‘Federal Fumbles’ Report Documents Government Waste

When Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) announced he was resigning from the Senate in 2014, it was a sad day.

Coburn was perhaps most noted for his annual “waste book” documenting wasteful government spending. His last was published in 2014.

Well, fear not all those yearning to learn about our federal government’s wasteful spending, for Coburn’s successor, Sen. James Lankford, has taken the mantle.

“Federal Fumbles: 100 Ways the Government Dropped the Ball” is Lankford’s version of Coburn’s waste book.

Like Coburn’s reports, “Fumbles” highlights bizarre spending items on the federal government’s books, but Lankford’s report also addresses imprudent tax credits and non-monetary federal government “fumbles”, such as Congress’s inability to pass legislation prohibiting sanctuary cities. Lankford is less caustic than Coburn and also proposes solutions to the errors and loopholes he identifies, which Coburn never did (the implicit conclusion from his waste books was to stop all such funding of the kind he was highlighting).

Some of the best worst examples of government waste in Lankford’s report:

 
Unfortunately, there are many more examples, ranging from more grants to esoteric research and arts projects that don’t advance the national interest to abused and wasteful tax credits. Even Donald Trump finds himself on the bad end of the report, since his much-touted Washington, D.C. hotel received a $40 million credit, the national historic tax credit, from the IRS to turn the city’s Old Post Office into “one of the finest hotels anywhere in the world.”