The Pentagon has a long held a reputation of wrongful spending such as $100 for a hammer, $300 for a toilet seat and more recently spent $720 million dollars in late fees for storage containers.
Evidently, the Department of Justice has been paying close attention to the Pentagon’s example.
A recent audit by the inspector general found that the DOJ was paying outlandish prices for food at different Justice meetings and functions. On just 10 conferences they spent $490,000. The press has already labeled this as ‘MuffinGate’. Some of the extravagant spending included:
- $65 dinners
- $76 lunches
- $41 breakfasts
- $1.03 per ounce of tea and coffee
- $16 muffins
- $10 cookies
- $32 per person for Cracker Jacks, popcorn and candy bars.
- $5 each for Swedish meatballs
In 2009, the DOJ spent $120 million of taxpayer money on 1,832 conferences. At a time when America is in an economic crisis, people are losing their jobs and homes, our government should be more fiscally responsible.
With the Pentagon wasting nearly three quarters of a billion dollars on late fees, and the Department of Justice wasting millions more on food, one has to wonder what other government departments are wastefully spending taxpayer money.
In private business, the people responsible for this type of wanton spending would quickly find themselves in the unemployment lines. Our government employees need to be held to the same standards. If I were a congressman, I would be demanding a government wide audit investigation and accountability hearings. Every person found to be responsible should be immediately dismissed from their government job and if warranted, criminal charges filed against them.
Once federal employees see first-hand consequences for improper and illegal spending practices, perhaps they’ll start being more fiscally responsible with taxpayer monies and save the government billions of dollars.
