During last week’s presidential debate, there was a question on the role, and by implication, the size, of the federal government. While neither candidate directly addressed the issue, it would have been interesting to hear their plans to cut waste and ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent effectively.

The latest example of wasteful government spending surfaced last week in a scathing, bipartisan Senate report on so-called “fusion centers,” which are part of the Department of Homeland Security.

At a time when Democrats and Republicans in Congress agree on almost nothing, the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee report blasted the fusion centers, with no dissenting voices defending the supposedly counterterrorism program.

The Washington Post described the 77 fusion centers as “pools of ineptitude, waste and civil-liberty intrusions.”

Created soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the fusion centers were intended to coordinate information-sharing between federal, state and local authorities regarding terror threats. The reality, however, according to the Senate investigation, is that the “centers often produced irrelevent, useless or inappropriate intelligence.”

Beyond a failure to produce legitimate anti-terror intelligence, some fusion centers tracked abortion protesters, Ron Paul supporters, antiwar activists and other activities protected by the First Amendment.

The investigation revealed that a third or more of the reports from regional fusion centers passed on to authorities in Washington were discarded because they contained no useful information, were out of date or reflected possibly illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens.

The wasted money is stunning, as it so often is in Washington. The subcommittee report revealed that money was spent on dozens of big-screen TVs, $6,000 laptops, “shirt button” cameras, and a $45,000 SUV that one official used for commuting to work.

One critique said one fusion center had the look of a “giant sports bar for law enforcement” with officials spending the day watching television, presumably looking for cable TV reports of suspected terrorism.

The report said $2 million was spent on a fusion center in Philadephia that never opened.

The total amount of money spent on the fusion centers is estimated at between $289 million and $1.4 billion. Nobody knows the actual amount. That’s telling — and not uncommon in Washington.

Not only does nobody know how much money has been spent or wasted, few people seem to care. The Senate subcommittee blasted a program that has existed for nine years and been repeatedly exposed as wasteful.

The New York Times said, “Top officials of the Homeland Security Department have known about the problems for years, but hid an internal department report on the program’s flaws from Congress while continuing to tell lawmakers and the public that the fusion centers were highly valuable.”

Like so much else in Washington, the fusion centers appear to be a case of federal officials just throwing money at an issue — better sharing of anti-terrorism information sounds good — and then moving on. There is no accountability, no follow-through to monitor the program’s effectiveness or spending. It’s other people’s money being spent, so who cares about waste?

Four years ago, then-candidate Barack Obama repeatedly promised to go through the federal budget “line by line” to find programs that were wasteful, no longer necessary or duplicative. He said he would find and cut the waste, eliminate unnecessary programs and streamline inefficient ones. That campaign promise was clearly abandoned or never was serious.

The fusion centers were created by the George W. Bush administration, but have continued into the Obama administration.

Viewers of Wednesday’s debate would have appreciated hearing both candidates talk about making sure that taxpayer dollars are well spent.