Posted on 05/24/2025 8:04:31 AM PDT by Texas Eagle
Federal charge card reform demanded as audit reveals nearly 2 cards per employee and $40B in annual spending
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Had one on AD. If used at a place like this I would have lost it. Time costs complying with the rules of having the card made them worse than useless.
I had a DOD Visa card for travel. You would not believe the level of scrutiny that was used to reconcile the charges on that card.
I don’t know how these idiots even got away with one bogus charge, let alone multiple, over periods of years.
When does the strongly worded letter go out?
Government fraud in every damn direction.
The U.S. government is a crime scene.
Even if I only traveled once per year for a special training session I was required to have a government travel charge card. It was required to use it for lodging and strongly encouraged to use it for meals.
But upon return it was scrutinized against your receipts and travel voucher.
Sounds like the card holder is not being managed. The managing/auditing person should be fired as well as the card abuser.
“The U.S. government is a crime scene.”
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That’s because there is no accountability in DC. There could be if something like DOGE was institutionalized, but that will never happen.
FWIW there are some federal employee whom DOGE has credited with trying to do the right things. They should be recognized for their good work; likewise those who abuse their positions should be held to account for violating public trust.
“The managing/auditing person should be fired as well as the card abuser.”
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Absolutely. They are not doing their jobs.
I know what you mean. I was about 22 years old when I learned about the eagle-eyed corporate cost-watchers. I had a rental car that got covered in oily goop at a power plant (I mean REALLY covered all over). I took the car to a car wash and expensed the $1 (1975 or so) cost of the wash.
The accounting department told me “Don’t you ever do that again! The auto rental company would pay for that car wash.” I could not believe that accounting person would get her knickers in a twist for that car wash. But I learned my lesson.
The worst thing is I wasn’t trying to get away with anything like a casino, nightclub, bar or strip joint. I was just honestly and innocently trying to get the car washed!
When I was working for the government as part of DOD, I attended a conference in Las Vegas. The hotel I stayed at had a casino. The hotel rate was the approved government rate.
Hopefully, such legitimate expenses will be filtered out.
I had a company credit card where I used to work. Once, a year or so before I retired, I went to a week-long training course, and I used cash to pay for a few fast-food breakfasts and a couple of Subway sandwiches. The bean counters later spent hours sending emails griping at me about that, simply because the company lost out on maybe $2 cash back.
Government credit cards have many legitimate purposes.
The ones used in my organization were carefully scrutinized.
Those in government who defrauded the taxpayers need to be made serious examples of. Nuremburg style trials comes to mind.
Things must have changed since I was a fed. I had a travel card and procurement card. I was personally and financially responsible for both.
The credit card company did not send my travel card bill to the gov, they sent it to me. If I failed to pay it off in 30 days I would get in trouble with my supervisor and face disciplinary action additionally the card company would ding my personal credit. The card is in your name and you are responsible to pay it off. Even if the government hasn't reimbursed you yet. Which happened a lot.
Procurement cards have even more responsibility attached to them. If you use one you better damn well have a signed authorization indicating there are available funds and the procurement is authorized or you will be paying for it your self.
What I hated as a civilian contractor was when we traveled on a government required trip, we couldn’t get government rates. We sometimes paid full fare for air, hotels, and rental cars which was billed back to the government. It was the governments money, we should have gotten government rates.
Right.
Tell me, what were the Republicans in Congress doing the past several decades while the criminal in the Federal government were economically gang raping the American taxpayers?
Were they not aware of what was happening right under their own noses? Or were they all simply part of the fraud?
The other thing is that those who defrauded the government effectively undermined confidence in our institutions as well. Sadly, there will never be any real accountability because so many people are riding a lucrative gravy train that nobody wants to see it derailed.
It's much more personal. They weren't' defrauding government, the corrupt in government were defrauding me, you and every taxpayer in America.
What the Republicans in Congress say and what they do are often two different things. They know full well what’s been going on but won’t lift a finger to stop it.
Its funny that they all vote to spend enormous amounts of money yet never go back to audit how it was spent. That’s simply dereliction of duty IMO.
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