The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide the issue later this year, but the question is why must American taxpayers fund this legal battle in the first place? It involves a provision that requires private health organizations, mostly overseas, to have explicit policies that oppose prostitution and sex trafficking before getting AIDS funding from Uncle Sam.

Each year, the U.S. government spends billions of dollars to help people in this country and around the world who are living with AIDS. In 2003 Congress passed legislation requiring groups seeking federal money to publicly announce that they oppose prostitution and sex trafficking because they are serious factors in the spread of the deadly virus. It’s not uncommon for the government to attach conditions like this before doling out federal funds.

But a handful of organizations that get U.S. money and work in South America, Africa and Asia challenged the law in court, claiming that the anti-prostitution mandate violates their constitutional right to free speech. It also compromises their institutional integrity, interferes with prevention outreach to sex workers and takes a toll on their international credibility, they claim in court documents.

In 2005 a federal judge ruled in their favor and a federal appellate court subsequently affirmed the decision, asserting that the mandate unfairly requires the groups to espouse the government’s viewpoint. “Compelling speech as a condition of receiving a government benefit cannot be squared with the First Amendment,” the appeals court says in its decision. “Here, silence, or neutrality, is not an option for Plaintiffs. In order to avoid losing Leadership Act funding, they must declare their opposition to prostitution.”

The U.S. appealed and last week the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Arguing against Supreme Court review, the AIDS groups said that many international agencies actually support lesser penalties for prostitution as part of their broader strategy to combat the disease. In urging the high court to consider the case government attorneys note that Congress passed the anti-prostitution measure because prostitution and sex trafficking contribute to the spread of AIDS. Arguments will likely be held sometime in spring with a decision expected by summer.

Here is the official word from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the nation’s multi-billion-dollar initiative to combat the disease; on its official government website it says that the Anti-Prostitution Loyalty Oath (APLO) has been shown to have a negative impact on prevention efforts because it undermines the most effective approaches to working with sex workers, who are “among the most marginalized people in any society.” It’s essential that organizations work with them “non-judgmentally,” according to PEPFAR.

Known as Rural Housing Service (RHS), the program is responsible for providing safe, sanitary and affordable housing for very-low-income, low-income and moderate-income rural families. The publicly-financed services are delivered through a wide range of housing programs, including those that support single-family home ownership, multi-family rental housing and farm labor housing.

This ends up costing U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars annually for rent subsidies and guaranteed, low-interest home loans for residents of rural areas who otherwise couldn’t afford it. Just this week a member of Obama’s cabinet touted an RHS development in Ohio as an example of the program’s many triumphs. “Since taking office, President Obama’s Administration has taken historic steps to improve the lives of rural Americans, put people back to work and build thriving economies in rural communities,” according to an announcement that also reminds the country about Obama’s “first-ever White House Rural Council.”

The idea is to improve the economic stability of rural communities, businesses, residents, farmers and ranchers and improve the quality of life in rural America. That’s why Uncle Sam has invested north of $170 billion in the RHS program, which includes a national network of state and local offices. It sounds like a noble cause but it’s rife with fraud and corruption that’s so deep-rooted, the magnitude may never really be known.

At least that’s what the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the nonpartisan agency that conducts congressional probes, seems to indicate. In a lengthy report made public this week, the GAO identifies tens of millions of dollars in “improper rental assistance payments” within the RHS program during a three-year period sampled. The cause appears to be “inaccurate calculations of tenant subsidies and incomplete supporting documents.”

The report only addresses the RHS’s rental division, which doled out about $1 billion in fiscal year 2011 to help more than 270,000 low-income rural tenants afford housing. On a positive note, from fiscal years 2007 through 2010, RHS managed to reduce its “error rate” from $35 million to $15 million, saving American taxpayers a whopping 20 million bucks.

Actually, these figures are just a sort of guesstimate because congressional investigators admit they have no real way of knowing the true magnitude of the “improper payments.” Therefore, they logically conclude in their report that the “figures may be understated” and taxpayers could very well be getting cheated out of much more.

The GAO includes all sorts of informative graphs and charts in its findings, but it’s not necessary to sort through all of it to get the bottom line; corruption in a bloated welfare program. This seems to be par for the course for the Obama Administration. Among the recommendations the GAO makes to correct the problem; hold agency managers accountable for reducing improper payments. Now, there’s an innovative idea for government.

Even for an administration that specializes in doling out record amounts of public assistance, it’s a senseless allocation that deserves scrutiny. This is especially true because just a few months ago, the scandal-plagued program that gives needy residents cash to pay heating and cooling bills got $311 million from the administration.

Each year the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) gets billions from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The agency distributes the money because the government considers home energy a public health issue. LIHEAP could help keep families safe and healthy, according to HHS. In fact, the agency encourages people to apply by saying: “If you can’t afford to pay your home energy bill, your home may not be safe and you may be at risk of serious illness or injury,”

Prior to this latest allocation of $1.7 billion, LIHEAP had already received $4.2 billion this fiscal year. The money helps needy families get “basic essentials” to sustain a “healthy and quality standard of living,” according to Obama’s Health Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius. She says the assistance will help “burdened” families who are forced to make “difficult financial decisions” relating to their home energy needs.

Instead the government has paid the air conditioning bills for thousands of dead people, convicted felons and federal employees whose salary exceeds the maximum income to qualify for the handouts. In fact, one federal employee admitted requesting “free money” after seeing the “long lines” of applicants. You can’t make this stuff up. The details are included in a congressional report documenting fraud in LIHEAP. Investigators blame lack of oversight for the problems.

Yet the administration keeps pouring money into it. Sebelius says it will “offset seasonal energy costs” so that low-income families can have more opportunities to “use their money for other necessities” such as food or medicine. As a side note, the Obama Administration is also promoting food stamps like there’s no tomorrow and it’s safe to bet the LIHEAP recipients are among those getting free food from Uncle Sam as well.

The goal is to maximize efficiency in the government’s food voucher system and enhance “nutrition program integrity and delivery” amid increased demand, according to the agency funding the research, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).  It’s not enough that the number of food-stamp recipients has skyrocketed in the last few years or that the government has already wasted millions of taxpayer dollars to further boost the rolls by funding questionable promotional campaigns.

Now the USDA is pouring $2.2 million into a year-old project that sponsors innovative research to determine what effect “new food packages” are having on those who get government vouchers, what “beverage choices” they are making and if a new electronic benefits transfer system is affecting benefit redemptions. The “impacts of food assistance programs as alternative methods of assessing poverty” will also be analyzed.

Let’s take a look at some examples of what this latest chunk of taxpayer dollars is funding. Researchers at an Ivy League university in New York are getting $571,000 to use “behavioral economics and incentives to promote child nutrition.” A private university in Utah will get $244,000 to use “nudges and incentives to promote long-run consumption of fruits and vegetables in children” and a public college in the same state will get $155,000 to study the “long-term effects of incentivizing fruit and vegetable consumption.”

A Texas university will receive $176,000 to examine the before and after effects of switching to electronic benefits in Kentucky and an Ivy League college in Connecticut is getting $200,000 to conduct a similar but broader probe. The crucial study on what beverage choices recipients of government food vouchers are making will be conducted at a public university in South Carolina at a cost of $129,000.

This is a worthy investment because it will examine, evaluate and enhance the USDA’s nutrition assistance programs, says the agency’s undersecretary, Catherine Woteki. “USDA is working every day to invest wisely and to make sure that our nutrition assistance programs are a bridge to success for hard-working Americans and their families,” Woteki  said . “By investing in research on nutrition programs, we can help maximize their effectiveness and efficiency, benefitting millions of Americans.”