Your Tax $ At Work... Federal Workers - Millions in suspect purchases - Must Read!!!!

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

Keith Olbermann reported this on Countdown last night.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/20080409_GAO__Millions_in_suspect_purchases.html

Posted on Wed, Apr. 9, 2008


GAO: Millions in suspect purchases
Federal workers spent lavishly with their government credit cards, the agency said.

By Dan Eggen

Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Federal employees used government credit cards to pay for lingerie, gambling, iPods, Internet dating services, and a $13,000 steak-and-liquor dinner, according to a new audit from the Government Accountability Office, which found widespread abuses in a purchasing program meant to improve bureaucratic efficiency.

The study, released yesterday by Senate lawmakers, found that nearly half the "purchase card" transactions it examined were improper, either because they were not authorized correctly or did not meet requirements for the cards' use. The overall rate of problems "is unacceptably high," the audit found.

The GAO also found that agencies could not account for nearly $2 million worth of items identified in the audit - including laptops, digital cameras and, at the Army, more than a dozen computer servers worth $100,000 each.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R., Minn.), who requested the study along with Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), said that money "intended to pay for critical infrastructure, education and homeland security is instead being spent on iPods, lingerie and socializing."

Continued at above link..

[Wickerman]

1. While it is a travesty

and outrageous, don't let Norm, "the weasel" Coleman take your eyes off the out-right criminal and treasonous activities of the Bush* gang and the BILLIONS they are stealing through their endeavors in Iraq.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

3. Norm is grandstanding now because he's up for reelection. He was also very heavy handed

in the Betrayus/Crockersh*t hearings when confronting those 2 puppets.

[CatWoman]

2. I know of one such worker

who used the govt. credit card to take her cronies to lunch, and to help buy her new car.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

4. That one worker doesn't hold a candle to this one..from the article

In the fraudulent category, a longtime employee of the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon, Debra Durfey, wrote convenience checks worth more than $640,000 from 2000 to 2006 to a live-in boyfriend, who used the money for gambling, car expenses and mortgage payments, according to the GAO and the Justice Department.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

5. ....

[Johonny]

6. this is frustrating

people like this ruin the credit card purchase system and then turns around and make my job harder. Screw these people I hope they all spend jail time for this!

[SpiralHawk]

7. Bleeding the Beast - a republicon homelander fundamentalist strategy

Neoconservative Republicans essentially do not care how poorly the institutions of government work because their ultimate goal is to decimate those institutions. Whether it is mining regulations, banking, securities, health care, social security, environmental protection, education, communications, immigration, port security or emergency management, the goal is the same: Privatize basic functions and reduce government oversight responsibility to a rubber stamp.

(also illegally squander tax money on private republicon kinks & republicon material indulgences).

"In neoconservative parlance, it is called “Starving the beast.” (or Bleeding the Beast)

"The beast is the government, itself, and while our elected officials are not so bold as to deliver a killing thrust, they can bleed the beast with a thousand razor-like cuts and deny essential funding required to maintain its functions.

"From the perspective of society’s well-being, the failures of the Starve the Beast policy have been nothing short of spectacular yet few analysts or pundits have bothered to connect the dots between the policy and its outcomes.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb06/Random21.htm

I guess this would include George AWOL Bush and his apparent use of Jeff Gannon. Your tax dollars at "work."

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

8. Excellent article SpiralHawk. This should be posted as its own thread. Thank you.