Text 13047, 66 rader
Skriven 2005-05-29 07:20:32 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
  Kommentar till text 13040 av Dawn Robicheaux (1:396/17.0)
Ärende: Fair Tax
================
28 May 05 15:36, Dawn Robicheaux wrote to John Hull:

 JH>> Exactly right.  Back when I was going to school, I worked at 
 JH>> the VA in San Diego. 

 DR> And you lived in the San Diego Zoo, right?

 JH>> One day the boss came through the office and gathered 
 JH>> everybody around and said the end of the fiscal year was 
 JH>> just 21 days away.   

 DR> Okay....

 JH>> He then said that we still had $25,000 in our budget for 
 JH>> the current year, and that we had to find $25,000 worth of 
 JH>> legitimate purchases before the 21 days was up or we would 
 JH>> lose that amount from our next year's budget. 

 DR> Hmmm...


 JH>> We spent about $16,000 of it on computer equipment (this was 
 JH>> back in the days of the first IBM PC, so you didn't get a hell of 
 JH>> a lot for that kind of money), and the rest on improvements like 
 JH>> a new copier, etc.  I ended up with a new job and title of 
 JH>> Computer Technician/Staff Computer Support Specialist, and 
 JH>> a raise.  Multiply that  sort of thing across the whole federal 
 JH>> government and you can see the tremendous waste that takes 
 JH>> place at the end of every fiscal period.

 DR> Being the honorable man that John was, he turned down the new job, 
 DR> he refused the raise, and he blew the whistle on all of that waste 
 DR> by contacting the GAO.  No?  He didn't?  Maybe John only began to 
 DR> see it as a tremendous waste after he stopped working there?

 DR> What is this whining?  

 DR> Sour grapes?

As usual, you missed the point, but then you usually do.  The problem wasn't
the spending of the money on computer gear, or on my new job or raise.  That
was all legit, even though I had to lobby hard to get it approved (the VA was
not computerized at the desktop level in those days).  The problem was that if
we hadn't spent that previously allocated money, our budget for the next year
would have been cut by that much.  That would have kept us from doing the job
we were required to do, especially if there was an increase in the number of
vets we had to provide services for.

Btw, computerizing our operation ultimately saved the government thousands of
man-hours that would've been spent gathering information by hand.  It enabled
us to process and help thousands more vets than we would have been able to do
otherwise.  Similar steps were taken in other offices by following our lead
throughout the VA system.  We probably didn't save the taxpayers any money in
the end, but we sure as hell provided more and better services to the veterans
we were mandated to help.

But all you can do is denigrate and deride, throw bombs and make nasty personal
comments.  Duly noted.

John 

America:  First, Last, and Always!
Go to www.madgorilla.us for all your Domain Name Services at the lowest rates.

--- Msged/386 TE 05
 * Origin:  (1:379/1.99)