by WorldTribune Staff, November 21, 2024 Real World News
As part of his effort to “drain the Swamp,” President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to drastically cut back regulations, appointing Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head up the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The estimated cost of the U.S. government’s annual paperwork burden is between $187-$420 billion.It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulations cost America over 10 billion hours a year, enough to consume 14,983 human lifetimes.
But that was in 2023.
“For periodic real-time assessments, the OMB maintains an online landing page for ‘Government-Wide Totals for Active Information Collections.’ It appears as if the time tax tackling isn’t going too well, since as of today it stands at 12.3 billion ‘total annual hours’ in the OMB’s ‘Inventory of Currently Approved Information Collections,’ compared to the 10.5 billion hours detailed in the most current full report. The dead tape is greater than 17,000 lifetimes by that reckoning,” said Clyde Wayne Crews, the regulations expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
The paperwork burden should be one of the first priorities of the DOGE, Crews said.
The estimated cost of the annual paperwork burden is between $187-$420 billion.
“Assuming $40 an hour would mean over $420 billion in mere paper-shuffling costs at the new ICB’s 10.5 billion paperwork hours level. Importantly, that’s not counting actual compliance with underlying rules and regulations,” said Crews.
John Hart, CEO of government watchdog Open the Books, told the New York Post that the DOGE will work to curb “spending that has been on autopilot where there’s no real thought or purpose behind it.”
Timely: Defund Fake News
Among the first gravy trains expected to be derailed:
• In 2023, the federal government shipped $1.3 billion in checks to dead people from the IRS, Medicare, and assorted veterans groups, according to RealClear Investigations.
Hart noted: “The Treasury Department has a do-not-pay list. These people should all be on it. But there is no cross-checking between the agencies paying out and the Treasury.”
• Prisoners thought to still be free and out of work received $171 million in unemployment payments or Social Security in 2023.
• Medicaid and Medicare sent out $101 billion in improper payments, largely due to fraud.
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is expecting to spend another $70 billion on the Covid pandemic by August 2026.
• Federal agencies are using on average 12% of the space in their headquarters, according to a March report from the Public Buildings Reform Board. The General Services Administration is spending $2 billion annually to maintain government-owned offices and $5 billion to lease space.
• Dr. Anthony Fauci has been receiving $15 million worth of security this year, despite being retired. “He basically has a limo driver and armed guards,” Sen. Rand Paul told The Post. “Presidents get that for a while, but they’re the only people in our country who get that.”
• Tax cheats took the IRS for at least $546 million.
Other possible targets for the DOGE:
• In 2021, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded $549,000 to a Russian lab performing experiments on cats, including removing part of their brains and seeing if they could still walk on treadmills, according to the Washington Times.
• American taxpayers shelled out $4 million last year for Joe and Hunter Biden to go on a trip to Ireland, as The Post reported. That included $1.2 million on an elaborate sound system and light show for a Biden speech and $760,000 to rent out an entire hotel in Dublin.
• Spending by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) includes $33 million to a firm that runs “Monkey Island,” a colony of around 3,000 primates sent to research labs. NIH grants totaling $3.7 million funded a study on monkeys and gambling. Part of another $12 million grant went to the University of Mississippi to test monkeys on methamphetamine, and a Florida lab received $477,000 to help fund research into “transgender” monkeys — males injected with female hormones.
• The State Department awarded a $20,600 grant in 2022 to a center in Ecuador, according to the tracker at USAspending.gov. That grant was used for “12 drag theater performances” and a “two-minute documentary,” Fox News reported.
• The Department of Health and Human Services hired 294 employees at a cost of $38.7 million to oversee diversity, equity and inclusion, as reported by Open the Books.
Items your tax dollars are being spent on:
-$100,000 to study if tequila or gin makes sunfish more aggressive
-Nearly $1M to study if cocaine makes Japanese quail more sexually promiscuous
-$750,000 to study if the moon landing line was “One small step for Man” or “One small… pic.twitter.com/kXl4IXV8FE— Department of Government Efficiency (@DOGE) November 18, 2024
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Report: Regulations ‘dead tape’ requires 14,983 human lifetimes annually, mainly for paperwork added by Editor Two on November 21, 2024
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