See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.
By Stanley P. Gershbein
Brooklyn Daily
Come with me to the 10th floor of this beautiful building and let us take a walk down the hall to the set of double glass doors with the gold leaf lettering that reads, “Office Of Government Waste! We Never Close!”
My desk is way over in the corner near the window. That’s right. It is the one that is piled high with loads of paper of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Please don’t touch anything. I know where everything is. In that stack are some notes that I may use for today’s column, such as:
The EPA of our great United States gave away $141,000 to fund a Chinese study on swine manure. No! I’m not kidding. A Chinese study. We borrow money from China and then give it back to them. Are we stupid, or what?
This wasteful stuff is all over the place and from loads of credible sources. Bernie Goldberg tells us, “We spent $27 million to fund pottery classes — in Morocco.” Why?
Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is annoyed that $181,000 taxpayer dollars are being used to fund a program that is studying the effects of cocaine on the reproductive habits of Japanese quail. Japanese quail. Not even American quail.
The knucklehead bureaucrat that approved that one was probably on coke at the time!
David Montoya, the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, tells us about $700 million in missing taxpayer money that Louisiana homeowners were given in the wake of Hurricane Katrina for the purpose of elevating and protecting their homes from future storms. Since 24,000 homeowners received grants of up to $30,000, and very few homes were actually renovated, he was asked where the money went. The inspector general responded with a rather unintelligent, “Your guess is as good as mine.”
And this guy is in charge?
• • •
I’m told $939,771 was spent on a study that concluded male fruit flies are mostly attracted to younger females more than the older ones. Isn’t that the same with most male humans?
And $325,000 was spent for researchers to build a robotic squirrel to test if they are attacked by rattlesnakes the same way real squirrels are. Why? Who cares?
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No column on government waste can be complete without at least one comment about food stamps. Improper recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program accounted for $2.5 billion in waste including one exotic dancer who reported earning $85,000 a year.
Included in that “improper recipients” list are some 2,000 residents of New York and Massachusetts who passed away last year but continued to receive food stamps. Where are these dead people going to use them?
The pile of notes on this subject stands almost 18 inches high and we’ve hardly cracked half an inch. Oh well. I guess we could look forward to another column on the matter. I am StanGershbein@Bellsouth.net explaining to you why this Office of Government Waste is never closed!