The GSA Thread

#1
volinbham

volinbham

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#1
Ironic that the hearings for the GSA scandal of wasting tax payers money occurs on tax day.

This is the poster child for government waste. Worse, those testifying are taking the 5th.

Predictably, the Obama administration blamed it on Bush :ermm:
 
#2
#2
The more I learn of this the more I get pissed. It is inexcusable and the fact that it is even possible to happen, at the GSA no less, is the poster child for gov waste and inefficiency.
 
#3
#3
The picture of that a-hole Neely in the tub with wine juxtaposed with his taking the 5th is almost too much.
 
#5
#5
volinbham said:
Even the name tells you the agency is uneeded "General" Services Administration.
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Exactly. If any specific service is "needed" then a specific agency is created, sometimes multiple ones.

Isnt the GSA supposed to oversee gov spending? Maybe that is the GAO, I don't know, they all run together.
 
#8
#8
volinbham said:
I think that's GAO. Honestly don't know what GSA does other than waste money
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Just read the front page of their website. They offer a smorgasbord of vital services. They dress it up real nice. Very key words are used like- green, telework, sustainability, cloud solutions etc.
 
#12
#12
So it looks like Harry Reid was pushing for government agencies to travel to Vegas.

Harry Reid Pushed to Allow Government Conferences in Vegas : Roll Call News

Reid and then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel exchanged letters in the summer of 2009, with Reid urging the administration to publicly support government meetings and conferences in cities like Las Vegas. Emanuel wrote to Reid that he agreed that “federal policy should not dictate the location where government events are held.”
Reid also solicited commitments from two dozen federal agencies to not discriminate against any city in choosing sites for their events and posted their letters of support to his Senate website. One of those agencies to write a letter to Reid was the GSA.
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#13
#13
Ive worked with the government in some capacity since 1998 and I still dont know what the purpose of GSA truly is
 
#14
#14
volinbham said:
Ironic that the hearings for the GSA scandal of wasting tax payers money occurs on tax day.

This is the poster child for government waste. Worse, those testifying are taking the 5th.

Predictably, the Obama administration blamed it on Bush :ermm:
Click to expand...


They didn't "blame" it on Bush. They simply pointed out that the same problems existed under his administration. This was pointed out because various Republican sycophants had appeared on Fox and said, with no effort any providing any rationale, that this was Obama's fault.

Its neither a Dem nor a GOP problem, neither a Bush nor an Obama problem,. Its agency executives who completely lost their mind and suck moose dic* and all need to be fired.


I agree, though, that it is a poster child for crappy government bureaucrats.
 
#15
#15
lawgator1 said:
They didn't "blame" it on Bush. They simply pointed out that the same problems existed under his administration. This was pointed out because various Republican sycophants had appeared on Fox and said, with no effort any providing any rationale, that this was Obama's fault.

Its neither a Dem nor a GOP problem, neither a Bush nor an Obama problem,. Its agency executives who completely lost their mind and suck moose dic* and all need to be fired.


I agree, though, that it is a poster child for crappy government bureaucrats.
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But they did shift the blame - they inflated the numbers of past spending on trips and indicated this was a problem that ultimately was a pass along to them.

Interestingly too, the IG provided preliminary findings of this 11 months before the final report came out and the Obama admin took zero action.

Don't you ever get tired of this administration always finding a reason why something isn't there responsibility? Whatever happened to the buck stops here?
 
#16
#16
volinbham said:
But they did shift the blame - they inflated the numbers of past spending on trips and indicated this was a problem that ultimately was a pass along to them.

Interestingly too, the IG provided preliminary findings of this 11 months before the final report came out and the Obama admin took zero action.

Don't you ever get tired of this administration always finding a reason why something isn't there responsibility? Whatever happened to the buck stops here?
Click to expand...


The "buck stops here" rhetorical gimmick. The favorite refuge of the most simple-minded partisan.
 
#17
#17
volinbham said:
But they did shift the blame - they inflated the numbers of past spending on trips and indicated this was a problem that ultimately was a pass along to them.

Interestingly too, the IG provided preliminary findings of this 11 months before the final report came out and the Obama admin took zero action.

Don't you ever get tired of this administration always finding a reason why something isn't there responsibility? Whatever happened to the buck stops here?
Click to expand...

Should read "every administration". Not sure what makes this one so different.
 
#18
#18
rjd970 said:
Should read "every administration". Not sure what makes this one so different.
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I agree in principle. What adds to it here for me is the knee jerk reaction to look for ways to say we "inherited" this and the promise by this particular administration to cut waste and go "line by line" through the budget to do so. Clearly that was a steaming pile of BS. This administration is amazingly free spending and keeps asking for more. There was testimony from an IG from DoE recently where he testified that stimulus money was flowing so fast that it was impossible to track and that the recipients were not anywhere near prepared to handle it. That money basically vanished. Amazingly, he also testified that much of the stimulus money still has not been spent - 3 damn years later. So, it has added umph here (for me) when we have an administration with a culture of shoveling money out the door without restraint, that knew of the abuses at GSA 11 months prior, that claimed it would be relentless in reducing waste, claimed it would cut the deficit in half and still manages to deflect all responsibility for the abuses of one of it's agencies. There is no leadership. [/rant]

At a minimum I would like to see them truly outraged at the abuse, not just the political fall out from the abuse.

Overall though you are correct.
 
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#19
#19
volinbham said:
I agree in principle. What adds to it here for me is the knee jerk reaction to look for ways to say we "inherited" this and the promise by this particular administration to cut waste and go "line by line" through the budget to do so.

At a minimum I would like to see them truly outraged at the abuse, not just the political fall out from the abuse.

Overall though you are correct.
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Wasn't knee jerk.

Did not happen until after "-R" types went on Fox and made absurd and irrational claim that Obama was somehow to blame.
 
#20
#20
volinbham said:
I agree in principle. What adds to it here for me is the knee jerk reaction to look for ways to say we "inherited" this and the promise by this particular administration to cut waste and go "line by line" through the budget to do so. Clearly that was a steaming pile of BS. This administration is amazingly free spending and keeps asking for more. There was testimony from an IG from DoE recently where he testified that stimulus money was flowing so fast that it was impossible to track and that the recipients were not anywhere near prepared to handle it. That money basically vanished. Amazingly, he also testified that much of the stimulus money still has not been spent - 3 damn years later. So, it has added umph here (for me) when we have an administration with a culture of shoveling money out the door without restraint, that knew of the abuses at GSA 11 months prior, that claimed it would be relentless in reducing waste, claimed it would cut the deficit in half and still manages to deflect all responsibility for the abuses of one of it's agencies. There is no leadership. [/rant]

At a minimum I would like to see them truly outraged at the abuse, not just the political fall out from the abuse.

Overall though you are correct.
Click to expand...

This administration is definitely bad, no denying that.

But we also need to remember the abuse and waste that happened under Bush with no-bid contracts for war support, the insane amount of money that disappeared in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not to mention what was going on at the GSA during the previous administration.

Its all the same. Being a process engineer, I would love to be able to go department by department and do a lean/six sigma project and identify and eliminate waste at government organizations. I would be willing to bet you could cut out the bottom third of the government workforce and see absolutely no drop in service.
 
#21
#21
rjd970 said:
Its all the same. Being a process engineer, I would love to be able to go department by department and do a lean/six sigma project and identify and eliminate waste at government organizations. I would be willing to bet you could cut out the bottom third of the government workforce and see absolutely no drop in service.
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I simply dont like you
 
#22
#22
I'm one of those dirty contractors that actually have to worry about the bottom line. :)
 
#23
#23
rjd970 said:
This administration is definitely bad, no denying that.

But we also need to remember the abuse and waste that happened under Bush with no-bid contracts for war support, the insane amount of money that disappeared in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not to mention what was going on at the GSA during the previous administration.

Its all the same. Being a process engineer, I would love to be able to go department by department and do a lean/six sigma project and identify and eliminate waste at government organizations. I would be willing to bet you could cut out the bottom third of the government workforce and see absolutely no drop in service.
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Can't disagree with any of this. We continue to be poorly served by our elected officials.
 
#24
#24
Big government helped create GSA and Secret Service scandals


Read more: Big government helped create GSA and Secret Service scandals | Fox News


These GSA and Secret Service scandals were not caused by one political party. They were caused by the Big Government attitude that those in government can do as they please with the public trust and the public purse so long as they can get away with it.

Amen.
 
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