“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.”
– President Barack Obama, Inauguration, 1/20/09
Just thought I’d pass this by you all as great example of how Obama thinks his government works (emphasis mine):
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Drug Enforcement Administration paid an Amtrak secretary $854,460 over nearly 20 years to obtain confidential information about train passengers, which the DEA could have lawfully obtained for free through a law enforcement network, The Associated Press has learned.
That’s a lot of money. $42K per year extra for this Federal Govt employee for, effectively, spying on one government program’s customers to give to another government program. Our money, too. But wait, it gets worse….
The employee was not publicly identified except as a “secretary to a train and engine crew” in a report on the incident by Amtrak’s inspector general. The secretary was allowed to retire, rather than face administrative discipline, after the discovery that the employee had effectively been acting as an informant who “regularly” sold private passenger information since 1995 without Amtrak’s approval, according to a one-paragraph summary of the matter.
Now, if you and I were doing exactly what the secretary did, would we be able to simply retire? Naw, I knew you knew better! Nope, instead of spending the next 20 in a Federal retirement home (plenty fireproof with lots of concrete and steel bars), she gets to roam the fruited plain – retirement pay galore (regular govt one and the DEA one). But wait – it gets worse…
Under a joint drug enforcement task force that includes the DEA and Amtrak’s own police agency, the task force can obtain Amtrak confidential passenger reservation information at no cost, the inspector general’s report said. Under an agreement, Amtrak police would receive a share of any money seized as a result of such drug task force investigations, and Amtrak’s inspector general concluded that DEA’s purchase of the passenger information deprived the Amtrak Police Department of money it would have received from resulting drug arrests.
Can we revisit that clause before “but whether it works” to the one before that: “whether our government is too big“?
Yes, this shows that it is too big….and it is worse.
(H/T: Hot Air)
