However, random acts of wasteful spending are no less important than systemic acts of wasteful spending since their toll eventually gets well up into the billions of dollars. This week we have already discussed the $80 million the State Department wasted BEFORE they realized the the U.S. consulate building they built in northern Afghanistan was not defendable against Taliban and terrorist attacks.
This week we also talked about the $300 million the U.S. Navy spent to build two ships BEFORE they realized those same ships were not needed. Adding insult to injury, the Navy then spent another $10 million to dismantle the same ships that were never used.
This week we also reviewed the totally unnecessary expenditure that the House Of Representatives granted itself where House members can get free auto leases and free gas, courtesy of the American taxpayer.
The list goes on and on of these types of random wasteful spending situations. But today let's focus on a newly discovered piece of waste, courtesy of our ill-advised and ill-executed mission in Iraq, as outlined in a New York Times article that was reprinted in the May 12, 2012 issue of the Tampa Bay Times:
- According to the article, the U.S. and Iraqi governments planned to jointly implement a massive police training program which was to include 350 U.S. law enforcement personnel that was supposed to be "the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here [in Iraq]."
- The program has already spent $500 million but has fallen well short of its goals with only 50 law enforcement personnel having actually been deployed, vs. the planned 350. And it is quite possible that even those 50 might not make it in place by the end of the year.
- The $500 million has been spent only since last October, about $71 million a month on average, with virtually nothing to show for it.
- But it gets worse. The article goes on to explain that another large program with the Iraqi government, budgeted at $343 million, was supposed to be used in the construction of physical facilities that would be used to train the in-country police forces. These facilities were supposed to accommodate more than a thousand trainers and staff people for the next five years.
- The article does not provide any information on how much of the $343 million has already been spent but makes it quite clear that this program is also falling apart: "But like so much else in the nine years of war, occupation, and reconstruction here, it has not gone as planned."
- This conclusion is verified by a quote in the article from Robert Periot, director of the Security Sector Governance Center Of Innovation at the U.S. Institute of Peace; he called the project a "small program for a lot of money."
As we discussed all this week, if Federal employees and managers lost their jobs for wasting $832,000 on a Las Vegas conference, somebody in the Defense Department and/or State Department needs to lose their jobs for wasting many times $832,000 and have very little to show for the expenditures.
In addition, Step 34 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would come in very handy in this disaster also. Step 34 would provide an orderly, predefined process to remove those members of the Congressional committees that oversaw the government organizations that wasted possibly up to $843 million on this failed police training and police facilities program.
Firing bureaucrats and removing politicians from committee posts would probably cause others in the Federal government to more fully think through their budgets and associated expenses lest they too get a pink slip for incompetence. Only then would we finally return to the sanity approach of: Ready! Aim! And Maybe Fire, assuming that all of the contingencies and cost/benefits have been explored, BEFORE the order to Fire is executed.
We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:
http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/
The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.
The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/
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