Feds Paid Over $4.6 Billion For New Furniture Even Though Employees Weren't Showing Up For Work

According to a watchdog group's president - John Hart - who testified in front of a House panel-
The federal government has spent more than $4.6 billion on new furniture since October 2020, even though only half of all agency employees were showing up for work.

According to OpenTheBooks figures the US government dished out $4 million in taxpayer dollars for furniture and cubicles in US Agency for International Development (USAID) offices in Ukraine, West Africa and Mozambique — which got $250,000 worth of Herman Miller chairs.

The State Department also spent $1.4 million on art and drawings to fill the walls of its embassies worldwide — including $200,000 for two paintings by the modern abstract painter Alfred Jensen.
During a House Oversight Government Efficiency Subcommittee hearing Hart revealed that,
“Our embassy in Islamabad is a place where you can put your feet up thanks to 40 Ethan Allen chairs, which cost taxpayers $120,000.”

The Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco got $39,000 for new conference tables — even though workers were told to work from home in August 2023.

“That amount can buy 9.2 million American families a modest $500 kitchen table,” Hart said of the billions of dollars splurged on the “federal real estate portfolio” that was effectively “decorating and redecorating the administrative state.”

The Office of Management and Budget found in May 2024 that “more than half of federal employees were either teleworking regularly or fully remote.
The year before, the Government Accountability Office audited the use of federal workspaces and discovered 17 of the 24 federal agencies surveyed used only 25% or less of their headquarters’ buildings.