Imagine a family with 12 children. The parents decide fairness requires every act of help to be billed at full cost. Tying your brother’s shoe? That’ll be $2.50. Helping with algebra homework? $5.75. Folding laundry that isn’t yours? $3.25 per load.

Soon, the family has their fists full of invoices and spreadsheets, and they are waging a small war about who owes whom. They hire an accountant, then an auditor, then a collections analyst. Every good deed now requires a form. The kids spend more time billing each other than helping each other.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is how your federal government works.

We call it "reimbursable agreements." When one agency helps another, it doesn’t just share the resource — it bills for it. If the Department of Agriculture borrows a statistician from the Department of Commerce, an interagency agreement is signed, funds are transferred, invoices tracked and audits scheduled — all to move taxpayer money from one government pocket to another.

The General Services Administration was supposed to simplify this world. Created to handle office space, supplies and fleet vehicles for everyone else, it has instead become the family’s overworked accountant —........

© The Hill