income:
In 1980 the top-tier tax rate was 70% and this tier accounted for 19% of all federal income tax revenue collected that year. In 2007 the top-tier tax rate was %35 and this tier accounted for nearly 40% of all federal income tax revenue collected that year.
How can it be that the government collected twice the percentage of revenue from the wealthiest Americans while taxing them at half the rate? Simple: they reduced the disincentive of being productive!
This is a fairly simple concept of economics, take a look at the Laffer curve.