Althouse: "Nerf footballs purchased for a team-building exercise but never used and currently stored in a filing cabinet."

June 26, 2013

"Nerf footballs purchased for a team-building exercise but never used and currently stored in a filing cabinet."

From a list of things we bought for the IRS.

47 comments:

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: 13 dollars of the 50 million. up next for the IRS(D) - raises! Tax payer funded raises! Good job.; 6/26/13, 8:06 AM
Bob Ellison said...: Every organization makes a few frivolous buys. This one does not merit the attention it's getting.; 6/26/13, 8:20 AM
Anonymous said...: A firm I used to work for was in the business of help Feds ID CC expenses that were illegal, etc. The whole exercise was to avoid being the agency named in the Headline for the semi-annual WaPo article on Federal CC fraud.

If only the IRS required the same controls on IRS spending that it mandates for Taxpayer or Federal Contractor spending; 6/26/13, 8:21 AM
Calypso Facto said...: next for the IRS(D) - raises!

And bonuses! Heckuva job, Lerner!; 6/26/13, 8:24 AM
Hagar said...: You are right about "every organization," Bob, but it is not "a few" whn you are talking about federal agencies today. This crap has been growing for decades, and by now it is indeed a pwrvasive "culture" throughout the government.; 6/26/13, 8:24 AM
Henry said...: This seems like pretty minor stuff. I'm not sure what the metric is for HR boondoggle effectiveness, but if you can retain an employee or two for the low cost of a nerf football, you're way ahead.

Just around the time I was hired my employer was bought by a much bigger company. The admins put out stacks of wrong-branded swag for the taking. The worker-bee trophies were kind of sad, but I did grab some bound blank books for my kids to draw in.; 6/26/13, 8:28 AM
Hagar said...: I suspect that the Obama administration considers these kind of things, as well as Pigford and Solyndra type scams to be only other types of "stimulus," and so a good thing for the country.; 6/26/13, 8:29 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: If handing out a few Nerf footballs keeps them from harassing law-abiding taxpayers, then I'd say it's money well spent.

Of course, they didn't hand them out, and they didn't stop harassing the taxpayers, so in this case it was just money wasted.; 6/26/13, 8:31 AM
Hagar said...: It's "wealth re-distribution," baby!; 6/26/13, 8:35 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: I agree with Bob. I'm extremely fiscally conservative, but I don't think this merits attention in the news. Attention at the office for people who made personal purchases, sure.; 6/26/13, 8:38 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: This is all very interesting... but does it really matter?

When we don't even expect the same standards of ethics and conduct from one administration to another.

We have a lawless attorney general!; 6/26/13, 8:39 AM
Mogget said...: Hey, IRS, if we give you each a Nerf football, will you promise to start treating your fellow Americans like they're humans, too?; 6/26/13, 8:40 AM
Mogget said...: It certainly deserves some serious mocking. And given the pervasive corruption of the Federal agencies and their toothless watchdogs, that's probably all that will happen.; 6/26/13, 8:43 AM
madAsHell said...: Every organization makes a few frivolous buys.

Agreed, but team building events are usually an indication that some people don't have enough to do!!; 6/26/13, 8:48 AM
Hagar said...: Nerf footballs do not matter, $50 bottles of wine do, as do $1,000/night hotel suites, etc.; 6/26/13, 8:56 AM
SteveR said...: Of course it doesn't merit the attention its getting. But its quite clear all these small instances that don't merit our attention, added together, are the reason we have a huge fiscal problem and a very inefficient bureaucracy.; 6/26/13, 8:57 AM
Anonymous said...: I'd be interested in seeing how many of the more ridiculous purchases were made in late September. The end of the fiscal year is use-up-the-budget time in a lot of Federal agencies.; 6/26/13, 8:58 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: To cut waste and spending we should take away their credit cards and take the checkbooks away from the Congress critters and the president.; 6/26/13, 8:59 AM
edutcher said...: I have to say that, when I worked for the IRS, there was no team spirit whatsoever.

Nice to see Choom is changing that.; 6/26/13, 9:00 AM
campy said...: if you can retain an employee or two for the low cost of a nerf football, you're way ahead.

Retaining federal employees is not a problem. What are they going to do, quit and get a real job?; 6/26/13, 9:03 AM
garage mahal said...: The IRS was targeting "Occupy" and "Progressive". I bet we won't see 40 posts on that.; 6/26/13, 9:03 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Nerf footballs are so light and fun.
The waste of 50 million in tax payer extracted dollars is no big deal. We can depend on our pathetic media to point out the softer side of government waste.
Fun. Light. Soft. Easy.; 6/26/13, 9:05 AM
bagoh20 said...: It sounds great to be on that team, but I'm just a lowly sponsor, and I didn't even get a shirt.; 6/26/13, 9:08 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: I don't care about nerf footballs. The real story is the IRS being used as a partisan weapon.; 6/26/13, 9:11 AM
Anonymous said...: Team-building exercise is infantile bull crap even little tikes are embarrassed to participate in.

Fish rots from the head down.

The head paid back bundlers with billions of taxpayers' money. IRS agents paid back buddies with Nerf balls buy.; 6/26/13, 9:31 AM
William said...: No one will go to jail. No one will lose their job or pension. Issa will be seen as a vindictive heavy. A morality play from hell.; 6/26/13, 9:35 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: garage mahal said...

The IRS was targeting "Occupy" and "Progressive". I bet we won't see 40 posts on that.

"Occupy" and "Progressive" were keywords on the list that tell the low-level IRS employee that the organization might not qualify for 504.C3 status. The low-level employee should consider that, but has the authority to approve the group with no further investigation.

"Tea Party" was a screen for both 504.C3 and 504.C4 status. It required the application to be sent to a special group for further investigation.

In other words, conservatives were singled out for significantly more scrutiny than liberal.; 6/26/13, 9:41 AM
Michael said...: Garage: You wrote"The IRS was targeting "Occupy" and "Progressive". I bet we won't see 40 posts on that"

What you failed to write is that these "targeted" words were not sent to the special review that the Tea Party trigger word applications were sent to. This is a distinction with a huge difference. You probably actually didn't know this because whatever lefty website pointed out the "targeting" did not mention the salient bit. Or perhaps you did know and omitted it.; 6/26/13, 10:10 AM
Michael said...: The nerd footballs are not the problem, the problem is the reason they were purchased in the first place. Team building is the kind of bullshit activity that government does not need to heap on top of their already short hours and suspect work ethic.; 6/26/13, 10:14 AM
Clyde said...: I'm guessing that the online porn we bought for them was actually used for their team-building exercises, since they seem to have excelled at screwing the taxpayer. You don't even want to know what position those bastards put us through.; 6/26/13, 10:15 AM
Larry J said...: b Ellison said...
Every organization makes a few frivolous buys. This one does not merit the attention it's getting.

Let's look at it another way. If we examine the amount of federal income taxes paid in a year divided by the number of filed returns (figures from 2009 here), we see the average is $6,275 per return. Take $50 million in waste at the IRS alone and divide that by $6,275 and you get 7,968. In other words, this one examle of waste at just one of the seemingly endless number of federal government agencies cost the taxes of almost 8,000 income tax filers. Those 8,000 filers had to make do with over $6,000 less of their money so the IRS could blow it.

Seen from that perspective, it doesn't seem like such a little deal to me after all. Multiply this by the dozens (if not hundreds) of government agencies and pretty soon the amount of wasted money gets substancial.; 6/26/13, 10:18 AM
Rusty said...: Freeman Hunt said...
I agree with Bob. I'm extremely fiscally conservative, but I don't think this merits attention in the news. Attention at the office for people who made personal purchases, sure.

Here's my take.
What the fuck do IRS employees need a "company credit card" for?
Their sole job is to collect taxes. Not "team build" or "entertain foreign clients"
Christ in a sidecar. What a country.; 6/26/13, 10:19 AM
Rusty said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/26/13, 10:20 AM
Unknown said...: This is small stuff. The biggest take away is that the IRS isn't responsible in any way even in small ways. Imagine what the big things look like. There was an old saying I read somewhere to the effect that a poor manager can throw away more out the back door with a teaspoon than can be brought in the front door with a wheelbarrow.; 6/26/13, 10:45 AM
Skeptical Voter said...: Maybe filed in the filing cabinet under "Waste of Time" or "Waste of Money"?; 6/26/13, 10:52 AM
Methadras said...: So when is the IRS having a bake sale to fill the piggy bank again for more fun and frivolity? Oh wait...; 6/26/13, 11:37 AM
Methadras said...: So who at the IRS is going to get fired and prosecuted for any of this? Oh that's right. No one. Again. People have forgotten about it already. Benghazi is forgotten now, IRS is forgotten now, NSA is barely hanging on, Sebelius' protection racketeering isn't even on the radar. These motherfuckers are just doom trooping all over you and nothing will happen. Business as usual.; 6/26/13, 11:45 AM
campy said...: Maybe filed in the filing cabinet under "Waste of Time" or "Waste of Money"?

They couldn't decide, so they bought a second set of footballs and did both.; 6/26/13, 11:50 AM
AllenS said...: We occasionally had fist fights where I worked.; 6/26/13, 12:05 PM
Rae said...: My view - when we're $17 trillion in debt, not counting future obligations, you can do without the nerf football.; 6/26/13, 12:55 PM
Michael said...: Allen S: I think we might be the only two people alive who have participated in a fist fight as an adult. Very important to recognize that there are people in the world who actually are willing to hurt you. Valuable lesson.; 6/26/13, 1:22 PM
Darrell said...: The IRS agreed to pay $70 million in fucking bonuses to their union dufflebags and people are talking about Nerf footballs.; 6/26/13, 1:53 PM
campy said...: I think we might be the only two people alive who have participated in a fist fight as an adult.

So you think you fought each other?; 6/26/13, 2:14 PM
Darrell said...: The IRS was targeting "Occupy" and "Progressive".

Yeah. To get immediate approval.; 6/26/13, 2:30 PM
damikesc said...: I'll but Obama is upset over ANY of this when anybody is fired.

Nobody fired in the scandal of targeting conservatives.

Nobody fired in the scandal involving Rosen.

Nobody fired over Benghazi.

Nobody fired over Fast & Furious.; 6/26/13, 5:13 PM
gk1 said...: I remember stuff like this when the govt tells me it has to stop testing baby milk or shut down potable water for the elderly "because of the sequester". They have mounds of money for this shit but not enough to run the essentials.; 6/26/13, 11:59 PM
Unknown said...: Really impressed. Please share more… Also don't forget to see this Team Building exercises in Mumbai; 7/3/13, 4:33 AM