I’m going to relate a story from my early years with the “Company” as we called ourselves in those days Of course it’s about taxpayer dollars.

Naturally travel expenses have to be accounted for, at least at my initial level, GS-10 so after each task we’d fill in the required docs. If we went to a place it was always coded as place Y or X or Z…you get the idea. We were also alotted per diem and other travel expenses such as taxi rides without receipts and sky caps, same thing.

A trip that legitimately cost say $200.00 could easily blossom to $400 with the overage going untaxed right in your pocket. Now figure I travelled about 300 days a year and yo can see where we’re talking serious 1971 dollars. Well when the bosses started seeing us all driving XK-E’s and Lotus’ and the like they wanted an audit to CYA.

Well everything is need to know so the auditors never knew where X,Y or Z was on the planet. They just rubber stamped stuff and life went on. It was the Big Rock Candy Mountain…nmow ACORN is getting the goodies..ugh..but thats where you tax dollars go..of course I was a consumer..heck I’d spend $300-$400 on a date, and brother you can date some nice girls in LA and SFO flashing that cash..life was great.

I’m completely confident that a huge number of Fed employees are doing the same thing today …George Washington Plunkett of Tammany Hall called it “honest graft” in a pamplett he had published back in that day…

word..get a government job where you travel