Got a problem? Form a committee.

For decades, this has been Washington's go-to response for tackling an array of policy challenges big and small, national and local. But that response has added up.

The federal government hosts a network of 1,000 advisory panels that consisted of more than 74,000 members last year, and they are becoming increasingly expensive -- statistics kept by the federal government show the cost of running these committees has nearly doubled over the past decade.

Though the staggering number of committees has remained fairly constant during that time, the bill they rack up every year has grown rapidly, from $215 million in fiscal year 2000 to $386 million last fiscal year. The collective budget is projected to top $400 million for the 2011 budget year.

According to government statistics, there were 74,346 committee members last year, up from about 52,000 a decade ago. Some work on these committees on a volunteer basis; for those who don't, the cost of paying them topped $47 million last year. Separate from that, the largest single cost -- at $180 million, up from $100 million a decade ago -- comes from funding the staff who do the grunt work. Another big factor is travel and related expenses, which amounted to $72 million last year.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/20/cost-federal-committees-leaves-taxpayers-growing/