GSA: Gross Spending Abuse?
Earlier this month it was discovered that the General Services Administration has spent over 830,000 of taxpayer dollars on a 2010 conference in Las Vegas. (I will refer to them as “GSA” from now on to save taxpayer characters). This money was spent on a long list of more or less outrageous expenses, from $4 shrimps and commemorative coins to mind readers and employee video award shows. For three day so far, Congress has held hearings on the GSA wasteful spending, trying to investigate the full extent of the GSA overspending. But since what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, there were probably other things that had not caught the nation’s attention yet. So here are 10 other things that GSA had wasted money on in Las Vegas and beyond.
$10,000 bet that the conference overspending is not going to be discovered.
$25,500 for hiring prostitutes. This expense was never found, since unlike the Secret Service with their Colombian screw-up last week, GSA was at least able to keep a secret.
$6000 Commemorative coins displaying a $4 denomination on the front of the coin and a shrimp on back.
$14,350 to pay an event-planning consultant to generate the ideas on what else GSA can spend money on, and a $3,500 on a mind reader to find out if the consultant is hiding any of his ideas.
$50,000 for hiring James Cameron and Steven Spielberg to direct GSA employee videos.
$16,000 in commemorative dollar bills, immediately given to commemorative strippers.
$75,000 on assembling 24 bicycles for the underprivileged children, and hiring strippers to play the underprivileged children.
$75,000 on the complete reenactment of the movie “The Hangover”, claimed in the expense reports as a “team building exercise”.
$32,800 spent on IPhones given as gifts to GSA employees as a part of the GSA incentive program, so that the employees could play Angry Birds with their IPhones by launching the IPhones instead of the birds.
$250,000 spent to organize and hold three days of Congress hearings on the wasteful GSA spending.
P.S. An interesting fact: approximately the same amount of money ($600,000 to $800,000) has been spent on the war in Afghanistan in the time it took you to read this post.
Related articles
- Party Animals at the General Services Administration (sfcmac.wordpress.com)
- GSA scandal exposes waste – of Congress’ time (thehill.com)
List of X 
I enjoyed your list. Your bonus P.S. is exactly what I always think about whenever I see Congress investigating these relatively petty ante scandals. If only they would go after the big stuff, like the trillions the Fed loaned to the Wall Street banks, and the billions that disappeared in Iraq…….I won’t hold my breath waiting.
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Thank you. If politicians would even try to seriously go after Wall Street, they lose billions in donations (on the party level). GSA is an easy target.
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The PS wasn’t funny, though it was sobering, if true. And I tend to think it’s a conservative estimate.
The GSA WOULD have been caught with those prostitutes if they had simply chintzed out and tried to stiff one of the girls (and I mean stiff her as in cheat her out of her fee).
Which only goes to prove that at least the GSA knows the value of a good screw. Which is why they oversee government expenditures.
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if so, it seems that a good screw is only thing GSA knows a value of.
Pentagon’s estimate of daily cost of war is $300M a day: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gNQ3JbWwd6t-PzkuECkRJvsAlNkA
So that’s a conservative estimate, and it’s $208K a minute.
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Sad. And the Philadelphia School District is dissolving for lack of funds. We have our priorities screwed up.
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And let’s not forget the U of Florida closing computer science department so that they could give more money to sports
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Hey, I agree. Every time I see combat footage I wonder how much each of those bullets cost that they are popping off at several per second and wonder if there is an American kid that is homeless or going to school hungry that might be a better target for Americans’ tax dollars.
Great discussion born from humour!
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well, bullets are cheap. But drones, smart bombs, nation-building – those are expensive. And we are also paying with lives.
At least no one is getting killed over the GSA fiasco, aside from a few careers.
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So 800,000 a minute is too much to be reforming a country where we and our reforms arent wanted?
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maybe just a little bit too high.
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this is great.
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Thank you.
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