Feds Yearend Spending Spree

Feds Go Spend-Crazy at Year's End

 

Due to wasteful spending regulations, federal agencies are not permitted to carry over surplus funds from one fiscal year to the next.

 

So as the year's end approaches, the agencies go on a wild spending spree to use up any unspent funds before they are forfeited to the Treasury.

 

"Agencies are encouraged to spend every last dime in their budgets to justify their current funding levels, in an attempt to avoid becoming a target for future spending cuts in Congress," said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor and current director of Economics21 at the Manhattan Institute.

 

As the Sept. 30 end of the 2013-2014 fiscal year approached, the IRS suddenly found the need to spend $2.41 million on "toner products."

 

The Department of Homeland Security felt compelled to pay $251,016 for "Aeron Mesh Task Chairs," and $15,198 for two pianos.

 

The U.S. embassy in New Delhi, India, spent $20,362 on alcoholic beverages, bringing the outlay for booze by the State Department to nearly $100,000 in September. The department also spent nearly $25,000 for 50-inch LED HD televisions for the embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

 

The Department of Veterans Affairs spent more than $1.8 million on artwork.

 

Last year, Veterans Affairs allocated $562,000 for artwork as the end of the fiscal year approached in September, the Fiscal Times reported.

 

The State Department spent $5 million on crystal glassware for several embassies and $1 million on a granite art installation for the embassy in London last year, while the Department of Agriculture shelled out $144,000 for toner cartridges.

 

The Pentagon alone spent about $5.5 billion on the last day of the fiscal year, and Defense Department officials even sent an email urging employees to spend as much as they could, according to the Fiscal Times.

 

In an article that first appeared on RealClearMarkets, Furchtgott-Roth pointed to a study by two university professors who found that federal spending on contracts in the last week of the fiscal year is five times higher than the weekly average, and equals 8.7 percent of total federal spending.

 

The study also found that I.T. purchases made during the last week of a recent fiscal year were six times more likely to be of a lower quality than those bought during the rest of the year, probably due to the hasty decision-making associated with the spending.

 

Furchtgott-Roth suggested that federal agencies adopt a different approach: For all unspent funds, agency employees could be given a bonus equal to 10 percent of their salaries, or could receive a bonus from a pool of funds equal to half of the agency's unspent funds, whichever is smaller.

 

She added: "Pity the poor administrator determined to spend all of an agency's funds, thereby denying every employee a bonus."

 

Source: Newsmax email