News Flash: Pentagon Wastes Millions of Taxpayer Dollars!
In an ironically fitting tribute to Ronald Reagan, who spent money on national defense like, well, a drunken sailor, the General Accounting Office has released the latest in long-running series of exposes detailing just how poorly the Pentagon keeps track of taxpayer dough. Twenty years ago, it was $640 toilet seats that fueld public indignation. Now it's massive amounts of unused airline tickets:
Pentagon spent an estimated $100 million on airline tickets that were never used and didn't seek refunds, a government investigation to be released today shows. The military also reimbursed employees as much as $8 million for tickets actually bought by the Defense Department, according to a second report from the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress.
Hmm, maybe this is a domestic variation on Iran-Contra, a clandestine way of bailing out the stinking airline industry (in addtion, of course, to all the federal largess they got after 9/11).
Whole story here.