Tea at Trianon: Musk's $1 Credit Card Clampdown: Restoring Accountability

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Musk's $1 Credit Card Clampdown: Restoring Accountability

From Amuse on X:

Contrary to prevailing misconceptions, federal agencies are not strictly mandated to use the General Services Administration (GSA) for every procurement; yet, centralization through GSA offers undeniable advantages such as competitive pricing, rigorous oversight, and significant cost savings. Unfortunately, the widespread issuance of approximately 4.6 million federal credit cards and lax management have permitted agencies and their employees to circumvent GSA-negotiated agreements, leading to extensive unnecessary spending and inefficiency. In fiscal year 2024 alone, these cards facilitated around 90 million transactions, totaling nearly $40 billion in expenditures.
The historical proliferation of federal purchase cards, dramatically expanded during Clinton-era government streamlining efforts, was intended to enhance efficiency. However, this well-intentioned measure quickly evolved into an unchecked system rife with wasteful and fraudulent activities. Reports by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) vividly document abuses: a U.S. Forest Service employee charged over $31,000 in personal luxuries like jewelry and electronics; employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development amassed over $27,000 in taxpayer-funded shopping sprees at Macy’s and J.C. Penney; and perhaps most egregiously, a Federal Aviation Administration employee brazenly withdrew cash at casinos using a government card. These examples illuminate a persistent culture of entitlement and fiscal negligence within federal bureaucracies.
Yet, the misuse extends beyond isolated incidents of outright fraud. Systemic negligence results in substantial unaccountable losses, such as audits revealing the disappearance of hundreds of Department of Education computers collectively worth over $260,000. Multiply this by hundreds of thousands of federal employees with credit cards and the losses are monumental. Such reckless oversight starkly contrasts conservative ideals of responsible stewardship and fiscal restraint.
Further, agencies regularly bypass centrally negotiated GSA travel agreements, opting instead for convenient but costly individual bookings on government-issued credit cards. This practice nullifies carefully negotiated volume discounts, inflating costs and exemplifying the very inefficiency conservative principles abhor. (Read more.)