G.A.O.: Where your tax dollars are going

Here is a report by the General Accounting Office of the government that talks about the approval procedure violations within the government. It isn't pretty.

Next time you hear a suit saying that we need to raise taxes on the wealthy, think about this:

- USPS paid over $13,000 for 8121 conference attendees to dine at an upscale
steak restaurant in Orlando, Florida, in 2006. The dinner, which cost over $160
per person, included steaks, crab, appetizers, and over $3,000 in alcoholic
beverages purchased over a 5-hour period. We define this transaction as abusive.

• At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a
cardholder used the government purchase card to acquire two 60GB iPods. Although NASA officials maintained that the iPods were essential for official data storage, we
found that the cardholder personalized the iPods with the requester’s and agency’s names and used the iPods to store songs and music videos. Although the iPods had some business files on them, we concluded that the purchase was abusive because other data storage devices without video and audio capabilities were available at lower costs.

- A postmaster at USPS used his government purchase card to fraudulently subscribe to two Internet dating services over 15 consecutive months (April 2004 through October 2006). The monthly charges for these dating services were the only charges that appeared on the cardholder’s monthly statements during this period; yet each of these charges was authorized and paid for by USPS. The cardholder paid restitution of over $1,100 but faced no disciplinary action for this fraud.

- From October 2000 through September 2006, a cardholder at the
Department of Agriculture (USDA) fraudulently paid over $642,000 to a live-in
boyfriend who shared the same bank account as the cardholder. The $642,000 was
used for personal expenditures, such as gambling, car loan and mortgage
payments, and other retail purchases. The activities took place over a 6-year
period, but were not detected by the agency until a whistleblower reported the
cardholder to the agency’s Office of Inspector General in 2006. The cardholder
was sentenced to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of over
$642,000.