The advocacy organization Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) identifies ea

Question

The advocacy organization Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) identifies earmarks in current legislation that it concludes reflect government waste. Research the CAGW site to find five recent examples of alleged wasteful expenditures. Discuss the kinds of additional information you would need before you accepted the group’s assertion that each of the five projects in indeed wasteful. Explain how a federally funded project might be wasteful from a national perspective, yet still be highly beneficial for a specific city or state.

Explanation / Answer

Examples of alleged wasteful expenditure by the government:

1. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program

2.Many agrigultural subsidy programs, includingsugar, dairy, and peanut subsidies have outlived their usefulness and are wasting taxpayers' money

3. Use of continuous resolutions(CRs) by Congress to continue all the appropriations bills that fund the federal government prior to the beginning of the new fiscal. Since 1977, the CR allows for a funding similar to the funding of the previous fiscal year, in order to buy time to complete the appropriations process which was actually supposed to be a temporary process.

4. The increasing costs of American Health Care Act (AHCA/Obamacare) as more and more insurers leave the markets as people refuse to buy Obamacare

5. America’s first high-speed rail project connecting Houston and Dallas

In each of the projects additional information such as benefits to citizens from these projects would be needed.

1. Replacing the existing fighter jets with newer ones under the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program would have to be analyzed considering its benefits in building better defence capabilities for the country in future, and whether this expenditure is beneficial enough to offset the cost of the program over the lifetime of the fighter jets

2.The benefits of agricultural subsidies cannot be easily quantified monetarily, as the benefits and costs need to be analyzed against a situation where there was no subsidy

3. The information about all the appropriations bills will have to be analyzed to judge the benefits

4. Obamacare has been under discussion for many years with many supporters and dissenters. Both sides of the argument need to be judged critically

5. The actual users of this project and how much they'll benefit needs to be accounted for.

Sometimes some states might only benefit while the nation as a whole might not. For example, the train connecting Dallas and Houston benefits these cities and their populations only, agriculture expenditure might benefit the agricultural states only etc.

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