GSA's $820 million Conference

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Originally Posted by Gerry Clinchy

As the investigation continues, they keep finding more "dirt". The GSA, with 1% of Fed employees, is gobbling up 10% of employee bonuses ... to the tune of $44,000,000 in the most recent year. Some employee got $115,000 in OVERTIME, when his/her base salary was $84,000/year ($42/hour) With the overtime, the base was more than doubled. Wonder if the overtime was for time spent at some of those nifty conferences?

Seems they keep uncovering more stuff as they dig deeper. Could this be part of why Holder doesn't want anyone digging deeper into the Fast & Furious debacle?

At the moment GSA has cancelled 37 conferences that were previously scheduled.


Wonder what they did that was exceptional to merit bonuses?

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In the sales game (which they are admittedly in).. we receive bonuses based on GROSS PROFIT. So, everytime they gouged our pockets, we paid them more. Awesome!!

And the scandals keep on coming. Now a 4-star general has been investigated for "mis-using" hundreds of thousands of dollars of govt money in various unauthorized expenses, including allowing family members to travel on govt aircraft.

One of his penalties could be having his retirement rank reduced from 4-star general to 3-star general. This could cost him ... sit down ... about $1 million in reduced retirement pay and overtime. Guess there are lots of ways to become a millionaire, but I didn't suspect that this was one of them.

This is a non-partisan ... abuses like this didn't begin "overnight". They've obviously been growing over time due to big govt and budgets so large that nobody can keep track of them.

If all this abuse doesn't convince voters that a lot of the Fed budget isn't pure, unadulterated waste, I cannot imagine what it would take to do so.

And now we find out that the Veterans' Administration has spent $5M on conferences as well ... including the production of a "spoof" film of the movie "Patton".

Our tax dollars at work ... entertaining bureaucrats.

Every time they find waste like this, the budget of that agency should be cut by that amount the following year.

Yup, Buzz, I dug up another old thread ... since it ties in with the newest revelation that the VA this year spent $6 million on conferences. While the IG report indicates that they offered valid training courses at these conferences, they also included luxury percs like those used by the GSA. Two VA HR conferences in Orlando so far have tallied up to the $6 million, but the IG says the tally could go higher. $762,000 in excessive, unnecessary expenditures have already been flagged.

The top HR official resigned as the report was presented. He was an Obama appointee.

Is there anyone left who thinks we should raise taxes on ANYbody before we find all the waste in the govt agencies? What motivation would there be to cut costs if we didn't use austerity first? While the VA is cutting costs in serving its veterans, these turkeys are livin' it up in Orlando with "artisan cheese displays". Reprehensible.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gerry Clinchy

Yup, Buzz, I dug up another old thread ... since it ties in with the newest revelation that the VA this year spent $6 million on conferences. While the IG report indicates that they offered valid training courses at these conferences, they also included luxury percs like those used by the GSA. Two VA HR conferences in Orlando so far have tallied up to the $6 million, but the IG says the tally could go higher. $762,000 in excessive, unnecessary expenditures have already been flagged.

The top HR official resigned as the report was presented. He was an Obama appointee.

Is there anyone left who thinks we should raise taxes on ANYbody before we find all the waste in the govt agencies? What motivation would there be to cut costs if we didn't use austerity first? While the VA is cutting costs in serving its veterans, these turkeys are livin' it up in Orlando with "artisan cheese displays". Reprehensible.

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You go, girl ! You are doin' great. Cut back all this waste to the bone.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gerry Clinchy

Yup, Buzz, I dug up another old thread ... since it ties in with the newest revelation that the VA this year spent $6 million on conferences. While the IG report indicates that they offered valid training courses at these conferences, they also included luxury percs like those used by the GSA. Two VA HR conferences in Orlando so far have tallied up to the $6 million, but the IG says the tally could go higher. $762,000 in excessive, unnecessary expenditures have already been flagged.

The top HR official resigned as the report was presented. He was an Obama appointee.

Is there anyone left who thinks we should raise taxes on ANYbody before we find all the waste in the govt agencies? What motivation would there be to cut costs if we didn't use austerity first? While the VA is cutting costs in serving its veterans, these turkeys are livin' it up in Orlando with "artisan cheese displays". Reprehensible.

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"austerity".... sounds like a bad disease. makes people want to riot in the streets. we need a new word or it will never "sell".... It's become incredibly obvious that until conservative becomes "cool"... it will never fly.