I couldn't agree more, BK. Both parties are at fault for getting this country where it is. The scary thing is that it only took about a decade to get us here.

Your examples are excellent. There are probably tens of thousands of examples of government mis-spending our dollars. I'll give you a couple more from my own personal consulting experience.

In a job we did for the Federal Supply Service (the purchasing/distribution agency that buys, stores and distributes all non-military items for use by the government) they asked us to review and make recommendations regarding their system of 27 warehouses scattered thruout the country which stored and shipped "stuff" to government agencies. We did a very thorough job, using a team of consultants from the private sector who were truly expert in supply chain management. They determined that the job could be done--better and far cheaper--with only three warehouses. After Congress reviewed the recommendation in several hearings, guess how many were closed? One! The one in the District of Columbia, which has no representative in Congress.

On the same job we reviewed the expanding role of a part of the FSS that wrote specs for various high volume or expensive products where there appeared to be minimal competition on the bids. One such item was a standard 4-by-4 five-ton truck made by International Harvester. The government bought hundreds of these trucks each year and the average cost (at the time) was about $28,000. The new government spec writers wrote a whole new spec for the truck and put it out to bid to a bunch of truck manufacturers. When the bid date came and went they got only one bid, for $79,000 per truck from a group of four lawyers in Cleveland who put together a company which would buy components and then subcontract the assembly of the truck. The FSS quickly called IH and asked where their bid was? The answer was that IH was not interested in bidding on the cobbled up and complicated spec written by the government. If FSS wanted to buy their standard, right off the assembly line five ton truck, they'd bid. But for any special specs, they had decided they would not bid. It took about a year for the new truck spec to be rescinded, but in the meantime FSS bought 116 trucks from thre lawyers in Cleveland for $79,000 each!

There were other stories we discovered regarding the spec and design of government furniture where the drawers wouldn't open, and electric typewriters that were designed so that IBM didn't get all the business with their Selectric model. Then there was the discovery that FSS had over 200 years worth of horse blankets in stock because a Congressman with a blanket comapny in his district "encouraged" FSS to buy more than they needed.

Yep, you're right BK. Our politicians are all at fault, from both parties over a long period of time. The problem I see in trying to get out of this pickle is that the system...our system...democracy...doesn't work!

Please don't someone respond that "if only we all got together and voted", or worse yet recommended that we vote for one particular party (usually the one not in power). With the system of campaign finance laws and the army of lobbyists paying off the members of Congress, I don't see any way that it's going to change...at least not democratically!