In yet another eye-opening example of government waste, fraud and abuse, yesterday members of the House Doge subcommittee learned how much money federal officials have blown away with flashy furniture.
Open the Book chief John Hart told the committee that since 2021, officials will be washing up nearly $5 billion in toilets to buy office furniture. During the Chinese virus hoax between 2020 and 2022, bureaucrats abandoned $3.3 billion.
Expenses are even worse given that most federal government space is unused, as reported by new Americans in February.
Fashionable digging for bureaucrats working from home
“Progressives like Herbert Crawley dreamed of managing a complex new world in the management class,” Hart began. Harvard Eggard and co-founder of the left and right New Republics, Hart continued, proposed “an increase in control over property in the public interest.” “He will definitely be pleased to see this auditorium and an impressive portfolio of office space in the administrative country.”
Given what Hart revealed to panel members, we note that usaspending.gov was created as a result of a bill he helped crafts while working for Sen. Tom Coburn in Oklahoma, the 2006 Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act.
“Our founders wisely prioritized transparency and wrote it in the Constitution,” Hart said.
Article I, Section 9, and Article 7 state that “regular statements and explanations of all public fund receipts and expenditures shall be made public from time to time.”
Note that these words precede the Bill of Rights, the first amendment, and the right to freedom of speech itself. In public squares, transparency is like oxygen. If you can't breathe, you can't speak.
When we looked at the federal real estate portfolio and opened the book, we discovered that the cost of decorating and renovating the administrative state was high.
For taxpayers, today's hearing is literally a matter of kitchen tables. All families can be related to the cost of furniture. So taxpayers are extremely furious when they learn that federal agencies spend billions of dollars freely on billions of dollars of luxury works each year.
Hart then revealed how much money a federal official threw into the wind that furniture his office. Since 2021, “only $4.6 billion in “furniture” has been “slackly enough to buy 9.2 million American families a $500 kitchen table.”
Certainly, the heart is the best place to work to help boost employee morale and increase productivity. But “at what cost, and at whose dime?”
Continuous Heart:
Do federal government employees need seven numbers of abstract contemporary art to run the government? The State Department spent $1.4 million on artwork for various embassies. For example, it includes $200,000 to raise custom paintings from contemporary abstract artists.
Do they each need a high-end leather recliner worth thousands of dollars? Our embassy in Islamabad is where taxpayers can lift your legs thanks to the 40 Ethan Allen chairs that cost $120,000.
Therefore, bureaucrats spent $3,000 per piece on a place to park their keisters.
Hart also recalled opening a book that revealed about Covid spending, which is $3.3 billion, despite the employees staying at home.
Open a book that leaked these numbers in 2023:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: $237,960 for a solar picnic table. Securities and Exchange Commission: $700,000 in the meeting room. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency: “A nearly $250,000 “refresh” expensive, high-end Herman Miller furniture in conference rooms. Federal Emergency Management Agency: $284,000 for Herman Miller Furniture at the Head Office Conference Center. Pension Benefit Guaranteed Corporation: $14.4 million for new furniture for 1,000 employees – $14,400 employees.
Environmental Protection Agency, Philadelphia: $6.5 million in high-end furniture for relocating to a small office.
“Every dollar saved in Washington is a dream that will come true somewhere in America,” Hart testified. “The well-adored real estate portfolio of an administrative nation is a good place to start.”
Hart's testimony amplifies what the government's efficiency ministry learned as he began digging into federal spending. With almost $5 trillion untraceable payments, Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott invited all the support of the Government Expenditure Records (Ledger) Act.
Certainly, when I opened the book I tracked my spending. But those numbers show that federal spending is literally out of control. The bureaucrats use whatever they want. And in some cases, taxpayers will never know what their spending is.
Vacant office space
Hart's testimony is even more brave, at least for taxpayers, as at least many people didn't work in the office, and at least the federal space was not working before all employees returned to work.
As New American reported two months ago, God Besshi's letter revealed how much free it was.
Noting that Doge is planning to scrap 66% of US government office buildings, the letter reports that “currently, US government agencies do not occupy 50% of their office space alone.”
The Washington, D.C. buildings are “especially empty,” with bureaucrats using only 12% of the space. “The Department of Agriculture saw about 456 of its 7,400 employees using their offices.”
Therefore, only 6% of AG bureaucrats used the office.
