Hasn't Barack Obama talked about "shared sacrifice"? Hasn't he talked about the need to trim government budgets and tackle the deficit? We know this is laughable -- and so does our Attorney General Eric Holder and the government employees at the Department of Justice.
Thankfully, the Inspector General at the Department of Justice has more regard for taxpayers than Obama's pal over at Justice.
Terry Markon at the Washington Post reports on the extravagance of the DOJ:
Where does a muffin cost more than $16?
At a government conference, it turns out.
They may run just over $2 at your average coffee shop, but the Justice Department paid seven to eight times as much at a gathering it held at the Capital Hilton in Washington. And on Tuesday, the muffins seemed well on their way to joining the Pentagon's $600 toilet seat as symbols of wasteful spending.
Justice Department auditors also criticized a $76-per-person lunch at a conference at a Hilton in San Francisco, featuring slow-cooked Berkshire pork carnitas, hearts-of-romaine salad -- and coffee at $8.24 a cup....
The report criticized the Justice Department for spending about $600,000 in grant funds for "event planning services" by outside firms at five of the conferences. Schnedar, the acting inspector general, also found that the department spent nearly $3,500 in "unallowable and unnecessary" costs to fly a consultant three times between Alaska and California to help plan a 2008 conference on reducing violence on Indian lands
Justice officials defended that expenditure. "The consultant was the only event planner who had the expertise and knowledge" in areas such as "substantive knowledge of Native American traditions and cultures,'' Laurie O. Robinson, assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs, wrote in response to the report.
Oh...lord...do we really have to hire an event planner who is sensitive to Native American traditions and cultures? Can't people just ask Native American leaders what they thought the best approach might be to have a conference to help them that does not offend their sensibilities? Or just use Google?
Did any of the public servants feel guilty at all at this shameless waste of taxpayer money? Given some of the unhealthy food served, did they check with Michelle Obama and her food police?
No wonder the Obama administration does not care for Inspectors General.
Readers may know that I have a warm spot in my heart and wallet for Inspectors General. I have written that they are the unsung heroes in the federal government. They are the ones who ferret out fraud, waste and corruption that costs taxpayers many billions of dollars a year. They also deserve our praise for irritating our President to such an extent that he has had his minions engage in character assassinations on these public servants (attacks that belie his and the First Lady's claim that government work is the highest calling for mankind). They receive far too little praise if for no other reason they are a thorn in Obama's side.
President Obama does not want people looking closely at his record and does not like others grading him-since they invariably (if they are honest) give him worse grades than he gives himself.
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