Mark Steyn: Grope and Change

National Review Online ^ | April 21, 2012 | Mark Steyn

[neverdem]

Unlike the government of the United States, I can’t claim any hands-on experience with Colombian hookers. But I was impressed by the rates charged by Miss Dania Suarez, and even more impressed by the U.S. Secret Service’s response to them.

Cartagena’s most famous “escort” costs $800. For purposes of comparison, you can book Eliot Spitzer’s “escort” for $300. Yet, on the cold grey fiscally conservative morning after the wild socially liberal night before, Dania’s Secret Service agent offered her a mere $28.

Twenty-eight bucks! What a remarkably precise sum. Thirty dollars less a federal handling fee? Why isn’t this guy Obama’s treasury secretary or budget director? Or, at the very least, the head honcho of the General Services Administration, whose previous director has sadly had to step down after the agency’s taxpayer-funded public-servants-gone-wild Bacchanal in Vegas.

All over this dying republic, you couldn’t find a single solitary $28 item that doesn’t wind up costing at least 800 bucks by the time it’s been sluiced through the federal budgeting process. Yet, in one plucky little corner of the Secret Service, supervisor David Chaney, dog-handler Greg Stokes, or one of the other nine agents managed to turn the principles of government procurement on their head. If the same fiscal prudence were applied to the 2011 Obama budget, the $3.598 trillion splurge would have cost just shy of $126 billion. The feds’ half a billion to Solyndra would have been a mere $18 million. The 823-grand GSA conference on government efficiency at the M Resort Spa & Casino would have come in at $28,805.

Chaney-Stokes 2012! Grope . . . and Change! Red lights, not red ink.

Alas, young Miss Suarez, just 24 and with a nine-year-old son and a ravenous pimp to feed, didn’t care for the cut of her Secret Service...

[Slings and Arrows]

Steyn!

[2ndDivisionVet]

South Korea in the 1970’s and early 80’s: $5 (or so I’m told) LOL

[citizencon]

Stylistically and stylishly Stein-ish...

[martin_fierro]

[basil]

Ping for later

[PetroniusMaximus]

We’re living out the movie Idiocracy.

[PieterCasparzen]

Now that is one funny article.

IMHO.

[cgbg]

Somehow I don’t think the White House is laughing.

I believe that JFK’s Secret Service agents partied hardy in Fort Worth the night before JFK visited Dallas for the last time.

[Makana]

Steyn nails it. The article I mean, not the hooker.

[Atlantan]

Here’s more info on Kennedy’s Secret Service agents. I didn’t know about this until I saw your post.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/04/21/3902153/secret-service-scandal-not-new.html

[ArmstedFragg]

Mark has the wrong figure. Spitzer’s young lady was $3200, plus an $1100 deposit toward “future services”.

[Tax-chick]

... plus a couple of dozen sniffer dogs. Did the latter take any Colombian bitches back to their kennels? Or are they just the entrée for Obama’s embassy banquet?

[SnuffaBolshevik]

"Spitzer’s young lady was $3200, plus an $1100 deposit toward “future services”.

Hmm. Sounds suspiciously like a coupon.

Has anyone told PJComix?

[DUMBGRUNT]

You loan the U.S. government $800 billion, and come the due day the treasury secretary reaches in his pocket and says: “So how about we call it 28 bucks even?”

About the same return I receive on my Social Security payments¿?

[Gritty]

Steyn is simply brilliant!

[sasquatch]

Sounds like the agent stiffed her.

[the invisib1e hand]

that was really well done -- as much as was shown here, at least.

Steyn writing on his favorite subject.

[GOPJ]

Steyn is simply brilliant!

I believe he's the best we've got right now... no one comes close to him.

[JLS]

Mark Steyn ping.

Freepmail me, if you want on or off the Mark Steyn ping list.

Thanks for the ping Slings and Arrows.