[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4977]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             GSA GONE WILD

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it's party time at the General 
Services Administration. The good times rolled in Las Vegas, where the 
GSA spent over $800,000 of tax money on a conference for 300 people. 
Now we learn that back in 2010, the GSA employees escaped their marble 
palace in Washington, D.C., and jetted off to Sin City for a taxpayer-
funded high-dollar boondoggle. This so-called ``conference'' included a 
$31,000 reception, fancy awards, food, wine, lavish suites with 
bubbling hot tubs, clowns, swanky parties, iPod giveaways, and even a 
mind reader. This kind of lavish spending is exactly why Americans 
don't trust the government with their money.
  But what happened in Vegas just didn't stay in Vegas. A GSA 
whistleblower snitched off the bureaucrats-gone-wild bunch. Now, GSA 
officials are folding their cards, cashing in their chips, and 
resigning. The day of reckoning has come for those who played poker 
with the people's money. Public servants should not be public serpents. 
These government bureaucrats should pay out of their own pockets the 
taxpayer money they squandered in Las Vegas.
  And that's just the way it is.

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