USDOJ buys $16 muffins, $8 coffees, $5 meatballs, etc

[Macamus Prime]

More good old fashioned American hard work...

 

[Lithium381]

I hope Michelle Obama approved those meals.....
on a serious note: FUCK THEM. . . i don't care if it's catered or they have to send the janitor to go pick it up.... oh i'm sorry, the sanitation administrative engineer. Order domino's pizza FFS!!!! PIsses me off that they spend so much.

On the freeway on a hot day i'm in the slow lane going 55 with my windows down to save gas, and i often see government/state cars blow past in the fast lane going over the speed limit with the windows up....likely using AC...... if "we the people" have to cut back, shouldn't "the government"(really it's us apparently) have to be responsible as well?

Obama talks about the "average american" wanting to lead a better life.....and compares them to the "rich"...... he should start comparing them to these sleeze gubment that dine in conferences like this

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

If they don't spend all of their budget then it <s>may</s> will certainly will get cut next year. So you have the people in charge actively trying to waste money when the fiscal year is coming to an end.

Fixed, and there's a lot of truth to this.

Further fixed and absolutely true. They need to rethink how they determine funding. At the end of a fiscal year it'd be irresponsible for a project manager to not waste what funding they have left since even if they had one cheap year it might not be so peachy next year.

 

[preslove]

I hope Michelle Obama approved those meals.

This report only covers the first year of the obama administration, and the DOJ claims that the Attorney General has been reforming this shit since 2009.

 

[lxskllr]

On the freeway on a hot day i'm in the slow lane going 55 with my windows down to save gas, and i often see government/state cars blow past in the fast lane going over the speed limit with the windows up....likely using AC...... if "we the people" have to cut back, shouldn't "the government"(really it's us apparently) have to be responsible as well?

You might want to compare gas mileage. At freeway speeds it's very likely you use more gas with the windows down due to the parachute effect. Creeping through city traffic, the windows down should be cheaper.

 

[Sluggo]

Article:



It looks like Holder has already been working on cleaning up this puke from W's disgusting debauchery.

Gotta save some so we can save up for a couple of million dollar buses.

 

[WT]

Pffff, you should see what hookers and blow go for around there

 

[Lithium381]

You might want to compare gas mileage. At freeway speeds it's very likely you use more gas with the windows down due to the parachute effect. Creeping through city traffic, the windows down should be cheaper.

Quite possible, though i typically don't have them all the way down cause then i can't hear the radio so the effect is likely reduced. on a typical fillup i'll average 42-46mpg's

either way....55mph > 70+ for gas mileage
a

 

[GotIssues]

lol only a matter of time until someone blamed boosh

Why be informed (or have any common sense) when one can just blame the previous administration?

Ridiculous government waste spans decades, it's not confined to one administration, no matter how much you hate that administration.

It's like blaming Bush for the DotCom bust and the mortgage meltdown - Do you really, honestly think that something that large came in that short amount of time? The roots of the problems are nearly always at least 10 years in the making, usually more.

 

[FeuerFrei]

I swear, a vendor should never know it's selling to the government. Keep 'em in the dark.

 

[Buckeye269]

All told, as The Associated Press reports, "the department hosted or participated in 1,832 conferences in 2008 and 2009, costing $121 million."

you might think $121 million is chump change when talking budgets for the entire U.S. While that may not be a huge amount in retrospect; it still is money. Money that we as a country don't have.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Govn't waste and bloat drives me crazy but what drives me crazier are stories like this that have no documentation and no explanation of how these costs were derived. How exaxtly did they determine that someone paid $16 for a muffin? All it is is a sensational headline: "ZOMG!!! $16 muffins!!!"

Followed by the predictable outrage of: "WFT!!! They're spending $16 of my tax money on a MUFFIN!!!11!1one"

1. There's no explanation of how they arrived at that number. If it was a catered event where you had wait staff serving water and coffee and all some nimrod did was calculate the bill for the food and labor and go 'hey... that works out to $16/muffin!' then there shouldn't be all this outrage. Same thing with the meatballs, cookies, etc. Nobody paid $16 for a muffin. They paid for the service labor and whatever other costs were involved.

2. Why does everyone get so outraged about this that they completely forget we're about to give away trillions of dollars in health care over the next few decades that SOMEONE has to pay for.

3. Why does everyone want to set this as the paradigm of government waste when we're in the middle of two wars that long ago outlived their original intent (and that's assuming you believed the intent was legitimate to begin with) at a cost of trillions?


$16 muffins are the least of our worries here. Anyone who stands up and goes "AHA!!! We spend too much on muffins and meetings!" is a fucking tool.

 

[preslove]

Yea, I'm no fan of Bush, but it's hard to pin that kind of nonsense on any single administration. Big government culture encourages that kind of waste. Want less waste? Shrink the government.

lol only a matter of time until someone blamed boosh

Except, the Bush administration is actually implicated in the report. Bush is responsible for most of our budget deficit. Cut taxes and start two wars (something that NEVER happened in American history before that fucking idiot came into office) and you get a fucking huge defecit.

Why be informed (or have any common sense) when one can just blame the previous administration?

blah blah blah, idiotic babbling.

The report IMPLICATES THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATION. Also, if you were actually informed, you'd know that the bush administration completely ransacked the DOJ, filling ton's of positions with incompetent Liberty University political hacks. They fucked up the DOJ far worse than ANY administration since Nixon.

 

[Juddog]

Meanwhile let's slash the budget for education some more. Gotta afford those muffins somehow, amirite?

 

[lxskllr]

Except, the Bush administration is actually implicated in the report. Bush is responsible for most of our budget deficit. Cut taxes and start two wars (something that NEVER happened in American history before that fucking idiot came into office) and you get a fucking huge defecit.

I'm not arguing any of that, but $16 muffins, and the billions of other ways to waste money didn't start with Bush. Think of the paid for tax cuts we could have, or maybe some world leading scientific research, or maybe better subsidized medical care... There's an endless number of good ways to spend money, but it requires good faith on the parts of public SERVANTS, and for people to do the right thing.

 

[preslove]

I'm not arguing any of that, but $16 muffins, and the billions of other ways to waste money didn't start with Bush.

Link? This report does not support your claim.

Again, it's pretty well known that Bush really hurt the quality of the DOJ, to an extent that is not comparable to any recent D or R administration.

 

[KeithTalent]

I don't know, Kobe meatballs with a truffle demi? I'd pay $5 for one of those. Muffins are pretty gross at any price though.

KT

 

[lxskllr]

Link? This report does not support your claim.

What kind of link do you want? How can you link to institutionalized corruption? It's already been gone over in this thread. EVERY governmental agency has to piss away their money so they can get the same amount the next year. Think about that for a minute... Even a single military base has thousands of individual departments padding their budgets so they won't get caught in a theoretical shortage at some point in the future. Now multiply that single military base across the USA, it's territories, and foreign agencies, and don't forget to include the 100% civilian divisions in your numbers.

I've likely been hearing about government waste since before you were born. It's definitely nothing new....

 

[BladeVenom]

Obama wants to raise taxes, so they can afford the $32 muffins next year.

 

[Aikouka]

On the freeway on a hot day i'm in the slow lane going 55 with my windows down to save gas, and i often see government/state cars blow past in the fast lane going over the speed limit with the windows up....likely using AC...... if "we the people" have to cut back, shouldn't "the government"(really it's us apparently) have to be responsible as well?

It's your own choice whether to drive slow and use your windows versus air conditioning. You shouldn't attempt to force your incredibly excessive levels of frugality on others.

 

[Patranus]

We don't have a spending problem, we have a taxing problem - ya right.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

We don't have a spending problem, we have a taxing problem - ya right.

We very clearly have both.

 

[LikeLinus]

.

You do realize that you are comparing 8 years vs. 2 1/2 years. Right?

5.07 Trillion over 8 years vs. 1.44 Trillion so far in less than 3 years. I realize that some of that cost is spread out over several years, but it's still money spent in total. So you really think that if Obama was in office another 5 1/2 years that he's not going to spend another dime?

 

[ch33zw1z]

We very clearly have both.

so this.

 

[KeithTalent]

You do realize that you are comparing 8 years vs. 2 1/2 years. Right?

5.07 Trillion over 8 years vs. 1.44 Trillion so far in less than 3 years. I realize that some of that cost is spread out over several years, but it's still money spent in total. So you really think that if Obama was in office another 5 1/2 years that he's not going to spend another dime?

You do know what projections are don't you?

KT