Govt waste takes 20+ years to fix?

From Ron Paul's weekly column (emphasis mine):

You see, while waste, fraud and abuse are very easy to attack, it seems they are much more difficult to actually address within the current federal behemoth. For example, the General Accounting Office puts out a “high risk list” and describes this list as programs with “vulnerabilities to fraud, waste and abuse and mismanagement.”

There are currently 27 programs and operations on this list, up from 26 last year. But here are the more surprising facts, the list was originated with 14 programs in 1990. Of those original 14 programs, from 17 years ago, only 8 have been removed. How can it be that 6 programs remain on such a list nearly two decades later? While government is supposed to move slowly, this is ridiculous.

What GAO is saying is that a problem exists, we have been aware of it for 17 years, and it is still not corrected

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst081307.htm

Another reason to elect Ron Paul.