Monday, September 10, 2007

Even 2.8 Million Dollars Can’t Sell a Bad Idea

According to a new GAO report, that’s the estimated price tag for the President’s failed Social Security Privatization Road Show two years ago. Most of those taxpayer dollars... $437,887...were spent for Air Force One and Air Force Two to shuttle the promoters in chief to 40 cities nationwide with another $370,000 in travel costs for Executive Office staffers. The kicker here is the GAO acknowledges these numbers probably aren’t complete...


“We could not test the validity of some of those costs because (the Executive Office of the President) withheld certain key information and Treasurydid not have supporting documentation for amounts it reimbursed EOP,’’ Comptroller David Walker wrote in the letter summarizing the review. “ We are, therefore, unable to provide reasonable assurance that the costs reported to us are complete and fully supported.’’

We can only imagine what the finally price tag would have been had the American people not made it abundantly clear that the more the President talked about his Social Security privatization scheme...the less they liked it. Too bad he didn’t figure that out a million dollars or so earlier.

The Swamp also has a good discussion of the GAO report.

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