2. Inefficiency

“In 2011, the federal government wasted $115.3 billion of taxpayers’ money in improper payments: money paid in the wrong amount, to the wrong person, or for the wrong reason.” – Alison Fraser, Heritage Foundation

It’s worth mentioning a second time that the government is surprisingly bad at handling money. Democrats blame Republicans and Republicans blame everyone else, but behind all bureaucratic finger-pointing lies the truth: Oops… we lost it. Here’s what they lost it to:

Snack on These Subsidies

In 2011 alone, Amtrak lost $84.5 million on its federally subsidized food and beverage services, according to a detailed report by the Heritage Foundation. Amtrak has never profited from these services.

To put those numbers into perspective: Amtrak loses enough of the government’s money every year on food alone to feed each one of the roughly 600,000 homeless Americans three meals a day – for two weeks.

Dead, or Nearly So

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management reports that dead federal employees continue to get benefits checks totaling around $120 Million yearly. I’m not sure what they’re supposed to be doing with that money, but… it’s the thought that counts, right?

Many more government checks are sent out every year to dead Americans, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars more in wasted funds.

The More the Merrier…?

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified 34 areas in which federal agencies or initiatives have overlapping goals or duplicative services, costing taxpayers billions of dollars each year.

Hundreds of duplicate government programs run though dozens of departments, clogging the system while taxpayers shoulder the burden of paying for the resulting crossed wires. If Americans were as bad at balancing their checkbooks as the government, it wouldn’t have any money to waste… now, there’s a thought.

Something Fishy

In a crowning and truly boggling achievement of unrivaled incompetence, the Bureau of Indian Affairs funded a fish hatchery that didn’t see a single a fish hatch for fourteen years. Federal funding continued even after the land had been converted to office space.

Taxpayers spent $46.1 million in fiscal year 2012 to operate the national fish hatchery system, and not one of them got any fancy caviar.