RealClearInvestigations has been taking a look at the shadowy world - or should that be underworld? - of agencies and programs that were authorized in the past, but whose authorizations expired years (sometimes decades) ago. However, Congress has rubber-stamped their budget allocations even though technically they were no longer legally authorized to receive them.
At a time when the Trump administration is moving aggressively to scale back government, including eliminating the entire Education Department, it’s sobering to note that 1,503 agencies or programs live on despite expired authorizations, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Another 155 will expire on Sept. 30. The Zombies, nearly half of which have been officially dead for more than a decade, persist in a budgetary netherworld. In a deep dive last year, CBO analysts were able to find dollar amounts for 491 of the programs, with total expenditures of $516 billion. They don’t know how much funding the other programs received.
The total federal budget in 2024 was $6.8 trillion, meaning expired Zombie programs take up at least 8% of the budget, and likely much more.
. . .
Many Zombie programs now soak up far more funding than lawmakers originally envisioned. The Federal Election Commission, for example, was expected to spend $9.4 million per year before its authorization expired in 1981. Yet the agency continued to receive funding and spent $95 million in 2024, auditors at government watchdog Open The Books found. The Federal Communications Commission was originally allocated $339.6 million per year. Its funding authorization expired in 2020, yet it spent $28.4 billion last year.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency hasn’t addressed the Zombies that are prowling the federal spreadsheets. Given DOGE’s headlong push to first root out alleged waste, fraud, and abuse and ask questions later, experts say, Zombies may offer a ripe target.
There's more at the link.
It'll take months, if not years, to investigate all of those authorization-expired 1,503 agencies and programs. Therefore, why not do it the easy way? Simply tell Treasury that they may no longer allocate funds or make any payments to, or on behalf of, any program or agency that is not currently authorized to exist and/or operate. Kill the lot of them stone dead in budgetary terms . . . then see who screams that their pork barrel isn't being refilled. If it's an important function, then Congress must do its job and reauthorize it. If it turns out to be a minor function without which the business of government can continue unimpeded, let its corpse be buried in the bureaucratic graveyard.
There will undoubtedly be some important programs and agencies that need to be funded: but I have a sneaking suspicion that many others will be non-essential to the functioning of government. They may well have become just "jobs-for-the-boys" slush-fund-disbursing hollow shells. If so, it's long gone time they were shuttered.
As Tom Kratman said about USAID:
The moral of the story is that, when a governmental agency has done the job it was created to do, or failed after a lengthy and expensive effort to do the job it was created to do, kill it before it gains sentience and discovers a survival instinct.
Let's make sure we do the same to "zombie" agencies and programs.
Peter
7 comments:
After the War of 1812, the British began selling us bad and rotting tea, so the US congress established the Office of Tea Tasting so Customs could inspect the quality of the tea, and reject it if necessary.
President Ronald Reagan eliminated this office in the 1980s.
As has been said by others, the closest thing to immortal life is bureaucratic agency. I wouldn't be surprised to find a federal buggy whip inspection agency hiding in the Department of Commerce.
Nuke Road Warrior
No matter the reason an agency or office is created its ultimate purpose becomes its continued existance.
As to the pearl clutching and whining that doge is cutting too deep and too fast, we’ve had several decades to clean up our mess now “MOM” is going to clean and undoubtably some good stuff will get thrown out.
I think some of the indifference to a 37 trillion dollar deficit is that $37 trillion is incomprehensible to most folks
It's a grand idea. To insure fairness, any program a federal judge forces to stay open with any injunction has to be funded by the judges salary until the questions are answered.
I've read that an unsuccessful government program is not eliminated, but rather another "great idea" program is established. For instance, I think there are something like 17 federal job-training programs, with the last 16 of them trying to fix what the one before that failed to do.
Most of these "agencies" were never intended to actually accomplish anything. They were created as a means to transfer wealth. To move money from the taxpayers to the politically connected.
The same bureaucrats who loudly defend these zombie programs would also see you punished severely for driving to the store with an expired driver's license.
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