Free Money!

Have you read any of the stories lately about the outright thievery carried out regularly by federal employees? The first one I read was about just the VA -- $26,000 on hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, $23,000 of movie tickets, high-dollar items at Sharper Image, fancy-schmancy organizers.

The next one covered multiple agencies. Some of the stuff WE'RE buying for these folks just blew my mind: millions of dollars in a mere 15-month period.

The General Accounting Office says more than 40% of the $14 BILLION spent didn't follow procedure. For bigger-ticket purchases, exceeding $2500, almost half were unauthorized or handled improperly.

"Breakdowns in internal controls over the use of purchase cards leave the government highly vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse," GAO investigators said.

Uh, let's call it what it is: we've got a bunch of freakin' thieves working for us, and we've given them carte blanche with our credit cards.

Some of the highlights:

$1.8 MILLION worth of laptops, iPods and digital cameras are unaccounted for. ("Merry Christmas, son! Happy birthday, daughter!") That's two-thirds of the total money spent on those items, so two out of every three have gone missing. (And why the hell is any branch of the government buying iPods with MY money??? What official, legitimate need could they possibly have for them???)

The U.S. Army misplaced 16 server things that cost a cool $100,000 EACH.

A USDA employee paid out $642,000 of our money over six years to her live-in boyfriend for gambling, cars, house payments, dinners and shopping. Surprise: she was actually charged with embezzlement and tax fraud, pled guilty and was sentenced to 21 months in prison. (She's the only one mentioned in any of the articles who actually received punishment for her actions.)

She stole a freakin' average of $107,000 a year and it took six years for anyone to notice??? (Actually, no one did notice until a tattletale tattled. Good for him/her!)

Post office employees charged $14,000-plus for Internet dating services and ONE dinner that averaged $160 per person (had to have $3,000 worth of booze to wash down all that steak and crab). I hope they choked on it.

BTW, the guy who paid for the Internet dating service was told to repay the money. That's all. No slap on the hand. No charges of embezzlement or fraud. No harm to his career future. Just give back the money you stole and we'll forget it happened.

Pentagon employees stole $77,000 for tailor-made suits and other clothes. Sheesh. I can't afford tailor-made clothes. Why the hell am I paying for them for someone else???

A State Department employee bought $360 worth of lingerie at a fancy-pants boutique "for use during jungle training" in a drug-enforcement program in Ecuador.

I don't even know what to say to that. What the hell kind of lingerie do you need for the jungle? What the hell kind of training requires expensive lingerie?? Seducing and assassinating terrorists in Paris, maybe. Drug-enforcement training in the jungle? No fucking way.

Last, but not least, Justice and the FBI spent $15,000 of our money at the Ritz Carlton for a four-day conference. Only one-third of the money was actually for the conference; the rest paid for drinks and "light refreshments."

There's a line in an old Miami Vice episode where the bad guy says, "What is this world coming to when you can't even trust the cops to be honest?" Apparently, too true!

"Too many government employees have viewed purchase cards as their personal line of credit," says Senator Norm Coleman. Damn straight.

But you know what? If they started throwing these dishonest, defrauding, untrustworthy, thieving sons of bitches in jail, I bet we'd see a change.

Better that these folks work for the government and not me, because I guarantee you, you steal even one of MY laptops, iPods or digital cameras, I'm gonna kick your ass. You spend MY money on a custom-tailored suit, you'll be eating that suit, fiber by fiber. You treat a bunch of people to a $160-per-person dinner on MY dime, it'll be a long time before you're able to even think about taking another bite, and when you can, steak will be out of the question because it's too hard to gum.

But, oh, wait, none of that would ever happen because I'M NOT STUPID ENOUGH TO GIVE CROOKS AND THIEVES MY CREDIT CARDS!!!

Too bad we can't say the same for our government. Rachel8:53 AM