How is it that religionist "values" people never have anything to say about the shameless rapacity of the people who put GWB in the White House?

On July 10, 2002, Chimpy the Prez spoke to more than 3,000 federal employees in Constitution Hall about their vital role in "protecting the homeland." Probably he was just kidding.

A week into Howie's trip, I'm already feeling woozy and, come the weekend, making only the feeblest stab at catching up on some of the week's worth of stuff that I either missed or tossed on the rapidly rising "to get to, someday, maybe" heap.

Sometimes, though, playing catch-up pays off. These stories have a way of crashing into one another. Like yesterday's lead item from Stephen Barr's "Federal Insider" column in the Washington Post:

Pay Raise Proposed by Bush Would Be Smallest in 18 Years

About 1.8 million federal employees would receive a 1.7 percent increase in their basic pay and a 0.5 percent average increase in their locality pay next year under a plan that President Bush sent to Congress yesterday, administration officials said.

Bush recommended a 2.2 percent average raise in his fiscal 2007 budget, released in February. Under a 1990 pay law, yesterday was the deadline for the president to authorize an alternative plan if Congress had not stipulated a raise.

If federal employees receive an average raise of 2.2 percent next year, it would be their lowest annual salary increase in 18 years, according to congressional aides. . . .

Today it butts up against this story:

GSA Chief Seeks to Cut Budget for Audits
Contract Oversight Would Be Reduced

By Scott Higham and Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers

The new chief of the U.S. General Services Administration is trying to limit the ability of the agency's inspector general to audit contracts for fraud or waste and has said oversight efforts are intimidating the workforce, according to government documents and interviews.

GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan [right], a Bush political appointee and former government contractor, has proposed cutting $5 million in spending on audits and shifting some responsibility for contract reviews to small, private audit contractors. . . .


And we here on the sidelines are left wondering--

Do these right-wing corporate vultures have no shame?

I know it's a stupid question. I apologize for asking it. But somebody has to, no?

I especially don't want to personalize this to George Bush, because this is a matter of the current Republican philosophy of governing, and I'm not sure anyone's even told him about it. I doubt that he knows much about these things being done in his name, like the negotiations with federal employees. He's only the president, after all--the decider. He shows up for the photo ops. He's not the figure-out-er, not the problem solver, certainly not the understander.

Our Chimpy was put in the White House, after all, by a lot of fat cats willing--no, eager--to pay the stiff asking price to get way fatter, to have achieve the dream goal of having the federal government either cover its eyes or serve as an active partner while these greed-besotted vultures plunder every dollar they can get can get their hellish clutches on.

At the top end of the economic spectrum the Bush years have ushered in an orgy of naked greed that may have no parallel in human history. And at the same time the shameful Republican Congress apparently feels no shame at its criminal refusal to make any adjustment to the minimum wage. Oh horror, no, that would upset the finely tuned mechanism of our precision-balanced Free Market.

These are the jokes, folks. (Laugh if you feel like it.) The last thing the friends, cronies and like-minded along-for-the-ride investors in the Republican presidency and Congress want is a free market. That's not what they're paying their jillions of dollars of coporate rakeoff for. Even given those heaven-sent bonanzas Iraq and Hurricane Katrina (right), they insisted on having the game rigged.

Now here we have the spectacle of George W. "I Can't Believe the Flames of Hell Don't Just Rise Up and Consume My Worthless Carcass" Bush playing hardball with civil servants. Hey, they've got a budget to balance! (That's another joke. Did you spot it?) Why not balance it on the backs of those useless drones? And they are literally useless. After all, how much did they contribute to the Bush campaigns? By federal law, nothing, of course--to protect their independence from the political process.

Until the political process literally becomes the government, and the measure of your worth becomes how much you kicked into the kitty. And those poor dumb wage slaves? Let's screw the effing bastards. Come on, guys, it'll be fun.

Oh yes, there's just one other thing. You know those damned inspectors general that all the federal departments and agencies seem to have. I imagine that some of them have gotten the message (ferchrissakes, don't Karl Rove and his team send it out each and every day? if the Fox News people get it, why don't they?), and have adjusted their efforts accordingly.

But a lot of those damned IGs are still allowing auditors in their employ to ask rude questions about the performance of government contractors. If we can't get rid of those damned IGs (and hey, why couldn't we? would that have been too blatant? how do we know if we don't try?), can't we at least do something about those infernal packs of auditors? Quoth the GSA's Lurita Alexis Doan, "a former government contractor": Done and done.

Now, our Lurita has only been on the job since May 31! Well, at least somebody's doing their part.