The Truth About Government Waste

Conservatives promise to crack down on “earmarks”—federal spending allocated in legislation for a specific project or location. No more "bridges to nowhere." That’s great, but it doesn’t add up to much—$18 billion of a $3 trillion federal budget. Want to root out waste in government? Over the past eight years, you’d do better to look at the Iraq war ($656 billion), subsidies for big corporations ($100 billion a year), waste and fraud in the Pentagon’s budget, and tax breaks for the rich (which amounted to a $1 trillion transfer to the richest 5 percent of Americans).