Obama’s army of PR staffers costs taxpayers $500 million per year

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President Obama has swelled the ranks of government PR, adding hundreds of new public relations specialists to the federal payroll during his time in office, costing taxpayers a half-billion dollars a year, the government’s chief watchdog said Wednesday.

That doesn’t include the more than $100 million the administration spends annually for help from private sector spinmeisters, nor does it account for the $800 million spent on contracts for advertising in 2015, according to the Government Accountability Office.

“Spending $1.5 billion on government PR activities is a huge waste of money. That sort of spending should be drastically scaled back,” said Chris Edwards, a federal budget scholar at the Cato Institute.

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The Government Spends $1.5 Billion Per Year on Public Relations and Ads, Watchdog Finds

 

A government watchdog found that over the last decade, annual government spending on public relations and advertising activities averages $1.5 billion.

 

The Government Accountability Office publicly released a report Wednesday examining how much the federal government spent on public relations and advertising contracts, as well as on salaries for federal public relations employees, from 2006 to 2015.

 

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., asked the nonpartisan agency to determine how much the government spends on public relations activities.

 

“With increasing pressures on limited federal resources, it is crucial to know how much is spent across the federal government on public relations activities and which federal agencies are spending the most,” Enzi said in a statement.

 

“It is important to understand the primary purposes and reported benefits from the investments of tax dollars paid by America’s hardworking families,” he continued.

 

Each year, the government spends $1 billion on public relations and advertising contracts, the GAO found. The agency also determined that nearly $500 million is spent on the salaries of federal public relations employees.

 

http://dailysignal.com/2016/10/05/the-government-spends-1-5-billion-per-year-on-public-relations-ads-watchdog-finds/