Rich uncle

April 10, 2008 2:41 am

WHY did the General Services Administration think issu- ing credit cards with Uncle Sam's name on them was a good idea?

Credit cards do more than unlock doors--they disable consumers' spending-restraint mechanisms. Experts say we spend 34 percent more when we buy with plastic instead of cash or check.

What's more, U.S. credit-card debt is soaring: From a tally of $60 billion in the first quarter of 2002, it has risen to more than $915 billion today. Forty percent of Americans, says the Federal Reserve, spend more than they make.

The fast-and-loose mentality that credit cards fuel, meshed with a sense that consequences won't come home to roost, has fostered a whole new level of temptation for federal workers. A new Government Accountability Office report reveals that nearly half of the federal "purchase card" transactions it studied were improper.

That's no small potatoes: Federal workers spent nearly $20 billion last year using Uncle Sam's plastic. The idea, when GSA introduced the concept in 1998, was that issuing credit cards to workers would cut back on accounting costs and streamline making "minor" purchases.

Instead, we the taxpayers have bought a $13,000 steak dinner arranged by Postal Service workers (including an assortment of fine wines and strong beverages--really going first-class!). One post-office worker used $1,100 worth of online dating services. And the citizenry fronted $360 for a State Department employee to spend at the Seduccion Boutique in Ecuador for "women's underwear/lingerie."

Let our federal civil servants go back to the days of purchase orders, travel advances, and accountability. Or at least pass the Government Credit Card Abuse Prevention Act, now lingering in a Senate committee. Failure to take into account human nature by passing out credit cards willy-nilly is a $10-billion-and-counting mistake. Who can afford that? Not even Uncle Sam.