"Your" Tax Dollars At Work

The United States Secret Service star logo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Scandal and corruption aren't new things in Washington.  There have always been those who think they can get away with all sorts of things that are improper and/or illegal, as long as they're not the ones paying for it.  Until they get caught.  Here's some recent examples:

• An advance team of Secret Service agents and military personnel, preparing for President Barack Obama's visit to a conference in Colombia, got caught using prostitutes.  The President was never in danger, as far as we know.  But nine agents have either quit or been fired, according to CBS News.
• Some members of the General Services Administration, which monitors how much money the government spends, have been living it up on the country's dime by throwing lavish parties at a convention in Las Vegas.  It's a case of whatever happens in Vegas doesn't always stay there.

While these developments are embarrassing and puts the country in a bad light, they also tell us that these are people whose salaries are paid for by the government.  As in the American taxpayer, who we'd like to believe is helping to fund the very services these people represent.

However, with Uncle Sam trillions of dollars in debt and in hock to the Chinese for much of it, the American taxpayer has less and less to do with the funding of its own government.  Most of us can't comprehend all that money, unless you've won the MegaBucks lottery.

You know those self-serving news reports about how some government agency is wasting money on a needless project?  It makes for great TV, but they do little to solve the real problem. 

Oh, you could make a few cuts here and there, saving tens of billions of dollars.  But then lobbyists and others start hollering at Congress about the necessity of keeping its pet projects in place, so very little gets done.  And let's not even get into partisan politics.

We should be outraged at Secret Service agents and other government employees who have fun at the country's expense, but we're not because this kind of thing seems to be happening all the time.  If they don't seem to care, why should we?  After all, it's only money.