One of the problems with maintaining a bloated, overpaid federal workforce? The cost of all those nifty uniforms …
According to a story in The New York Times published just before Christmas, the federal government spends $1.5 billion at overseas factories alone procuring “everything from the royal blue shirts worn by airport security workers to the olive button-downs required for forest rangers and the camouflage pants sold to troops on military bases.”
So much for “buying American,” right?
Anyway, the government’s hypocrisy doesn’t end there, with the Times report detailing how the sweatshops churning out all that government fabric habitually violate basic human rights – employing child labor, padlocking fire escapes, beating employees and forcing them to soil themselves rather than take bathroom breaks.
Wait … you mean the very human rights violations U.S. President Barack Obama lectures us to keep in mind when we buy clothing made overseas?
Exactly …
To wit …
… even though the Obama administration has called on Western buyers to use their purchasing power to push for improved industry working conditions after several workplace disasters over the last 14 months, the American government has done little to adjust its own shopping habits.
Labor Department officials say that federal agencies have “zero tolerance” for using overseas plants that break local laws, but American government suppliers in countries including Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Mexico, Pakistan and Vietnam show a pattern of legal violations and harsh working conditions, according to audits and interviews at factories.
Cue the Hollywood outrage, right?
Eh … not so much …
Following up on the Times story (at the other end of the ideological spectrum) is Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg – who notes another key component of this hypocrisy.
“Even worse, in the few instances in which the government is required to actually use U.S. labor, they just contract with prisons for less than $2 per hour using domestic slave labor,” Krieger writes. “Then, when questions start to get asked, government agencies actually go out of their way to keep the factory lists out of the public’s eye, even going so far as denying requests when pressed for information by members of Congress.”
Personally we don’t care if the federal government gets its uniforms from overseas sweatshops: Our beef is with the size of the federal workforce. Seriously, when your overseas tailoring bill is more than $1.5 billion, it’s a pretty safe bet you’ve grown a bit too big for your britches …
Still, the hypocrisy here is galling … or at least it would be galling if it weren’t so commonplace these days.
14 comments
FITs would be pitching a fit over the cost of the American made goods.
Godwin’s law invoked with pic.
But Fits would be pissed if they paid too much for the uniforms because they bought them in America. that would be a waste of taxpayers money. Can’t have it both ways my friend.
This is what exactly came to mind, that and “Really? Nazis?”
It’s not any different than pretty much all of America buying clothing made in third world countries, except for those who buy name brand clothes, which are also made in third world countries, but have a little logo to make you feel like it is higher quality.
Maybe FITSy-breeches digs the nazis. Settles into his finely tooled leather jackboots and goosesteps around the house singing the Horst Wessel Song.
—- and jackboots with 6″ heels for Mrs. Sic?
Nazis loved buying stuff from the third world.
And Fits would be even more incensed if they were made in American factories that were unionized. I’m sure we would hear something along the lines of the Federal government indirectly subsidizing unions being an outrage.
“forest rangers and the camouflage pants sold to troops on military bases.”
Hell yeah! Too many overpaid PFCs and forest rangers. Get rid of them all! They should be paying for their own uniforms, jeeps, weapons, ammo, etc. What the hell do they think this is?
To have ambition, was my ambition
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fbXfk51R1o
Is that picture from a Greenville County Tea Party meeting?
No, its from the DNC,
If they didn’t buy overseas, Fits would have a news story with the following headline:
“Government Waste: Government pays $30 for $5 T-Shirts”
INEXCUSABLE!
I keep saying we should print money, and give it to the poor to spend. That way the money stays here instead of going into offshore accounts as “score” for the ultra rich. It will go from the poor to the middle class, and *then* to offshore accounts as “score” for the ultra rich.
We call that “trickle up” economics. Instead of the yellow liquid in the “trickle down” economics, we get green liquid going up.
Why print money and give it to the rich?