While I’m obviously not a fan of big government, I have mixed feelings about why the public sector is so blindly wasteful. Is it because politicians and bureaucrats are well-intentioned morons who accidentally do damage (as illustrated by this cartoon), or is it that they are venal vultures looking to grab as much loot as […]

I’ve commented many times about wasteful government spending, including Social Security bureaucrats spending $700 thousand to party at a luxury resort, HUD bureaucrats giving huge subsidies for welfare recipients to live in upscale neighborhoods, rampant fraud in the unemployment insurance program, and tax dollars being used to subsidize a grown man wearing diapers and living […]

Last month, I shared a video about bloated bureaucracy from a group called Government Gone Wild. That generated a big response, so here’s another video from the same group, only this one looks at egregious examples of government waste. If you like videos on wasteful spending, but prefer a more attractive narrator, click here. And […]

I’ve done a video on excessive compensation for bureaucrats and I’ve written many times about wasteful spending, but here’s a cartoon that manages to effectively combine both concepts. If your eyes are getting old like mine, you may need to click on the image to read everything. This cartoon is good, but here’s another that […]

I’m not a fan of international bureaucracies. I’ve criticized the United Nations for wanting global taxes. I’ve condemned the International Monetary Fund for promoting bigger government. I’ve even excoriated the largely unknown Basel Committee on Banking Supervision for misguided regulations that contributed to the financial crisis. But the worse international bureaucracy, at least when measured […]

I must not be very bright. Even after decades of experience in Washington, I still have this naive belief that bureaucrats and politicians will occasionally do the right thing – even if for no other reason other than to cover their rear ends after being caught doing something flagrantly wasteful and reprehensible. So when Senator […]

The latest issue of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report contains some rather damning information about government incompetence in the United States. America ranks only 68th in the “Wastefulness of Government Spending” category (page 373) and 49th in the “Burden of Government Regulation” category (page 374). Singapore, by contrast, ranks first in both of […]

I realize that national defense is one of the few legitimate functions of the federal government, but that doesn’t mean the Pentagon budget isn’t riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse. Here’s a jaw-dropping example reported by Bloomberg. A U.S. contractor in Iraq overbilled the Pentagon by at least $4.4 million for spare parts and equipment, […]

While I’ve been somewhat critical of Senator Coburn’s willingness to raise taxes, I’ve never doubted that he is a sincere and tireless fighter for smaller government. Indeed, his staff periodically share examples of government waste that boggle the mind, though I don’t share many of them on the blog since I’m afraid people will become […]

Last week, we compared a bone-headed display tpqof incompetence by the German government with a perverse form of harassment by a local government in the United States. We have another America-v-Europe contest, but the roles are reversed. This time, the buffoons in Washington get dinged for a spectacular screw-up, and it is a local government […]