Kudos to the House of Representatives for confronting the issue of government agencies spending huge amounts of taxpayer money to attend or hold conferences. Sort of.
The House easily passed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, which included a provision limiting the number of conferences held annually and limiting the amount of money that agencies could spend on each event.
The spending limit is set at $500,000.
Yep, $500,000 per event. Only in Washington, D.C., does setting such a limit qualify as cracking down on free-spending goverment agencies. If this becomes law, agencies would somehow have to squeeze by on spending only $500,000 per event they hold or attend.
Granted, the new limit would be less than the General Services Administration officials spent on a 2010 conference in Las Vegas, where the final bill for an event with 300 employees was $823,000.
"It is good government, it is bipartisan, it is common sense," Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said in describing the new limit.
Good government? Common sense?
Are these folks kidding? Ask anyone outside of Washington if "limiting" spending to $500,000 per event qualifies as good government or common sense. We're pretty sure the vast majority of taxpayers would disagree. Lawmakers said they were outraged by the revelation of the GSA's lavish conference. It would seem to us that there's plenty of outrage left for the House's half-hearted attempt to "limit" wasteful government spending.