Time to Overhaul Government Spending?

[JayBird]

A recent thread here about the Jacksonville Jaguars and the remodeling of EverBank Field got me thinking of this and I wonder if I'm the only one. 

In my job we have an annual audit where they check all the money in accounts, inventory all the property and pester you for a receipt for every thumbtack and staple within your office.  They do this in the fall so they can plan the budget for the following year accordingly, and see where more or less money needs to go.  All in all it is about a four month process and it assures (allegedly) that they will proceed into the future fiscally sound and thus providing me financial security in my life.  That is how the business does it.

My father spent 29 years working for the Public Works Department in Bernard's Twp, NJ and my brother is serving in the US Navy.  Both of them talk about how they have to (or have had to) purchase stuff because it was budgeted for and if they didn't, their department would lose that money next year.  I work part time for a non-profit in Jax and once a year we go to the Social Security Office on Freedom Crossing Drive (this is where people go to speak with a judge because they've been denied disability, usually) and pick up typically 4-5 full size pickup truck loads of office furniture.  Desks, chairs, printers, filing cabinets.  All in very good shape (never more than 3 years old).  And it is always the same, they are getting rid of that stuff because they had money in the budget appropriated for office furniture so they have to spend it on that and nothing else.  My brother bought over $3,000 of tools for the Mac (FFG-8) 2 months before it was decommissioned because that was what the money was for.  When he moved to the Taylor, he spent his last day putting those unopened tools in storage ... Where they probably still sit today. 

This is the money that came from you and I working and buying things and that we've entrusted to some government entity to provide services to us, our neighbors and our countrymen.  Yet, at a time when every government is faced with tighter budgets, do you think a major overhaul of the entire financing system is needed?  Money that could go elsewhere is wasted because "it is marked for this and nothing else".  Even if what it is marked for really isn't needed.

At home, I budget my paycheck so that I can pay my bills and buy groceries and have fun on the weekend.  But if I set aside $200 for groceries and only spend $150 I am certainly not going to go buy $50 of toilet paper just to have it because I marked it for supplies!

Does anyone else think this is idiotic?  Or am I just naive to the ways of world and this is how government works?