It seems to me that this is a perfect way to get spending down in Washington.

By our calculations, the OMB study, called Program Assessment Ratings Tool (PART), further reveals that on average more than half of all federal expenditure programs are falling about 50% short of their stated goals.

This means that out of every dollar spent, 50 cents may possibly be accomplishing something worthwhile, but the remaining 50 cents might as well have been poured down a rat hole. In these cases alone, the cost of government incompetence is over $250 billion per year.

Congress, however, is not the least bit interested in PART or any other attempt to evaluate federal spending on an efficiency or cost-benefit basis. For one thing, the results would be embarrassing. Too many federal expenditure programs made no sense to start with or are now outmoded and would be a waste even if performed efficiently.

Furthermore, federal budgeting is not about spending as little as possible and trying to make certain that each $1 spent produces at least $1 of public benefit. Instead, it is about spending the maximum amount in the most politically efficacious way.

So you establish a non-partisan committee to figure out which programs aren’t working. They come out with a way to slice $250 billion out of the budget and you don’t have to own up to it — just say “the commitee made me do it.”

And Congress in uninterested.

Sheesh.

We need to stop electing these asswipes.