I'd love to earn $13,400 and do nothing...

It's really hard to not be frustrated with the issue of governmental spending when you read articles like this one in today's Washington Post, Air Force Arranged No-Work Contract. I suppose the good thing is that this is coming to light, but the lack of care and concern when it comes to spending that created a scenario where:

While waiting to be confirmed by the White House for a top civilian post at the Air Force last year, Charles D. Riechers was out of work and wanted a paycheck. So the Air Force helped arrange a job through an intelligence contractor that required him to do no work for the company, according to documents and interviews.

Riechers was paid a total of $26,788 as part of the contract to provide research to the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies. In a statement, Riechers said he had no problem accepting the pay because Commonwealth Research is a nonprofit organization "that had an established relationship" with the military service. Riechers said he has not made any decisions relating to Commonwealth Research contracts since his appointment.

"We needed some way to kind of gap me," Riechers said about the temporary job.

Did we really? I'd suggest we didn't...