I hope those muffins were worth $16
Newch91
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http://news.yahoo.com/16-muffins-8-coff ... 23142.html
$16 muffins, $8 coffee served in Justice audit
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the U.S. government grapples to find ways to trim the bloated federal deficit, a new report suggests officials might start with cutting out $16 muffins and $10 cookies.
"We found the Department (of Justice) spent $16 on each of the 250 muffins served at an August 2009 legal conference in Washington," said a DOJ Office of Inspector General report released on Tuesday.
The DOJ spent $121 million on conferences in fiscal 2008 and 2009, which exceeded its own spending limits and appeared to be extravagant and wasteful, according to the report that examined 10 conferences held during that period.
The review turned up the expensive muffins, which came from the Capital Hilton Hotel just blocks from the White House, as well as cookies and brownies that cost almost $10 each.
The department spent $32 per person on snacks of Cracker Jack, popcorn, and candy bars and coffee that cost $8.24 per cup at another conference, the report said.
The DOJ also spent nearly $600,000 for event planning services for five conferences, the document said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said most of the gathering were held when there were no strict limits on food and beverage costs, adding the DOJ had taken steps since 2009 "to ensure that these problems do not occur again."
Word of the agency's extravagant spending drew a swift response from Capitol Hill.
Senator Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee which has oversight of the Justice Department, said the report was a blueprint for the first cuts that should be made by the "super committee" searching for at least $1.2 trillion in savings.
"Sixteen dollar muffins and $600,000 for event planning services are what make Americans cynical about government and why they are demanding change," Grassley said in a statement. "People are outraged, and rightly so."
$16 muffins, $8 coffee served in Justice audit
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the U.S. government grapples to find ways to trim the bloated federal deficit, a new report suggests officials might start with cutting out $16 muffins and $10 cookies.
"We found the Department (of Justice) spent $16 on each of the 250 muffins served at an August 2009 legal conference in Washington," said a DOJ Office of Inspector General report released on Tuesday.
The DOJ spent $121 million on conferences in fiscal 2008 and 2009, which exceeded its own spending limits and appeared to be extravagant and wasteful, according to the report that examined 10 conferences held during that period.
The review turned up the expensive muffins, which came from the Capital Hilton Hotel just blocks from the White House, as well as cookies and brownies that cost almost $10 each.
The department spent $32 per person on snacks of Cracker Jack, popcorn, and candy bars and coffee that cost $8.24 per cup at another conference, the report said.
The DOJ also spent nearly $600,000 for event planning services for five conferences, the document said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said most of the gathering were held when there were no strict limits on food and beverage costs, adding the DOJ had taken steps since 2009 "to ensure that these problems do not occur again."
Word of the agency's extravagant spending drew a swift response from Capitol Hill.
Senator Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee which has oversight of the Justice Department, said the report was a blueprint for the first cuts that should be made by the "super committee" searching for at least $1.2 trillion in savings.
"Sixteen dollar muffins and $600,000 for event planning services are what make Americans cynical about government and why they are demanding change," Grassley said in a statement. "People are outraged, and rightly so."
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The government needs to be changed top-to-bottom, not bottom-to-top. We need to focus on the leaks that are costing billions, then address the ones costing millions. Politics like to wave stories like this in our face to distract from the bigger issues.
excellent point
and
include their bloated salaries
"what a long, strange trip it's been"
is there an auditor general in the US?
This on deserves a Come On, Man!.....you know very well that it is crucial these older political gentlemen NEEDS their fiber at whatever price.
Peace
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Godfather.
If someone is willing to buy a $16 muffin from you, would you try to stop them? Taking advantage of someone requires doing something underhanded. Putting a price tag of $16 on a muffin and then someone walks into your store and spends $16 on it ... well, that's not underhanded ... that's just plain stupidity on the part of the person breaking their wallet out.
i disagree ... my point is that these no-bid contracts that happen all over gov't tenders are for the most part slated to go to friends and supporters of politicians ... it's a racket ... it wouldn't surprise me if the caterer was a major supporter of whoever was in charge of this fiasco ...
this is what i mean by the corporatization of gov't ... it's sole purpose is to siphon money from taxpayers and give it to corporations ...
if they had less, they wouldn't be able to spend it on stuff like this. This shit wouldn't fly at the county level, at least not here in MN. We can't even by pens without two people approving the invoice.
This isn't an issue of scratching backs, it is about spending your budget, if you don't spend it all you lose any increase you may want. 16$ muffins, 100$ hammers, gold toilet seats...who gives a shit what it is...these people cannot be trusted.
Jason is right, I think this is more of an outcome of not having to earn the money than it is about scratching backs...
Polaris, I will agree that no bid contracts should go away. That shit is un-american at a most egregious level. No competition? that is a joke. We should also get rid of the bacon davis act requiring govt's to pay union scale even if a company is not union. Does anyone think it is a good idea to have such a law on the books?
Government should almost have to take the cheapest bid unless it can be proven the more expensive bid is necessary for some reason. So we end up with $16 muffins...I am sure the next thing we will hear about this is that the muffins were cooked out of the country and imported.
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
someone gets it...well done polaris...
folks want the gov't to outsource everything...then they whine and moan at the results...and the costs...
using contractors doesn't have to be done irresponsibly
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
and the contractor charging 16bucks a muffin gets free pass...
yes.
I could charge them 100 for a muffin, who is at fault for paying it?
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
unlike you, I think those charging 16bucks a muffin have some blame as well...anyway, I don't understand why folks are whining about the gov't buying these muffins...it's what you wanted...privatization....you seem to think that private companies can do as they please...the free market wins...
you should be happy about this story...
goddamn them.
I'm guessing you're trying to make a joke, yes...?
anyway, what upsets you about this story...? I would think you'd be happy about the Capital Hilton Hotel making a sweet profit...
why?
this isn't the free market...this is the government not caring about the money they are charged with "spending". THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PRIVATIZATION. It is about a government that doesn't care what it spends and will do whatever the fuck it wants with the seemingly unlimited resources it creates out of thin air. $16 dollar muffins...who gives a shit we will just print more money...8 dollar coffee for hundreds of people...fuck it, we will just go to the ATM (tax payers) and say the rich aren't paying their fair share....fuck this.
If someone is willing to pay $16 dollars for a muffin why would you stop them?
The person, or the government in this case, paying $16 for a muffin is the idiot. When you have a government law on the books that requires prevailing wages on non-union jobs (huge waste of money), a government that pays $16 for a fucking muffin, or 20 on a toilet seat...when you have this kind of clear disregard for the money they are stewards off...I don't know what to tell you...if you think this has anything to do with some privatization argument, I don't know what to tell you.
Can you explain to me how the government would do infrastructure projects if they never used private contractors? Should they simply manufacture everything they need? Should the government never buy goods from the private sector? how the fuck would they get light bulbs for the offices? how would they get pencils, pens, office supplies? Explain to me what privatization has to do buying expensive muffins...with this please, because I cannot see it as the problem here...
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan
yes, there is a certain amount of this being ... "it's not my money - who cares" ... but this is the Hilton here ... this isn't some store charging $16 muffins ... this is a huge corporation that also books hotels for diplomats, bureaucrats and whoever ... catering is another thing they do ... companies like haliburton get paid to feed soldiers at a cost of similar to this scale ... they get these fat contracts with very little oversight because of their connections ... i wonder what hilton's revenues are related to gov't expenditures ...??
But it does ponder the question: Is Hilton in bed or just providing beds for Capital Hill ...
If work is needed to be done for local municipalities here in the state of NY, particularly in construction, there is no better way of doing it than a COMPETITIVE bid process (5 - 15 bidders) to private companies. I can't tell you how many times my company has cut profit to the absolute minimum just get get work and keep cashflow going and we still get destroyed pretty regularly by other companies, maybe coming away with 1 out of every 15 projects we bid. We often wonder, how can these guys do these projects so cheap? Even deleting our profit from our estimates often times wouldn't win us the bids. More power to those who won, and more power to the taxpayers. The majority of these projects are designed by private architects and engineers who work closely with the local governments and do a great job on the drawings and specifications, have real completion dates, and real penalties for those who don't meet them.
Now, just this morning I worked on projects bidding at the United States Military Academy at West Point. The specifications are so incredibly bloated, non-specific, and completely over the top in terms of what is actually required to function there, designed by the Army Corp of Engineers. My company has been completely burned in the past by under-bidding work there and it nearly put us out of business. Bidding projects there requires a certain amount of insurance dollars just in case you miss something in the specs, for the never ending punchlists and inspections, and our bids are subcontractor bids to a GC who is one of only 4 or 5 GCs allowed to bid on work there. Competition IS minimized, but it's not no-bid by any means. I know we only come away with a small fraction of the work that we bid to this one GC, so I know the GC tries to maximize competition among his subcontractors. In general, after all is said and done, work over at West Point (Federal, DOD) on the same payscale as the state of NY costs at least double. I don't particularly like doing work there-- it's a lot of headaches.
I didn't read about the $16 muffins, but I know that a lot of times that these numbers come from concealing other expenditures within the DOD. The muffins still may have been ridiculously expensive because of the amount of hassle dealing with the federal government, but I would guess that those numbers are actually used to cover expenditures in more clandestine spending there.
I was renting a car from Enterprise, and was talking to a manager there... He worked in an office for a few years right by my work (and right by all of the New York State building in Albany). He said they did a ton of state business, and just about everyone got the biggest vehicle available and never put gas in them when returning. He said it was great for business and commissions, but at the same time it made you angry about how wasteful they were spending our tax dollars.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
trillion$ are where our problems lie :x
Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14
everything adds up....
and i can't believe there are people defending the $16 muffin.
Vegas 93, Vegas 98, Vegas 00 (10 year show), Vegas 03, Vegas 06
VIC 07
EV LA1 08
Seattle1 09, Seattle2 09, Salt Lake 09, LA4 09
Columbus 10
EV LA 11
Vancouver 11
Missoula 12
Portland 13, Spokane 13
St. Paul 14, Denver 14
Tell me about it... that's like 11.9 million Hilton muffins we could buy every day with that money.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
agreed that there are bigger wastes of money...but at the same time...every little bit helps and shit like this should never happen
It's like worrying about buying the 10 cent package of Top Ramen or the generic brand Ramen for 8 cents... while the roof of your house is on fire.
...
It would be a higher priority if we are talking about the purchase of 1,750,000,000,000 packages of Top Ramen... or 1,750,000,000 muffins.
Hail, Hail!!!
agreed that their are higher priorities, but this sort of shit should never happen in the first place.
It happens every time Private individuals or companies have access to government funds.
This is how a catering company can charge 16 bucks for a muffin... a doctor can bill Medicare 5 dollars for a band aid... a scooter/wheelchair salesman can work with an old fucker to have the taxpayers get him a Rascal when he really doesn't need one.
...
Hell, I see the same thing happen at my company:
We get 71 dollars per day on a meal allowance. I eat the free breakfast at the hotel, the free lunch at the conference and skip dinner... I've been sitting on my ass all day, not plowing the gotdamn South Forty. I don't need to burn off 3 squares a day.
But, some employees will max out the per diem... just because they can. Who has steak and lobster every night? Not me... or some of my co-workers... except when it's on the company dime.
People are the problem.
Hail, Hail!!!