It is simply appalling that our government has failed to use fundamental financial control practices in the administration of its responsibilities to pay out the trillions of dollars that our Congress has authorized every year for specific programs.
It was recently uncovered that for $4.7 trillion in payments, an important accounting code was optional and “was often left blank.” The Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) is used to identify which account the payment should be charged to. This is definitely not a small bookkeeping issue. It is a fundamental financial control practice.
Without that code, there is no way to assign the payment to a particular spending authorization or to track how much has been spent versus the amount authorized for each program. Even a small business has a budget and tracks expenditures against that budget. Without those codes, particularly for this many transactions, that is impossible.
And, the people who have been on-site and reviewed the current practices firsthand have identified this as a significant problem – codes have not been required and in most cases are missing. The absence and non-requirement of the appropriate code before processing a payment is tantamount to losing control of spending. Any bank in the United States that allowed this type of sloppiness to persist would be summarily closed down by our regulators, and rightfully so.
If we require strong financial control practices for our banks, why do we not require them of our government which processes many multiples of payments? Whether fraud, waste or incompetence, it needs to be fixed! We should be outraged that this was allowed to occur.
These lax financial controls result in questionable transactions like the one recently uncovered and reported by the new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin. Although Congress approved the $20 billion (yes, with a “b”) program, the $20 billion was quietly moved to an “outside financial institution” in order to avoid scrutiny or control.
This $20 billion was moved out of the Treasury into a slush fund where there was no oversight of the spending. Does that sound like it might have been an opportunity for corruption? Or waste? Or fraud?
That works out to a donation from each American resident of almost $59 apiece. Those are taxpayer dollars extracted from hardworking Americans. And that is just one transaction. How many others are there? For every 1% of that $4.7 trillion that is inappropriate, that’s $47 billion. Where’s the outrage?
The “good news” is that there is plenty of blame to go around for allowing this to persist.
Unfortunately, the bad news is that it has been ongoing so there is no way to determine how much of the $4.7 trillion spent is proper and how much is fraud or waste. Previous administrations and presidential hopefuls have campaigned on cleaning up our government and eliminating waste and fraud. Videos show Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden all promising to do just that. The even better news is that someone finally has the courage to actually do it. While a small step, the inclusion of the TAS code on all payments is no longer optional but is now required.
Our government has no money of its own – all of its money comes from taxpayers, including individuals. While the current approach to rooting out waste, inefficiency, and fraud throughout our government may not be very elegant, the objective is simply to reduce the cost of government for America and Americans.
Our deficits have ballooned, adding trillions to our national debt. With the recent increases in interest rates, the amount of money required to pay the interest on that debt continues to grow, now exceeds the amount spent on defense ($1.124 on debt service, $1.107 on defense last year), and will only continue to grow further until we decrease the debt. Those increases require even more government expenditures to cover the interest on the debt, and those additional funds have to come from taxpayers. It is an unsustainable spiral. Continuing to do the same things we’ve been doing will not give us a better outcome. Where’s the outrage that this was allowed to occur?
At the end of the day, the beneficiary of all these actions is America and Americans. A leaner, more efficient government is less expensive to operate and should result in improved processes and better service to our government’s customers – us. If my own personal experience of waiting over 16 months for a federal income tax refund – and still waiting, despite countless follow-ups – is any indication, we have a lot of upside opportunities.
Let’s get the facts on the table where we can see them. Where are our taxpayer dollars being spent? Are we getting what we’re paying for? Is there a better, faster, cheaper way to provide the services that our government should provide?
Armed with the facts, we can make informed decisions about how we want our taxpayer dollars spent, and how they are actually spent. Let’s get outraged at the current state of affairs and pursue a better future for America, and Americans.
John Griggs lives in Evergreen and has spent his entire career in financial services. He holds a B.S. in Accounting and an MBA and has been the Chief Financial Officer of subsidiaries of two international financial institutions. He has led large-scale business transformation and process redesign initiatives in multi-national financial services organizations resulting in a 56% reduction in unit costs while simultaneously improving customer service. He is currently a consultant to the industry, an executive coach, and has been retained as an expert witness in financial services litigation.
Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.