Your Tax Dollars at Work

Speaking of my claim yesterday that "people spend other people’s money far less efficiently than their own," this just in from the Associated Press:

The federal program that provides legal help to poor Americans turns away half of its applicants for lack of resources. But that hasn't stopped its executives from lavishing expensive meals, chauffeur-driven cars and foreign trips on themselves.

Agency documents obtained by The Associated Press detail the luxuries that executives of the Legal Services Corp. have given themselves with federal money -- from $14 "Death by Chocolate" desserts to $400 chauffeured rides to locations within cab distance of their offices.

The government-funded corporation also has a spacious headquarters in Washington's tony Georgetown district -- with views of the Potomac River and a rent significantly higher than other tenants in the same building.

Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is upset. Maybe at last he can turn his attention from oversight of private charities and universities to his actual job, oversight of federal spending.