Zoomie1980
Senior Member
- Jan 16, 2008
- 1,658
- 128
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The reality is that Governments of ALL types waste money, they are by nature inefficient. You have been provided examples by people that know how the system works.
Let me give you another.
I ran accounts in the US Marine Corps, I spent a year running all billeting aboard Camp Courtney in Okinawa. I had 2 accounts to spend from. I got my first taste of Government think on those accounts when I took over the job just before the end of the Fiscal year.
The account had 6000 dollars in it. I had no idea what I might need as I just took over ( and in reality it turns out generally speaking the position usually needs little money at all) I was told my second day, as I was given the info on the account " to spend the 6000 dollars before a set date about 2 weeks away" The money was to be spent on anything and everything, not cause I might need anything, but because if the account had money in it at the end of the fiscal year , someone higher up might decide it did not NEED that money and the next year take it for some other account.
There is absolutely NO reason or desire to save with in the Government. If you do not spend every penny given to you, you lose it the next year no matter the reality of what you may or may not need. No Incentive what so ever.
By the way, I got in trouble with the Account people cause I just couldn't waste 6000 dollars in 2 weeks. I did manage to spend 2000 dollars on items and material I had absolutely no use for, before I quit buying in disgust. And most of what I bought I gave to other entities aboard the camp. The camp services had a pitiful account and the Admin center never had enough copier paper, so I usually ask them what they needed and spent money FOR them. I do not enjoy wasting money just cause. All justified because , well I used the copier and Camp Services was my work crew.
Now multiply that by every office and department in the entire Government.
Wow, Gunny, we had the SAME experiences.
My first budgetary based job in the Air Force was an Standardization and Evaluation Chief. This was back during the height of the Reagan defense buildup. I had three months left in my fiscal year and had roughly $50,000 to spend by year's end and was told, "You Spend it or you will be fired!".
We worked in a condemned building and were moving out to new quarters the next year. I bought 25 new desks even though the 25 we had were only three years old and perfectly functional. I bought 5 massive magnetic boards for flight scheduling at $1500 apiece even though we had plastic grease pencil boards that worked just fine. I recarpeted the entire building even though it was being demolished the next year! I bought 5 new computers and never took them out their boxes until we bought a set of computer games to play on them!
In the end I blew about $42,000 and got hammered because I came up $8,000 short!