Report: Millions Wasted on Government Travel
From AP via the Raleigh News Observer
Excerpt: Federal employees wasted at least $146 million over a one-year period on business- and first-class airline tickets, in some cases simply because they felt entitled to the perk, congressional investigators say.
A draft report by the Government Accountability Office, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, is the first to examine compliance with travel rules across the federal government following reports of extensive abuse of premium-class travel by Pentagon and State Department employees.

The review of travel spending by more than a dozen agencies from July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2006, found 67 percent of premium-class travel by executives or their employees, worth at least $146 million, was unauthorized or otherwise unjustified.

Among the worst offenders: the State Department, whose employees typically fly abroad on official business.

Many of the cases involved high-ranking senior officials or political appointees who claimed exceptions to federal travel rules by citing old medical records or questionable approval from a subordinate employee.

Investigators found that senior officials often flew business- or first-class because they felt entitled to the perk. Report: Millions Wasted on Government Travel

Labels: agency, spending

Largest Iraq contract rife with errors
From USA Today
Excerpt: Government auditors discovered something odd last year when they reviewed KBR Inc.'s annual cost estimate to provide support services for U.S. troops in Iraq. The contractor proposed charging $110 million for housing, food, water, laundry and other services on bases that had been shut down.

KBR got a contract extension for $3.7 billion, but it agreed to drop the proposed $110 million spending on closed bases and an additional $50 million of duplicate charges and math errors, according to Defense Department records obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act.

Linda Theis of the Army Sustainment Command, the agency that oversees KBR's troop-support contract, downplayed the errors. They amount to just 4.3% of the contract amount, she said. "This percentage does not indicate a systemic weakness in business systems."
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Labels: contractors, iraq, pentagon, spending

Congress loads up $20 billion in pork

From the Washington DC Examiner
Excerpt: Congress has loaded up President Bush's request for "emergency" spending on the Iraq war with more than $20 billion in "pork" for members' districts.

Money for peanut storage in Georgia, spinach growers in California, menhaden in the Atlantic Ocean and even more office space for the lawmakers themselves is included in what has ballooned into a $124 billion war bill.

"This emergency supplemental bill has more ornaments hanging over our many branches of government than the White House Christmas tree," Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., said.

Originally, Bush asked for $105 billion in emergency funding. Democratic leaders say they want to grant the request to continue funding the war despite their desire to end it.

"We have provided all of the money the president requested- and more," boasted House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer. More

Labels: congress, iraq, spending

Center for War-Related Brain Injuries Faces Budget Cut
From USA Today
Excerpt: Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war.
House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center — half of what the center received last fiscal year.

Proponents of increased funding say they are shocked to see cuts in the treatment of bomb blast injuries in the midst of a war.

"I find it basically unpardonable that Congress is not going to provide funds to take care of our soldiers and sailors who put their lives on the line for their country," says Martin Foil, a member of the center's board of directors. "It blows my imagination."

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Labels: health, iraq, spending, veterans

ATF Director Resigns Amid Spending Probe
From
Excerpt: The director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced his resignation yesterday, six months after the launch of an internal investigation into questionable spending on a new headquarters and other items during his tenure.

Carl J. Truscott, a 22-year veteran of the Secret Service who took over as ATF chief in 2004, was under fire for his spending and management practices at a time when the agency was considering sharp cuts in the number of new cars, bulletproof vests and other basics it provides agents. ...

...Sources familiar with the project told The Washington Post earlier this year that Truscott planned to buy, among other things, nearly $300,000 in extras for the new director's suite, including a $65,000 conference table and more than $100,000 worth of hardwood floors, custom trim and other items.

These sources described Truscott as overly focused on the building's details, from soap dishes to tile colors, and said he wasted valuable time with innumerable project meetings and field trips to the site.

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Labels: agency, atf, corruption, spending

Ex-official's firm receiving VA fees
From the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram
Excerpt: A California company headed by former Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi could get fees exceeding $1 billion from the Veterans Affairs, much of it on contracts approved and amended while he ran the agency, records show. ...
...During his tenure as VA secretary, Principi's past and future corporate home in Diamond Bar, Calif., collected about $246 million in fees, according to VA records. And Congressional Budget Office projections show that the VA contracts could be worth as much as $1.2 billion to QTC if fully funded by Congress through 2008.

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From the Contra Costa Times: A QTC hearing exam, for instance, averaged $495.55 compared to $89.80 for an in-house exam. Even with an adjustment for possible hidden VA costs, the difference exceeded 400 percent. For a general medical exam, QTC's average cost was $393.52 compared to a VA average of $225.58, the consultants found...
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Labels: agency, contractors, corruption, spending, veterans

Congress Boosts Pay, Postpones Other Work
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: The Republican-controlled Congress helped itself to a $3,100 pay raise on Friday, then postponed work on bills to curb spending on social programs and cut taxes in favor of a two-week vacation.
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Labels: congress, spending

Firms with Bush-Cheney ties clinching Katrina deals
From USA Today
Excerpt: Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.
One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton... More

Labels: bush, cheney, contractors, FEMA, katrina, spending

Flashback Bush Budget Cuts Emergency Preparedness
From KOMO-TV Seattle
Excerpt: President Bush targeted scores of federal programs on Monday to make room for his $1.6 trillion tax cut, proposing to slash funds for emergency preparedness, urban police patrols, energy conservation and pediatrician training...
...The budget also would eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Project Impact, a $25 million effort to help communities get ready for natural disasters.
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Labels: bush, katrina, spending

CIA team traveled Italy in style
From the Chicago Tribune
Excerpt: When the CIA decides to "render" a terrorism suspect living abroad for interrogation in Egypt or another friendly Middle East nation, it spares no expense.
...
First to arrive in Milan was the surveillance team, and the hotels they chose were among the best Europe has to offer. Especially popular was the gilt-and-crystal Principe di Savoia, with acres of burnished wood paneling and plush carpets, where a single room costs $588 a night, a club sandwich goes for $28.75 and a Diet Coke adds another $9.35.

According to hotel records obtained by the Milan police investigating Abu Omar's disappearance, two CIA operatives managed to ring up more than $9,000 in room charges alone. The CIA's bill at the Principe for seven operatives came to $39,995, not counting meals, parking and other hotel services.

Another group of seven operatives spent $40,098 on room charges at the Westin Palace, a five-star hotel across the Piazza della Repubblica from the Principe, where a club sandwich is only $20.

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Also see:

Covert CIA program is expanding despite furor
From the Houston Chronicle

Labels: agency, CIA, spending

Bush Battles over Sick Workers
From the Associated Press
Excerpt: The Bush administration is locked in a rare election-year fight with fellow Republicans in the Senate over a troubled program for tens of thousands of weapons plant workers who got sick building nuclear bombs.

The lawmakers say they don’t understand why the administration is blocking a Senate-passed amendment to the defense bill that would overhaul a compensation program bogged down by delays and other problems.

"I can’t fully understand what their resistance is," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who is in a tough re-election battle in Alaska. "We’ve been hammered by our constituents.”...

..."These people are sick and dying," said Terrie Barrie of Craig, Colo., whose husband was sickened while working at the former Rocky Flats plant near Denver. "The administration, the Department of Energy, is just refusing to listen." ...
...The lawmakers complain the Energy Department has squandered much of the $95 million it received since Congress created the program. As of the end of July, the agency has paid only 31 claims out of about 25,000 filed. The $700,000 in paid claims amounts to an average benefit of roughly $22,500... More

Labels: agency, bush, DOE, health, spending