Superfluous Government Agency of the Week #1

A few weeks ago, I read an article about the so-called "Plum Book" (official title: United States Policy and Supporting Positions) which was recently released. This book is released every four years and contains a list of all political positions in the outgoing administration, along with who held the position and the salary. Most, if not all, of the jobs listed in the book (Secretary of Defense, for example) will never be available to the "average citizen" and will certainly go to applicants with the appropriate connections. In fact, 1/3 of the 8,000 jobs listed in this year's version apparently are strictly appointed positions--thus the designation of "Plum Book" I suppose. Upon discovering this tidbit, I began to wonder how much money was spent to produce and print this book, which was published by the Government Printing Office. This led me once again to usaspending.gov, where I happened upon the master listing of "government agencies" that the website maintains spending and award data for. As I browsed through the list, I came across quite a few whose names alone made me raise my eyebrows. This, in turn, has given me inspiration for a new series of posts which will each week spotlight one of these agencies and the money our government spends through them.

This week's lucky contestant--the Office of National Drug Control Policy. This agency is considered a "component" of the Executive Office of the President and was established by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. There are several other acts that involve the activities carried out by this office, as well as several Executive Orders (check out the "Authorizing Legislation" page). In reviewing the ONDCP's "About" pages, mission statement, etc. it seems that its main task is producing the "National Drug Control Strategy," which "directs the Nation's anti-drug efforts and establishes a program, a budget, and guidelines for cooperation among Federal, State, and local entities." Perusal of the ONDCP's website reveals their main initiatives to be anti-drug programs, in particular youth anti-drug programs (something akin to the "Just Say No" campaigns in the 70's and 80's) and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program which provides additional federal resources (read--$$$$) to state and local government and law enforcement in areas suffering from "serious drug trafficking problems." If I'm reading the website correctly, there are currently 28 areas in the U.S. designated as HIDTAs including such well-defined, precisely targeted areas as "New England," "Appalachia," and "Oregon." If you review all of the 28 HIDTAs, it seems that most of the entire country is included in one of these zones. Yikes...

The ONDCP seems especially proud of their advertisement efforts in their various Anti-Drug campaigns and recently relaunched the website for the "National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign." This new website includes an "Ad Gallery" where you can view print, tv and radio ads produced by the campaign back through 2004. This includes such things as the "Become a Burrito Taster!" ad (highlighting one of the few jobs available for "potheads") or the marijuana/alcohol/hydrocodone "slot machine" don't mix drugs ad. These appear to all be part of the "Above the Influence" campaign, which you may be familiar with from their many television advertisements, mostly poking fun at "stoners" using rather stale stereotypes.

For FY 2009, the ONDCP's budget request was a total of $421.5 million--$100 million of which is for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign alone. Yep, our government is spending $100 million of our taxpayer money to produce and disseminate ridiculous advertisements that I'm guessing do little to dissuade anyone from smoking pot. They've also requested $200 million for the HIDTA program, so we can give away money to highly dangerous drug-trafficking areas such as "Oregon." Uh huh...

What makes this even worse is that the total requested across all government agencies for "Drug Control" activities was $14 BILLION dollars for FY 2009. This includes huge amounts for DoD ($1.6 billion), DHHS ($3.7 billion), DHS ($3.6 billion) and the DEA ($2.1 billion), among others (including $59 million for the IRS--not sure how the IRS fits into "Drug Control"). Specific agencies listed include the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (both part of the DHHS). In total, drug control money is requested by 12 different high-level federal government departments under the guise of 26 different agencies/entities. It absolutely defies common sense that there is not a tremendous duplication of efforts here, not matter how much these agencies attempt to differentiate themselves from each other.

It's really sad to take a look at the overall list of government agencies and see some of these that most people probably have no idea even exist or, if they do, know that they are actually government agencies that receive taxpayer funds. Seems to be a pretty good start of an argument for reducing the size of the government...