This research examines the phenomenon of waste in govern mental spending at the federal level in the United States (US). The identification of the villains is provided in the discus sion which follows this introduction. This identification is followed by an analysis of the major effect of waste in govern ment spending the federal budget deficit, and of the effects of that deficit on the country's economy.
Waste in government is a favorite topic in Washington, D. C. That's all together fitting, as most of the people talking about government waste are those primarily responsible for it, and they are all congregated in a relatively small area stretching from the Capitol Building to the White House.
It is old hat to pick up a newspaper and read about a $400 screwdriver purchased for the Navy, or a $1,500 toilet seat acquired for the Air Force. Senator Jesse Helms, however, pro vided renewed interest in government waste, when he challenged some of the projected funds by the National Endowment for the Arts. The senator's favorites apparently were a portrait of Christ submerged in a vat of urine, and explicit photographs of
1 2male homosexual sex acts. The senator appeared to be quite well informed on the minute details of these so called works of art.
As absurd as the Defense Department purchases of exces sively expensive toilet seats and screwdrivers are, and as distasteful as the art described above is, however, such items do not count for a great deal when it comes to government waste. They do serve to permit the fiscally unsophisticated to tut tut, and they do permit the morally righteous to display their superiority over the rest of us. If all such government purchases were eliminated, however, within the context of a federal budget where dollar amounts are rounded off to the nearest one tenth of a billion, their absence would not even be noticed.
Peter Grace, in his report on government waste which was both co...