What Will Obama Oversight and Accountability Board Accomplish?

President Obama has ordered the creation of an oversight and accountability board to identify and eliminate government waste. The question is what will this board really accomplish?

Let’s start with the basics. Government waste is bad. We all know this and the idea of $500 hammers will make anyone’s blood boil. The real question is whether there is enough waste to really make a difference in our economic problems. Don’t get me wrong, any waste is too much. That being said, we owe $14 trillion and face unfunded liabilities in excess of $100 trillion by some accounts. Saving $1,500 on over ordered staples isn’t going to make a big difference.

The board is being headed by Vice President Joe Biden, a fact some may find funny considering he wasn’t exactly known as a fiscal conservative when in Congress. Biden will oversee 11 government officials who be assigned different parts of the government for oversight. They will report to Biden on efforts to identify and eliminate waste. He will then act as an enforcer where necessary. 

Will this new initiative make a big difference in the field of government waste? I think not. Don’t get me wrong, it is the right move in any situation and certainly one where taxpayers are credibly convinced the government wastes their money. Any savings is a good bit of savings, but there is a bigger problem – the national debt and annual deficit.

The simple fact of the matter is we have an economic problem that calls for sweeping changes, not trimming around the edges. We currently pay more each year on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the military than we bring in tax revenues. Think about that for a moment. Cutting $500 hammers out of the equation is nice, but it will not make the huge differences we really need.  

Until fundamental changes are made, nothing in our financial nightmare will change.