| Uncle Sam Has 642,000 Cars In His Garage |
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| Written by Dave Loos | |
| Tuesday, 05 August 2008 | |
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Actually, the number is 642,233 government-owned vehicles, but who's counting? Turns out the General Services Administration is, which is understandable given that leasing, maintaining and fueling those cars and trucks cost taxpayers $3.4 billion last year. Much of this spending is legitimate, but some GSA officials and watchdog groups are concerned that mismanagement of the government's fleet is wasting millions of dollars each year. For instance, the Interior Department was told by its own watchdog to cut its vehicle inventory, and yet the agency added hundreds of cars last year. And maybe we shouldn't be surprised to learn that Transportation Secretary Mary Peters has two drivers. Their salaries totaled more than $128,000 last year. "From a management standpoint, this is something that can easily be handled," said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. "It's critical use or necessary use versus 'well, we've got the money, let's go out and buy some more cars.'" Our favorite line from the AP story: "At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, fuel consumption and inventory are down, yet overall costs have increased significantly. Officials there can't figure out why." Perhaps the bigshots at HUD have taken a page out of the Health and Human Services playbook, where the driver for Secretary Michael Leavitt earns about $90,000 a year. We lived in D.C. for 10 years, and can appreciate the skills that any professional driver must employ while navigating the city streets. But we're also not sure that any agency driver should be making twice as much as the average HHS office manager or accountant.
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Yeah, OK, we can be the change that we want to see in the world. But unless powerful people in powerful positions want to be that change as well, nothing's going to change.
So now, finally, there's a place where you can go for news and analysis of politics from an environmental perspective.
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