Cheat Sheet Q&A - The Federal Government's inefficiency with assistance programs:
Today's entry: Hello Brian,I would love to pass on your statistic on the $.18 on every tax dollar that our Government spends actually helps people, the rest is spent on bureaucracy...
Do you have that info on the Cheat Sheet or can you point me to a place that I can reference? I want to be able to back up this statistic with some type of reference if questioned...As always, keep up the great work you are doing...
Bottom Line: I received this note after discussing the low government efficiency rating with assistance programs, like Meals on Wheels, when it was politicized following the President's budget blueprint. I indicated that the average Government efficiency rating the last time I'd researched the topic was 18% compared to 80% for the average charitable organization.
I'm still seeking to find my research on that topic. It was at least three years ago that I worked on putting it together. It certainty would be relevant in the context of today's federal budget discussion.
In the meantime conceptually, minus the hard data, you might be able to make a logical appeal.
Example A:
Federal taxes collected by the IRS/Treasury Department
Money is then transferred to the appropriate federal agency for the specific assistance program
The federal agency appropriates money to the states
The state allocates the resources to the charitable organization
Example B:
Individual makes a direct donation to the charitable organization
It's conceptually easy to see how/why the federal government is a horribly inefficient mechanism for assistance.
In the absence of my research being readily available consider the GAO's most recent report on federal government efficiency. The GAO identified 92 new reforms for the federal government to improve it's efficiency in 37 different programs. They've identified a total of 544 recommended reforms that are either in the process of being addressed or have been unaddressed from previous accountability reports. Imagine how incredibly bloated and inefficient the government has to be to have 92 new identified inefficiencies and 544 total inefficiencies (and those are just the one's that are found). Why in the world would we task any entity so clearly flawed with our tax money to provide assistance? Here's a link to that report:
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-16-579T
If you have a topic or question you'd like me to address email me: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com