Deb Fischer: “a recent Washington Post headline has grabbed national attention. It reads: U.S. Government spends $890,000 on nothing.…”

“a recent Washington Post headline has grabbed national attention. It reads: U.S. Government spends $890,000 on nothing. It almost sounds like a bad joke, but this is no laughing matter. The Post reported: This year, the government will spend at least $890,000 on service fees for bank accounts that are empty. At last count, Uncle Sam has 13,712 such accounts with a balance of zero. The American people are no strangers to reports of excessive government waste, from robotic squirrel research to Moroccan pottery classes. This latest example, however, comes at a particularly frustrating moment, as thousands of Americans are stuck waiting for hours in airport terminals with delayed fights--the result of the Federal Aviation Administration's decision to furlough thousands of air traffic controllers due to sequestration. The Post astutely noted: If you are a federal worker on furlough this week--or an airline passenger delayed by federal furloughs--you might want to save your blood pressure and go read another story. Federal law requires the government to reduce overall spending by 5 percent in each agency, totaling $85 billion for the remainder of this fiscal year. While the $890,000 currently spent on unused bank accounts may seem like a drop in the bucket, it nonetheless proves there is plenty of fat to trim in Federal spending. We can do that, and we can do it without directly impacting essential government services and jobs. The same holds true with the FAA.…”