Do-Gooders Go Overboard On Overhead
Nobody knows how much of our tax dollar is eventually spent for the purpose intended and how much is expended on overhead, wasted, stolen, misapplied or otherwise dissipated.
Take welfare - for poor folks and for rich corporations.
What percentage of the tax dollar deducted from a worker’s paycheck ever makes its way to a needy neighbor or the business down the block, after passing through who knows how many middlemen’s hands?
Horror stories abound about so-called nonprofit charitable organizations spending on the intended recipients just 15 or 20 percent of the money people donated.
Considering that government is supposed to be much less cost-efficient than private enterprise, is it fair to assume 10 percent of America’s tax-dollar is actually put to good use? A reader and longtime acquaintance shed light on the issue last week. Darrell Shute, who operates a restaurant in Kettle Falls, mailed a disturbing clip from this paper.
It was an Associated Press story out of Yakima about an 80-year-old man. A tragic figure, the subject had spent his entire life working in lumber mills, spent his entire savings on cancer treatments for his wife, and now lives alone in a basement, existing on $480 a month Social Security.
Your heart goes out.
Fortunately, the article goes on, “Green Thumb” and a raft of federal job retraining programs like it are available for older citizens living in poverty.
Unfortunately, the article reported, “The programs, and hundreds of others, is in jeopardy. Last week, the Senate voted to cut $16.5 billion from current federal spending. Green Thumb would lose about $3 million, a program spokeswoman said. ‘We’re in the fight for our life,’ Andrea Wooten, president of Green Thumb, said from her Washington, D.C., office.”
The article went on to laud Green Thumb and attack its enemies.
It explained that, “The Title V programs (like Green Thumb) are offered to government and nonprofit agencies.” And it reported as fact - without qualification or attribution to any source - that, “Most do not have the extra money to hire the employees who would be dropped from the federally funded programs.”
So what is this needy government dogooder agency doing for an impoverished 80-year-old to retrain him for a future in the American workplace? How is the government seeking to restore this elderly worker’s sense of self worth and dignity?
It is employing him as a janitor and dishwasher earning $178 every two weeks.
And what does his supervisor have to say about this octogenarian who arrives to work at 6 every morning.
Just this: “Who wants to invest in training a person who’s 80? There’s a large memory loss and they can’t move as fast.”
In his letter, Shute observed, “It appears the administrative costs far exceed the benefits.” Here’s how he added it up:
“The article says the budget for the program is $410 million.
“The article also states there are 18,000 participants in the United States and Puerto Rico. That,” Shute calculates, “is about $22,778 per participant.
“If Mr. (Cliff) Sullens receives $178 every two weeks, and he works all year, he receives $4,628 each year. Mr. Sullens’ salary may not be the average salary but if it is, where does the other $18,150 per participant go?
“Does about 80 percent of the program cost,” Shute asks, “go for administrative expense?”
Sure looks that way.
Shute is not against government makework programs or government administrators. In point of fact, he used to administer a government business-development agency in job-impoverished northeast Washington.
“There must be a way, however,” says this seasoned veteran, “of administering good programs without the administration taking such a big bite.
“That bite takes money,” Shute points out, “not from some nameless and faceless program - but from the hands, the backs, and the stomachs of the people the program is supposed to help.”
Exactly.
“Is it any wonder,” asks Shute, “that people distrust the government?”
, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel’s column appears on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday.