Waste of the Day: Government Printing Ended Up in the Trash

Topline: Less is more when it comes to writing, but government publishers might need to retake their English courses.

The government printed volumes of records…

The Congressional Record has been available online since 2005, but that has not stopped the Government Publishing Office from spending money to produce a print version summarizing every debate and vote held in Congress. 

In 2010 the government spent $28 million to print 4,551 copies every day, most of which reportedly were thrown away. The money would be worth $40.3 million today. 

That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses. 

Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.   

Coburn’s Wastebook 2010 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $11.5 billion, including the $28 million spent to print 4,551 copies every day.

… and threw most of them away

Key facts: There were 174 Congressional Records published in 2010 of varying length. Some were three pages long, some were 300.

Regardless of length, Coburn claimed that the majority went “directly into the trash.”

And if legislators like Coburn viewed the print version as redundant back in 2010, just think of how antiquated it became as the internet became even more widespread in recent years, and the government continued to spend money on printing the dense documents.

Today, Congressional Records as far back as 1875 have been digitized.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Summary: The Congressional Record is still available in print, but now they’re charging for it: a one-year subscription from the U.S. Government Bookstore costs $503. The Government Publishing Office requested $136 million in funding for 2025. The budget request is, of course, available in print.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

This article was originally published by RCI and made available via RealClearWire.