"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Friday, September 21, 2007

Where is the Republican candidates' outrage over THIS?
Posted by Jill | 5:36 AM
What election cycle would be complete without the Republican candidates' squawking about government spending? And yet, I don't hear any of them talking about the massive squandering and outright disappearance of billions of dollars in taxpayer money into the black hole that is the Republican war in the Middle East:

Military officials said Thursday that contracts worth $6 billion to provide essential supplies to American troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan — including food, water and shelter — were under review by criminal investigators, double the amount the Pentagon had previously disclosed.

In addition, $88 billion in contracts and programs, including those for body armor for American soldiers and matériel for Iraqi and Afghan security forces, are being audited for financial irregularities, the officials said.

Taken together, the figures, provided by the Pentagon in a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, represent the fullest public accounting of the magnitude of a widening government investigation into bid-rigging, bribery and kickbacks by members of the military and civilians linked to the Pentagon’s purchasing system.

Until the hearing on Thursday, the Army’s most detailed public disclosure about the scale of the problem was that contracts worth $3 billion awarded by the Kuwait office were under review.

At the hearing, a panel of high-ranking Defense Department officials described a war-zone procurement system in disarray. They said that the Pentagon failed to provide adequate training for contracting officers for their assignments, offered insufficient oversight of contracting officers’ activities and had not put in place early warning systems to catch officers who violated the law.

“In a combat environment, we didn’t have the checks and balances we should have in place,” said Shay D. Assad, director of defense procurement and acquisition policy. “So people who don’t have ethics and integrity are going to be able to get away with things.”


No, asshole, it's because of systemic and irredeemable problems with the Bush model of government, in which the coffers are the United States are thrown open for Administration cronies and campaign contributors to plunder at will, and in which government functions are privatized with zero accountability.

I wish that the voters who have been equating "government spending" with "welfare queens" ever since the Reagan Administration would take a closer look at how profligate Republicans are with their money, stuffing handfuls of it into the pockets of the richest Americans and into the coffers of those companies who best stand to profit off the Republican doctrine of endless war.

Labels: , ,

0 comments
Bookmark and Share