Lankford Releases Latest Federal Fumbles as Playbook for DOGE
WASHINGTON, DC (Feb. 13th) – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) released the latest edition of his government waste book, Federal Fumbles: A Playbook for DOGE. Lankford reveals billions of dollars lost to wasteful spending, inefficiencies, fraud, and improper payments. The book also exposes the 30 different agencies involved in disaster relief and $2 billon that was given to the Taliban through United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
“Every time I talk with Oklahomans, they make it clear they want Washington to waste less and save more. My Federal Fumbles book is another edition of our playbook to cut waste and make government more efficient. This is the mandate that the American people voted to implement and we are committed to accomplish,” said Lankford.
Lankford Kickstarts Cutting Waste in New Congress with Package of DOGE Bills
WASHINGTON, DC (Jan. 14th) – Senator James Lankford (R-OK), founding member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Caucus, introduced a package of bills to make the government more efficient.
“The American people gave Washington a mandate in November—waste less, save more. Today I’m introducing a first set of bills to follow through on their mandate by prioritizing streamlined regulations, rulemaking, and record keeping. It’s time to put government waste in the doghouse and let DOGE get to work,” said Lankford.
As Debt Talks Continue, Lankford Releases Waste Book on Ways to Cut Federal Spending
WASHINGTON, DC (May 18th) – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today released Volume 7 of his federal waste book, Federal Fumbles: Ways the Federal Government Dropped the Ball. As President Biden and Democrats continue to say there is no path for spending cuts to go along with a deal on raising the debt limit, Lankford has outlined in the report waste and inefficiencies in the federal government and offers solutions and recommendations for long-term changes that need to begin immediately.
“Federal Fumbles: Ways the Federal Government Dropped the Ball is a glimpse at just some of the wasteful spending in the federal government. No one can seriously believe that there is no place in the federal budget to reduce spending. We should prioritize our spending to address areas we can cut in order to pay for important programs for veterans, seniors, children, national security, and more. We can eliminate wasteful, ineffective, or duplicative spending while still caring for the most vulnerable. Federal Fumbles is my starting point to stop complaining and start working on bringing down the national debt.”
Lankford Announces Volume 7 of his Waste Book, Federal Fumbles Lankford: “At what point do we stop and say we've got to be able to fix this?”
WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today introduced the Senate to the latest edition of his government waste book: Federal Fumbles: Ways the Federal Government Dropped the Ball. In volume 7 of the book, Lankford outlines numerous examples of waste and head-scratching spending the government has undertaken. In total, Fumbles highlights almost half-a-trillion dollars in misspent federal money, including on wine trails in Napa Valley, the effect of climate change on driving conditions in Ghana, and preserving a secret French butcher language.
Transcript:
Debt is front and center in the national conversation again. It's entirely reasonable. We have a debt ceiling conversation right now about America taking care of our debts and our responsibilities, which we are a responsible nation, we're going to do. But we should also have a grown-up conversation about our spending, to say: are we spending on our priorities, because when you have $31 trillion—actually let me scratch that—$31.4 trillion because $400 billion is not a rounding error, $31.4 trillion in total national debt, we should pay attention to this especially when we're currently adding $1 trillion in new debt every single year, and it continues to accelerate.
Recently someone asked me: when does it get hard? When do we pass the point? And I actually had to painfully say to them: 10 years ago, because in the last 10 years our debts continued to accelerate like a rock rolling downhill, and it's going to be harder to manage this. And at some point, we've got to be able to stop and say inflation’s going up, the challenges that are in our economy are increasing, we're spending almost as much on interest as we are on defense. At what point do we stop and say: we've got to be able to fix this?
Well, I have a perspective. The first step on actually talking about debt and deficit is taking it seriously and saying: what are we spending on that's a priority and what are we spending on that's not a priority? Again, it's not unreasonable to be able to say that’d be nice to do, but we don't have the money to do that. Let's set that aside. And for whatever reason in this town, any time you talk about reducing spending of whatever percentage or whatever amount, everyone freaks out immediately like ‘Oh you can’t. There is no way you can reduce spending in government.”
So, we started seven years ago a habit of our staff, that we produce a book called Federal Fumbles. Every we are we put out the Federal Fumbles guide, and that's just a set of ideas to say these are areas that we believe the federal government’s dropped the ball, that the federal government and our agencies, we had a responsibility to handle American taxpayer dollars prudently and wisely, but that didn't happen.
So we ask the question: is this really what we need to spend for? In a nation that's keeping up with our infrastructure, of our national defense, of education, of so many different expenses, and things that are truly governmental, we ask the simple question: with $31.4 trillion in total debt, is that what we need to spend our dollars on?
Now just to set context because again this is difficult to be able to do, when you talk about millions and billions and trillions, it gets easy to go, ‘Those all sound alike, so they're similar.’ And so people throw out millions of dollars or billions of dollars or trillions of dollars, and you just think, ‘Okay, I don't even understand what this is anymore.’ So I break it down as I have in the past. I break it down to seconds because that's something I can understand.
A million seconds is 12 days—12 days. That's a million seconds. A billion seconds is 32 years. Okay? So there's a big difference between a million and a billion. 12 days and 32 years. A trillion seconds is almost 32,000 years.
So let me knock that past us again. A million seconds is 12 days. A billion seconds: 32 years. A trillion seconds, almost 32,000 years. And to put this into the context of $31.4 trillion in total debt, that is 995,000 years, almost a million years of seconds to get to $31.4 trillion.
The numbers here are large, and they're overwhelming. So, again, why don't we talk about ways that we can actually save money. In my reasonable conversation with Federal Fumbles every year, is just to say let's talk about it. Is this really how we want to be able to spend Americans’ taxpayer dollars?
We’ve set up a top 10 list that we listed out some of the things that we just say, okay, of the 50 different examples, we don't try to go into every spending area but lay out in the guide 50 different examples and ask the question: is this the best way to spend Americans’ dollars? And again we've all got different perspectives on it. I'm just asking the question.
For instance, last year the State Department did a grant to Ecuador to host 12 drag shows in Ecuador with American tax dollars. Now you may have different opinions in this room on drag shows. I'm just asking the simple question: is the best use of American tax dollars to actually fund drag shows in Ecuador with US tax dollars? I don't believe that it is.
Last year, we actually did a different funding through the State Department that was… actually this was the National Science Foundation. Excuse me, strike that. It seems like a State Department thing. The National Science Foundation last year did a study of butterflies in Europe. So we funded with American taxpayer dollars a butterfly study in Germany where we paid a Swedish scientist to study butterflies in Germany. I'm not real sure why American tax dollars, that was the best use of that, but that was one of the grants done last year.
Last year there was an NEA grant that was done to set up a display in Brooklyn for the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which by the way is not even an American band, and I’m not sure why we had to pay federal tax dollars to be able to do that. My simple question as always: why are tax dollars being taken out of Oklahoma to be able to do that?
Always popular, we had an almost, well, $350,000 grant to study smart toilets was one of the grants that we actually paid for with our federal tax dollars last year.
We also had a grant that was done studying colonial Mexican soundscapes. Now I'm sure colonial Mexican soundscapes are fascinating, but we paid for a researcher to travel to Mexico and then to be able to write a series about the sounds of colonial Mexico and how they could be used to be able to influence communities.
We, last year did a study on helmets and seat belts in Ghana to be able to study whether seat belts and helmets were effective for saving lives in Ghana. Can I just go ahead and answer that question for free? Seat belts and helmets are a good idea. They save lives. Free, I can go ahead and give you that advice. How do you know that? Because we've already spent millions of dollars in other studies here in the United States, but instead we spent money in Ghana studying helmets to see if they're actually a good idea there, and amazingly they discovered, yes, they are.
There was also a grant that was done last year—I’ve got to just walk this one through. This was at the Springfield Museum of Art in Missouri. There was a grant on a display, an installation, an exhibit in a museum called Yoko Ono Mends Peace. Now let me just read this to you. It's a simple white room where shattered cups and saucers are placed on a table, and participants are asked to mend the fragments together using common household items like twine, glue, scissors and tape, and the resulting works are displayed on nearby shelves as evidence of the power of collective action. Again, I’m not opposed to fixing broken saucers in a public place and displaying them. All I’m asking is why did Oklahomans work overtime last year to pay their tax bill to fund doing the Yoko Ono white room where people fixed broken saucers? I don't have a good answer for that yet by the way. I’m still trying to be able to get that.
If you like wine country, great, you helped pay for it. One of the highest-income areas in the world is Napa Valley, California—one of the highest income areas in the entire world. The good folks of Oklahoma helped pay for a wine pedestrian trail through Napa Valley, because apparently Napa Valley didn't have enough cash to be able to pay for the eight-mile walking trail through wine country, some of the most expensive real estate in the entire world. So the taxpayers in Oklahoma had to pay for that wine country tour trail.
If you like traveling to Hawaii, enjoy the trip. When you get there, if you go to a farmer's market, you’ll find out that you helped pay for that farmer's market because the farmer's market paid $3.4 million to be able to fund the farmer's market.
If you go to New York City and pay for a very high-dollar ticket to get into a private location in the Metropolitan Opera to be able to watch the opera. You will feel safer, I’m sure, when you go to the Metropolitan Opera because almost three-quarters of a million dollars was given to the Metropolitan Opera in New York to help them install a new fire suppression system with federal tax dollars.
If you like traveling to Paris and you go to a butcher shop in Paris, you may be fascinated to know since the 13th century, apparently butchers in Paris have come up with their own private language. It’s like a super, secret private language in Paris. Fascinating for the French is study, but unfortunately, the Americans taxpayers paid for a study of French butchers’ private language for fear that it is diminishing and fading away. So the American tax dollars paid for this study in France to study the secret language of butchers in Paris. Can't tell you why.
You may know the story of the—let me see if I can pull this out—the Parable of the Sower. It’s a very famous, biblical story, the Parable of the Sower. Well, this particular version of the Parable of the Sower was actually little bit different. What your tax dollars paid for is actually an event that was done to teach climate futurism and to be able to use the Parable of the Sower from the Bible but to reteach a new religion called Earthseed using the biblical story of the Parable of the Sower in talking about humanity's destiny to be able to leave Earth for other planets. It wasn't the writing of the book. It was a conference for teachers to make sure teachers know how to teach this new version of the Parable of the Sower and about the new religion of Earthseed to their kids. That was done with your tax dollars.
Not leaving Ghana alone, there was also a study done in Ghana last year, not only did we do one on seat belt and helmet studies in Ghana, we did an interview project that was almost $200,000 in Ghana to interview taxicab drivers and truck drivers to ask them about how difficult driving has become with climate change, if it's harder to drive now in Ghana because of climate change. Your tax dollars paid for that.
And if you don't like that I’m discussing anything on climate change, and you may disagree with that, well, perfect because there was also a fund done with your tax dollars and the National Science Foundation to study on how to influence people that disagree with the issue of climate change with a study that was done for $400,000 on ‘pluralistic ignorance gaps in climate change’ and to be able to determine how to speak to people as the study says who are ‘ignorant’ on climate change and to be able to reeducate them on that. So if you disagree on this issue, we are studying on how to reeducate you on this issue.
Last year we also spent $991 million on ‘soft-sided facilities,’ those are called tents, along our border in Mexico. Now, best estimates on this. There's about two million people illegally crossed the border last year. So if you run the numbers on it, we spent somewhere around $500 a person on the tent facility they were processed through just to travel across the border.
Listen, we've got differences of opinion on lots of issues. I'm respectful of that. I understand that the people of Oklahoma don't think like people in other areas of the country. I also understand not everybody in Oklahoma thinks the same way. And I'm respectful of that. But I have yet to find anyone that wants their tax dollars wasted.
People literally work overtime to be table to feed their families. They’re working two or three jobs, and in April, when they pay their taxes, they want it to go to roads and infrastructure and national security. And what we reveal in Federal Fumbles is, yeah, some of that was done, but also some of that was also done because we lacked oversight and things were wasted and thrown out the door.
We did a multi-thousand page omnibus bill at the end of last year that literally no one had read—no one. There were no committee hearings in the Senate on appropriations at all last year, and trillions of dollars were spent and no one knows what they were spent for.
We try to bring: here's some of the ways that Americans’ taxpayer dollars are spent. And I’m not just complaining about it. We bring this up to say: what are we going to do about it? Are we going to do more oversight and to ask more questions and to spend money on what’s our priorities and to not spend money on what's not. So we put out Federal Fumbles, and you can go to the website, Lankford.senate.gov, and be able to download it and be able to look at it. But the goal of this is to get all of us thinking about $31.4 trillion in federal debt. Can we focus on spending on priorities and target areas that are not.
Lankford Brings Government Waste Report to the Senate Floor
Lankford: “At some point this body will be serious about dealing with debt and deficit, but apparently we're not yet.”
WASHINGTON, DC (April 27th) – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today brought this week’s release of volume 6 of his government waste report, Federal Fumbles: Ways the government dropped the ball, to those who need to hear about it most: the US Senate. Lankford spoke about specific examples of waste from the report and about his frustration that some in Congress talk about debt and some of the big decisions we face for long-term solvency of several major federal programs, but most are not willing to actually address it.
Continuing the late Dr. Tom Coburn's Wastebook legacy, U.S. Senator James Lankford is out with his sixth edition of Federal Fumbles, chronicling wasteful government spending.
WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today announced the sixth volume of his federal waste book, Federal Fumbles: Ways the government dropped the ball. The report highlights waste and inefficiency in the federal government and offers solutions and recommendations for long-term changes that need to begin immediately.
The 10th edition of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) duplication report came out this week. With it, comes a massive update in its projected savings.
Since the report’s inception, GAO reports that it has generated $439 billion in taxpayer savings, up $166 billion from just last year!
The annual GAO Duplication report was created by an amendment offered by our late founder, Senator Coburn during the 2010 debt ceiling hike debate (you can read more about the history and legacy of this amendment in a joint op-ed I published with Dan Lips here).
Since 2011, GAO has outlined 908 actions across 325 areas of duplication, fragmentation, and inefficiencies for Congress and the Executive Branch to address.
The good news is, 519 of these have been addressed (57 percent) resulting in $393 billion in financial benefits so far and $36 billion more yet to be accrued.
WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford today released his second annual government waste and solutions report called, “Federal Fumbles: 100 ways the government dropped the ball.” The report represents $247 billion in wasteful and inefficient federal spending and regulations, but also includes solutions to each of the examples of government waste. CLICK HERE to access the report.
“The American people have signaled a bold new direction for Washington with the election of President-elect Donald Trump,” said Lankford. “Although the federal debt wasn’t a major focus during the presidential campaign, it remains a serious impending crisis that must be addressed. In Fiscal Year 2016 alone, we had a $587 billion deficit and our federal debt is now an outrageous $19.5 trillion. To lower the debt, we need to grow the economy, and we must root out inefficiencies, duplication, and wasteful spending wherever they exist. This ‘Federal Fumbles’ report provides specific examples of wasteful spending and unnecessary regulations that are not in the taxpayer’s best interest.”
Lankford released the report during a press conference in Washington, DC this morning. Watch the video below:
Senator Lankford Excerpts from Press Conference:
“This is the way the federal government has dropped the ball, and what we are trying to focus in on, is not trying to pick on one particular agency or entity, but to say we have got to be able to pay attention. We are really dealing with four different main areas as we walk through this; grants that need oversight, regulations and regulators that need oversight, agency bureaucracy and inefficiency, and then a lack of coordination between agencies.
“We are not just trying to raise the problem; we are also trying to raise how you solve it. Whether it is an administration action, whether it is a piece of legislation, whether it is just coordination between the two, or some of those things that have already happened, but we haven’t engaged in it enough to provide the oversight needed to actually get the coordination. Every single one of these identify here is the problem, here is the issue, and here is how to solve it.
“This is not a comprehensive book; this is not trying to list everything in the federal government where there is an issue. We are trying to find some key areas that we can identify, and say here are some problems we have seen, and some things that we find as common ground solutions. This builds on last year’s book.
“We have got duplication issues. We have got problems that are around federal foreign aid, which has been an ongoing issue that we have made recommendations on. When we deal with foreign aid, we should simply deal with foreign aid that is to the benefit of the United States. We don’t think that is an unreasonable request. Instead, at times, we deal with foreign aid, like studying fish bones in Tanzania.”
To do his part to help reduce federal spending in Congress’ own operational budget, Lankford has operated his Senatorial office budget far below the allotted amount for each Senator. Since he was elected to the US Senate in 2014, Lankford has given back $230,000 to the Treasury each year.
Federal Debt Statistics:
The federal deficit for Fiscal Year 2016 was $587 billion, and overall debt is now $19.5 Trillion, according to the Treasury Department.
The total federal debt of $19,573,444,713,936.79 now equals about $165,575 per household in America.
In the eight years of Mr. Obama’s presidency, the federal debt has grown by $9 trillion, nearly matching the total amount of debt accumulated by all of his predecessors.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the projected federal deficit is expected to be $594 billion in Fiscal Year 2017.
Annual deficits are projected to increase above $1 trillion within this decade due to America’s aging population. Between 2010 and 2040, the number of Americans age 65 and older will double – from 41 million to 82 million people.
Five Examples of Legislative Victories From 2015 “Federal Fumbles” Report:
Subsidized Wind (page 11) – The Wind Production Tax Credit was originally created as a temporary subsidy to help get the wind energy industry off the ground. The industry is now very successful, yet it receives more than $6 billion in federal tax credits every year. Lankford helped secure a provision in the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations funding bill, which was signed into law last December, to include a three-year phasedown of the wind energy tax credit.
25,000+ Ineligible Families In Public Housing (page 71) – Last year, more than 25,000 families in America received federally-subsidized housing from HUD, despite not being qualified for the program. More than $100 million was spent on families, like one in New York with an annual income of $497,911, who earned far more than the allowable amount for federal assistance. Lankford secured a provision in the annual Senate Appropriations bill for HUD (S. 2844) that requires implementation of an IG report’s recommendations to ensure only those who are entitled to federal housing assistance actually receive it.
Disability is Only for the Disabled (page 119) – The Social Security Administration (SSA) has an enormous backlog in disability cases waiting for an Administrative Law Judge hearing. To expedite the backlog, the SSA created a new system to hear cases, but it was found to be costly and legally uncertain. Lankford confronted the SSA with the cost and risk of that scheme and after threats of a subpoena, the SSA reversed their plan and changed direction. This will save the taxpayer millions of dollars of litigation costs and will speed up the disability process.
Caution: Read Before Eating (page 27) – A recent food-labeling FDA rule requires grocery stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues to add more detailed information on each food item sold. While Americans should have information on the food they eat, existing labeling requirements are already very detailed, and this regulation would burden the agriculture industry with more than $1 billion in compliance costs in the first year alone. Lankford helped secure a provision in the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations funding bill, which was signed into law last December, to pause implementation of the rule.
Taxpayers Right To Know – More than 25 pieces of legislation that address an example of waste in Lankford’s 2015 “Federal Fumbles” report have passed a Committee or one House of Congress, and could progress even further during the lame-duck session of Congress, which ends December 31, 2016. One bill is the Taxpayers Right-to-Know Act, which passed the House and has bipartisan support in the Senate. This bill will promote budget transparency, which will result in federal spending that is more accountable to the taxpayer, especially for questionable grants, which make up a significant amount of waste examples in Lankford’s 2015 report.
Our country is in trouble. The national debt has reached $19 trillion, with billions added each day. Thousands of Federal programs are losing hundreds of billions of dollars annually to waste, fraud and abuse. Interest payments on the debt and mandatory spending programs like Medicare and Social Security will soon consume all Federal resources. The time is now to make tough decisions and prioritize spending in Washington. Ask yourself, “are the Federal programs in this report worth borrowing against our future? Your children’s future? Their children’s future?” Drunk on Debt, comprised of information readily available to the public and mostly from our own archives, is just a fun conversation starter. Agree or disagree with its entries, it is clear that choices will have to be made to secure our future.
Restore Accountability is former Senator Tom Coburn's new 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization created to bring objective, factual information regarding the impact of our national debt and wasteful spending directly to those generations most negatively impacted. Learn more here.
WASHINGTON, DC— Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today announced he will release a federal government waste and solutions report later this fall. Specifically, the report will highlight examples of wasteful or duplicative spending, along with burdensome regulations, but will also offer a policy solution to each of the problems. Lankford’s report, entitled, “Federal Fumbles: 100 ways the government dropped the ball”, will continue a tradition started by former Senator Tom Coburn, MD. The Office of Senator Lankford released a short video on social media today to tease the release of the football themed-report in late November.
“With a massive $19 trillion federal debt and a half-a-trillion dollar deficit, we must tackle our federal budget and root out inefficiencies, duplication and wasteful spending wherever they exist,” said Lankford. “This report will provide specific examples of wasteful spending and unnecessary regulations that are not in the taxpayer’s best interest, and show how the federal government has dropped the ball.”
Lankford shares Senator Coburn’s sentiment that many Members of Congress should produce their own waste reports, and he applauds Rep. Steve Russell (R-OK), Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Senator Dan Coats (R-IN), Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ), among others, who have released reports to expose wasteful spending.
After serving four years in the US House of Representatives, Lankford was elected to the US Senate on November 4, 2014, to finish the remaining two years of retiring Senator Coburn's term, which will end January 2017. From his position on the Senate Appropriations Committee, Lankford welcomes the opportunity to identify reckless government spending and gimmick pay-fors.
Regulatory reform has also been a top priority for Lankford during his first year in the Senate. He chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management, and he launched the #CutRedTape Initiative with Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) in March. Lankford and Heitkamp have worked together on three regulatory improvement bills which passed Committee several weeks ago.
Although he is no longer in the U.S. Senate, Tom Coburn's influence is still being felt. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sent out a memo today that announced the league's office is dropping their tax-exempt status.
Several years ago, Dr. Coburn began to push for eliminating tax-exempt status for professional sports organizations. The status made it into editions of Coburn's annual Wastebook catalogue of wasteful government spending. Since Coburn's retirement, a growing number of members of Congress have taken the issue up.
Goodell called the tax-exempt status "a distraction", and said dropping it would not greatly affect operations at the NFL's central office.
Gambling monkeys, dancing zombies and mountain lions on treadmills are just a few projects exposed in Wastebook 2014 – highlighting $25 billion in Washington’s worst spending of the year.
Wastebook 2014 — the report Washington doesn’t want you to read —reveals the 100 most outlandish government expenditures this year, costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
“With no one watching over the vast bureaucracy, the problem is not just what Washington isn’t doing, but what it is doing.” Dr. Coburn said. “Only someone with too much of someone else’s money and not enough accountability for how it was being spent could come up some of these projects.”
“I have learned from these experiences that Washington will never change itself. But even if the politicians won’t stop stupid spending, taxpayers always have the last word.”
Congress actually forced federal agencies to waste billions of dollars for purely parochial, political purposes.
For example, lawmakers attached a rider to a larger bill requiring NASA to build a $350 million launch pad tower, which was mothballed as soon as it was completed because the rockets it was designed to test were scrapped years ago. Similarly, when USDA attempted to close an unneeded sheep research station costing nearly $2 million every year to operate, politicians in the region stepped in to keep it open.
Examples of wasteful spending highlighted in “Wastebook 2014” include:
Coast guard party patrols – $100,000
Watching grass grow – $10,000
State department tweets @ terrorists – $3 million
Swedish massages for rabbits – $387,000
Paid vacations for bureaucrats gone wild – $20 million
Mountain lions on a treadmill – $856,000
Synchronized swimming for sea monkeys – $50,000
Pentagon to destroy $16 billion in unused ammunition -- $1 billion
Scientists hope monkey gambling unlocks secrets of free will –$171,000
Rich and famous rent out their luxury pads tax free – $10 million
