How Much Money Does the Government Waste? About Half.
- Posted by: Andrew Price
- on September 21, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Gallup took a poll last week asking Americans “of every tax dollar that goes to the federal government in Washington, D.C., how many cents of each dollar would you say are wasted?” The result? Fifty cents. Overall, Americans think the government wastes about half of its total tax revenue. This is the highest that’s been since 1979 (at least).
As Stan Collender points out, the poll didn’t define “waste” for people. While everyone would probably agree that the Pentagon’s million-dollar door knobs or whatever are clear examples of waste, what about effective spending on programs one doesn’t happen to like? Is spending on public school sex-ed programs waste? What about spending on new weapons technology? You can’t really interpret the results of the poll without imagining how people interpreted the question.
That said, it’s clear that the feeling that America isn’t spending money wisely is more widespread now than ever before.
