Your Money Being Spent Without Any Records
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Forest Funds Elude Oversight
The Forest Service continues to spend $400 million of its slush fund money with no one to answer to.
Current law allows the Forest Service to operate four huge funds with no oversight from Congress or the public. Some compare the funds to Swiss bank accounts because they operate outside the reach of government oversight.
This lack of accountability has been a point of contention among many experts and watchdog groups for years.
According to a 1997 study by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the U.S. Forest Service took the liberty of spending more than 30 percent of these funds for activities that have nothing to do with their intended purpose.
Earlier this year, the GAO put the U.S. Forest Service at the top of the list of federal agencies that are at "high risk" for waste, abuse and vulnerability to fraud.
But while millions of dollars are being spent without any oversight, an additional travesty is that taxpayers subsidize the timber industry by replanting the lands these companies log.
Also, the taxpayer is responsible for cleaning up the brush and limbs left behind after these private corporations harvest their prime cuts of wood. The Brush Disposal Fund spends $23 million toward cleaning up after these companies.
The U.S. Forest Service must account for all of its other expenses. Why should these trust funds be any different?
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For more information about TCS, visit www.taxpayer.net or contact Jonathan Oppenheimer at 202-546-8500 ext. 132
Would you like an extra $400 million of somebody else's money? You can't have it, but the Forest Service does. Tell your opinion to The Progress Report:
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