Fed report finds waste costing tens of billions

Just changing the metal content of the coins it makes could save the federal government millions of dollars a year.

And tens of millions could be saved if paper tax returns prepared electronically had scannable codes.

And elsewhere, the savings could be billions.

These are just two suggestions that are on a list of 98 different actions the government could take, either through congressional action or through executive branch orders, to save money.

The report from the Government Accountability Office said those actions could "improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government in 28 new areas and 11 existing areas."

For one, the Department of Energy "could potentially avoid spending billions of dollars by developing a program-wide strategy to improve decision-making on cleaning up radioactive and hazardous waste to address the greatest human health and environmental risks."

Then there's the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which "could also potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars by improving how it identifies and targets risk in overseeing Medicaid expenditures to identify and resolve errors."

Washington watchdog Judicial Watch had a few comments on the spending that apparently doesn't need to happen.

It wrote, "It is a perpetual government-wide epidemic that has long fleeced American taxpayers, according to a report issued this month by the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office."

It explained the focal points of the report: "Fragmentation refers to circumstances in which more than one federal agency is involved in the same broad area of national need and service delivery can be improved. Overlap occurs when multiple agencies or programs have similar goals, engage in similar activities or strategies to achieve them or target similar beneficiaries. Duplication exists when two or more agencies or programs are engaged in the same activities or provide the same services to the same beneficiaries."

The bottom line?

"GAO estimates that tens of billions of additional dollars could be saved should Congress and executive branch agencies fully address the remaining 396 open actions, including the new ones identified in 2019," the new report states. "Addressing the remaining actions could lead to other benefits as well, such as increased public safety, better homeland and national security, and more effective delivery of services."

Judicial Watch said "practically every key federal agency" appears as an offender on the list, including Veterans Affairs, Labor, Homeland Security, State, Agriculture, Commerce and the Food and Drug Administration.

"The report does point out that actions taken by Congress and executive branch agencies have resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars in 'financial benefits.' Are American taxpayers supposed to pat lawmakers and federal government managers on the back for doing their job? The waste is a result of poor management and never should have occurred in the first place. A lengthy and costly federal audit should not have been required to correct the problem," Judicial Watch charged.

And a solution doesn't look like its around the corner, the watchdog group said.

"Investigators reveal they have directed 797 cost-saving actions to executive branch agencies in the last eight years and 106 actions to Congress. The federal agencies, including DOD, Health and Human Services and DHS, have addressed just over half of the problems. Congress has a worse track record, failing to take action in 56 percent of the cases documented in past federal audits," Judicial Watch said.

The long-term forecast is self-writing: "The federal government continues to face an unsustainable long-term fiscal path caused by an imbalance between federal revenue and spending," the GAO said.