Another bit of the swamp that needs draining - from TechDirt:
Another Major Scandal At The Copyright Office: $25 Million 'Fake Budget' Line Item
On Monday, we published documents we obtained that revealed a massive amount of incompetence and waste at the Copyright Office. They had officially asked for $1.9 million on a technology modernization program, then spent $11.6 million on it without telling anyone about the ever-growing money pit, only to cancel the contract with the vendor last October with nothing to show for it. Oh, and throughout the process, it appeared that the Copyright Register misled both Congress and the Library of Congress.
It would appear that this is not the only time that the former Register of Copyrights, Maria Pallante, was found to be misleading Congress and the Library of Congress concerning the Copyright Office's budget and monetary needs. In the recent markup for a bill in the House Judiciary Committee that would make change the Copyright Register position to be a Presidential appointment, rather than by the Librarian of Congress, Rep. Zoe Lofgren revealed that Pallante had apparently put in place a fake $25 million budget line item, asking the Librarian of Congress to testify under oath what it was for, despite it being made up. You can see the comments here.
And just so we are on the same page here, Ms. Pallante was an Obama appointee. The biggest problem we have is all of these unelected bureaucrats who operate with no oversight and zero consequences for their actions. I do hope that things change but under the Obama administration, Ms. Pallante would lie low for six months and then quietly be appointed to some other office with a pay raise. Much more at the site.
If you screw up this bad. it should hurt for a long long time.
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