Our tax dollars at work - the USDA

The United States Department of Agriculture has been spending our tax dollars stupidly -- from The Washington Examiner:

USDA spends $2M, gets one intern, program fails
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials spent $2 million on an internship program that had one intern, as it failed to use properly $63 million in federal funding provided for USDA to protect itself from hackers.

The USDA inspector general discovered that the Office of Chief Information Officer (OCIO) �funded an intern program for a total of $2 million which, while funded as a security enhancement project, only resulted in one intern being hired full-time for ASOC [Agriculture Security Operations Center],� according to a new report.

�While the intern program may be a beneficial step in the long-run, it did little to further the more pressing objective of improving USDA�s IT security,� the inspector general said. The $2 million included $686,000 for �development and implementation of a networking website� in FY 2010 and 2011 and another $192, 500 in housing costs for the intern.

The intern program was an example of the USDA�s broader failure to manage 16 projects designed to protect the department from regular IT security threats. Before 2009, when it requested a $44 million increase to its $18 million security budget, the USDA depended on external organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security to alert it to such threats.

Ye Gods! $686,000 to develop a fscking website? $192,500 for housing? That is $263/day for housing. $8,175/month -- you can rent a really nice apartment in DC for much less. If they spend our money that stupidly, they shouldn't get any more. The USDA does have a role in agriculture but it has grown to become yet another Federal Leviathan and needs to have its budget clipped seriously. Their 2011 budget was $132.3 Billion. Let them learn to function with $80 Billion for two years and then shrink that even further to $40 Billion. Nothing more.