Federal Credit Cards Being Abused.

In still another scathing report by the General Accounting Office it seems that giving Federal credit cards to Federal employees has turned into a perfect system to steal millions of dollars from taxpayers. What is even more disturbing is that no one in government seems interested in rectifying the thievery.

The GAO has come out with a report that tells of dozens of tales of obvious theft of taxpayer money using government credit cards. The report also shows there is a total lack of anyone doing even a cursory check of what employees are charging to you and I. In all, almost half the charges on credit cards, whether proper or not, were not checked by department heads or supervisory personnel to determine the validity of the charges.

Among the most egregious pilfering found by the GAO is that no one knows where hundreds of laptop computers, IPods and digital cameras are at. The dollar amount of these items is over a million but it seems that number is too small for anyone to concern themselves with. Obviously, the first place to look would be in the homes of the parties who charged this equipment but no one said our legislators are smart.

The U.S. Army can’t find sixteen complete computer systems including servers worth $100,000 each and admits they have no idea if they have them or if they were purchased and black marketed to someone else. Again I ask. Who signed the bill for these missing systems?

Lavish meals, expensive hotels, clothing bills and even casino expenses were everywhere the auditors looked but still no one is saying they will do something about these abuses. Instead the departments say they do a good job and admit they need to do better. Are they kidding us?

Somehow U.S. Postal workers charged $14,000 for expensive hotel rooms, lavish meals and expensive bottles of wine at a meeting. It has to be asked how hard that can be to notice when the bill comes in.

In one case, a Department of Agriculture employee wrote 180 convenience checks for more than $642,000, to pay for gambling, cars, the mortgage on her home and retail purchases that went on for six years until finally a whistleblower clued in the Department that this woman was living off of us. How can someone charge that much over so many years and not be caught.

To show how blatant the crimes and how little retribution the system has, a postmaster charged $1100 for two internet dating services all the while there was an internal investigation of him for viewing pornography on a government computer. What happened to this man? Nothing; he was told to repay the $1100 and still is on the job.

Perhaps the most ludicrous expenditure that the GAO found was that of a state department official who purchased $360 worth of women’s lingerie at a boutique for alleged use during jungle training by trainees of a drug enforcement program. That’s a legitimate expense isn’t it.          

We don’t need higher taxes in this country. We don’t need to cut back on humanitarian programs. All we have to do is stop allowing people to steal our money and when they are caught give them an all expenses paid vacation in a Federal penitentiary where they belong. The problem however is who will prosecute these crooks. The old pot calling the kettle black makes me wonder if the thieves have too much baggage on the other thieves and so everyone just keeps taking what they want. And what they want are our tax dollars.

Comment by Danny Davids^(13,074) (36 days 21 hours ago.)