Who can forget revelations of Pentagon waste 20 years ago by the Grace Commission that highlighted, among other things, spending $436 for a hammer and $640 for a toilet seat?
But that's peanuts alongside the waste and overcharging by profiteering commercial contractors working for the Bush administration these days with the war in Iraq as a backdrop.
In a new probe, the Defense Contract Audit Agency has compiled a list of astonishing costs charged to the Transportation Security Administration by NCS Pearson Inc. totaling some $303 million for recruiting airport passenger screeners.
How about $1,180 for 20 gallons of Starbucks coffee, or $3.69 a cup?
Or, $1,540 for renting 14 extension cords for three weeks, instead of buying them at a local hardware store.
And $5.4 million for nine months salary for the CEO of a subcontracting firm that went out of business.
Try handling this one—$526 for one telephone call from Chicago to Iowa City, one among $377,273 in undocumented phone charges.
Mismanagement of public funds seems simply to be just more of a culture of incompetence at TSA, whose airport screeners created folklore and routines for TV comics with their inability to spot guns in luggage, but were quick to seize passengers' nail clippers.
Ultimate responsibility for this waste, however, rests with Congress and its oversight committees that supposedly function as watchdogs of the public purse.
Unfortunately, too many congressmen are infatuated with posturing as "patriots" and routinely approve whatever President Bush asks in the name of the war on terror, no questions asked.
