Yesterday, in Federal waste and lack of maintenance
we saw that maintenance of Federal property has been shameful, and that agencies own a large number of properties that are just not needed. That concerned primarily the Departments of Defense and Energy, and the Veterans Administration.

We might write off their waste as merely large financial losses that don't affect us personally. Surely the Feds are taking proper care of more important properties, aren't they?

Here are more GAO comments about agencies whose property should be of more direct concern to individual citizens.

Interior Has A Multibillion-Dollar Backlog, Affecting Numerous National Treasures

Interior has a significant deferred maintenance backlog that the Interior Inspector General (IG) estimated in April 2002 to be as much as $8 billion to $11 billon. For the past two decades, we have reported on the National Park Service’s (NPS) inability to properly maintain its physical assets. These include many of this country’s national treasures like Ellis Island, Independence Hall, Yellowstone National Park, and Mount Rushmore, just to name a few. Although a major part of NPS’s mission is to care for many of our natural, cultural, and historic treasures, it has not been able to properly maintain them.

In 1997, we reported that when compared with other schools nationally, schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) were generally in worse condition, had more environmental problems, lacked certain key facilities, and were less able to support advancing technologies.

BIA has reported a significant backlog of deferred maintenance in BIA facilities and that conditions in the educational facilities negatively affect the ability of children to perform.

Interior’s bureaus manage hundreds of dams and irrigation systems; over 34,000 buildings; 120,000 miles of roads; thousands of bridges; fish hatcheries; electric power and natural gas utility lines; campgrounds; and hundreds of parks and many nationally known recreational sites.

Given that Interior is responsible for many high-profile facilities—such as Hoover Dam and national symbols like the Washington Monument and Statue of Liberty that millions of citizens visit every year—security is a concern.

Our Federal Government has accumulated roughly 636 million acres... about one-fourth of the total acreage of the United States.

The GSA  (General Services Administration) website says:

We help federal agencies better serve the public by offering, at best value, superior workplaces, expert solutions, acquisition services and management policies.

Sounds like they're doing a great job, doesn't it? Ask the GAO:

GSA Repair Backlog Estimated at $5.7 Billion

In March 2000, we reported that GSA data showed that over half of GSA’s approximately 1,700 buildings needed repairs estimated at about $4 billion. More recently, in August 2002, we reported that this estimated backlog of identified repair and alteration needs was up to $5.7 billion.

This situation is not new. Over a decade ago, we reported that federal buildings had suffered from years of neglect and that actions were needed to bring some of them up to acceptable quality, health, and safety standards. In April 2001, we reported that delaying or not performing needed repairs and alterations in these buildings could have serious consequences, including health and safety concerns. The adverse consequences at several deteriorating federal buildings we visited included poor health and safety conditions due to dysfunctional air ventilation systems, inadequate fire safety systems, and unsafe water supply systems; higher operating costs associated with inefficient building heating and cooling systems; restricted capability to add new information technology because of obsolete electrical systems; and continued structural deterioration resulting from water leaks.

Agencies operate under a complex set of non-uniform laws and regulations on property. In addition, there are many "competing stakeholders" with an interest in Federal property. Wherever federal property is located, changes are also the concern of:

• State and local governments
• Community business interests
• Private sector construction and leasing firms
• Historic preservation organizations
• Various advocacy groups
• Labor unions

The Postal Service is prohibited from closing offices just for economic reasons. Agencies have to consider the environmental impact of closings or disposal, and must pay the cleanup costs, both of which are expensive and can take many years. Unneeded property must first be offered to other agencies, and to assist the homeless. Another major disincentive is that agencies do not retain any of the proceeds from a property sale. Accounting procedures peculiar to government also lead to poor decisions. Because it looks better on the books for any given year, agencies have made extensive use of long-term leases of property, when purchasing or building would have made more sense.

So many other organizations become tied into federal facilities that each closing or sale causes a widespread ripple effect.  Example: medical schools that use VA hospitals to train students. When a federal agency moves into an area, local citizens and businesses are changed by their presence. Many times the agency becomes a major employer and purchaser of local services... the community becomes interconnected with it, and dependent on it.

Here is the summary basis for GAO declaring Federal property management as a high-risk concern:

• Long-standing problems with excess and underutilized real property, deteriorating facilities, unreliable real property data, and costly space challenges are shared by several agencies. These factors have multibillion-dollar cost implications and can seriously jeopardize mission accomplishment.

• Federal agencies face many challenges securing real property due to the threat of terrorism.

How bad is the government's accounting?

In March 2002, we reported that—for the fifth consecutive year—we were unable to express an opinion on the U.S. government’s consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2001.

This is the government ...

• that crucifies private firms for their accounting practices?
• that hammers on individual citizens for hundreds of similar actions?
• that wants to tell the rest of the world how to run their lives?
• that pretends to be the solution to all problems?

Government... takes on jobs that don't need doing or are better done privately, does them with great waste and extravagance, promotes them ad nauseum, and excuses them decade after decade. If a private company were run like a government program, it wouldn't even get initial capital, much less stay in business.

Every year, we get closer to having a nation that is completely entwined with government... dependent on it... while our own initiative and responsibility is overridden and shoved aside to wither. Every year, government pre-empts private initiatives that work, and substitutes expensive, mismanaged monopoly programs.

"It's just the tendency of government to grow, for practices and programs to become the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this Earth. And there's always that well-intentioned chorus of voices saying, "With a little more power and a little more money, we could do so much for the people." 
                           Ronald Reagan, State of Union 1984

My message is simple:

Government does NOTHING well, and in trying, it is destroying what made this a strong, free nation. If we don't stop government growth, and remove the programs that were unconstitutional to begin with, this behemoth will strangle all of us into severe depression, and drag the rest of the planet with us.