<The public library where I work is a private organization, but we receive money from the state department of education for our collection budget. We are only allowed to spend it on items the public uses (non-hardware stuff). We are not allowed to spend it on anything else -- facilities, utilities, programming, publicity, supplies, equipment, development, personnel -- but it helps free up money for those other categories. If we don't spend it all, we get cut the following year. If we do spend it all, we get at least that much the following year, and sometimes more.

Multiply this by tens of thousands of agencies, from the smallest library up to the largest Federal Bureaucracy, and you have the major cause of excessive government spending. Imagine running a private business like this.

This is no secret, and many attempts have been made to implement "zero based budgeting," (a budget that has to be worked up from nothing each year instead of being baselined on the previous year's budget), but to no avail, at least at the Federal level. I think some states and localities have this.