Nobody’s going to win an Emmy for a parody of the TV show “Star Trek” filmed by Internal Revenue Service employees at an agency studio in Maryland.
Instead, the IRS got a rebuke from Congress for wasting taxpayer dollars.
The agency says the video, along with a training video that parodied the TV show “Gilligan’s Island,” cost about $60,000. The “Star Trek” video accounted for most of the money, the agency said.
0
Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
The IRS probably spends more than that a day for parking for its employees.
With a budget of hundreds of billions, if Congress is going to micro-manage every $60K, they’ll never do anything else.
And?
So, you don’t mind if every penny of the taxes you paid went to this? I’m assuming your tax owed was less than $60K. If not, then I’m sure the rest went to other wastage.
Government spends more on meeting snacks three times over than what this cost. When they start looking at the real spending and do something about that waste then I will get all upset about the petty cash.
You know, all I am hearing from you is that its OK for them to do this because blah, blah blah, (insert other party here).
Its NOT OK. None of it, either side.
Sure it is, when it’s something YOU support. If you disagree with it so much might I suggest you stop voting for the same old thing.
I voted Libertarian, so perhaps you can admit to being wrong?
So… did they build that rather impressive mock-up of the Enterprise’s bridge or what? Is there a studio somewhere where you can rent one by the hour?
60k wouldn’t begin to build that one, methinks.
What a non-story, sheesh.
You must have voted for Obama. “we don’t have a spending problem” – Clueless in Chief
The republicans spend more than on that for meeting snacks, per month.
Facts or just name calling?
Not name calling. Rationalizations to sleep better at night.
Neither, just someone who has worked both sides, industry which is just as wasteful we just passed it along to the customer, and government which just passes it along to the taxpayer and screams bloody murder when the other party does it.
Only if they hold them where Joe Biden stays in Paris.
Original series Bridge and Next Generation uniforms? was this supposed to be some kind of Holodeck scene, or a parallel universe?
Too bad us Marylanders can’t say, “Beam me up Scotty. There’s no intelligent life run the government here.”
Waiting for their take on Highlander.
Why would the IRS do a parody of Gilligan’s Island? Unless they were after that tax cheat Thurston Howell III. Because he’s the only one there with deep enough pockets to make it worth their while. More likely they were after the Professor for not claiming royalties on all his coconut shell inventions as income. Howell’s part of the protected elite.
If they really wanted to act like Star Trek. Then the IRS should adopt a “non-interference directive” when it comes to the average Joe. And just use their photon torpedoes to take down the biggest of the baddies. The ones they seem to have problems nailing in real life.
We have a ways to go to catch up with the North Koreans in government sponsored videos. Their latest offering: a four-minute video, titled “A Short, Three-Day War,” begins with images of a massive artillery and rocket barrage, followed by a large-scale land and air assault with North Korean troops streaming over the border. Its not that good, being in Korean and all but shows the interest in government issued propaganda.
Does make me wonder how much money our gubment spends on convincing us that Banks are too big to fail?
I mean REALLY—who says that shit except the Bankers? Ha, ha.—8 Trillion Spent/given away/flushed down the rat hole and WE DON’T EVEN GET A VIDEO.
Life ain’t fair I tells ya.
http://telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9947489/North-Korea-releases-video-of-defeating-US-troops.html
I don’t get it.
My guess is this is part of some BS year in review videos that many companies make departments make. They think it is fun for the employees.
The video was poorly done, badly acted, self-serving, and didn’t make any sense.
A perfect statement of the IRS.
If congress would stop pimping us all out and pass a simplified tax code the system would be much harder to diddle but I don’t see that happening and to be honest if many businesses actually paid all they were supposed to pay they wouldn’t have any profits.
if many businesses actually paid all they were supposed to pay they wouldn’t have any profits
Maybe they dont deserve to make any fuckin’ profits!
The plan is to force under-performing employees to watch the video as a form of punishment.
Sooo…. Pretty much the entire IRS huh?
What a piece of excrement. I want my money back.
Nah… this gives me something to post on FaceBook about another one of our governments great works.
I see copyright infringement all over this!!!! What’s up with that? Is the IRS above the law?!?
(For another few thou they could’ve had blinking lights. Should’ve went with the blinking lights.)
Star Trek fans are more likely to be pedophiles, so the people who participated and approved this need to be investigated thoroughly.
If Congress really wanted to save money, they might adapt to the times and change most of our entitlement programs from the defined benefit model to the defined contribution model.
Having finally watched the video, I say it was worth every penny.
“Fascinating.”
Better than Star Trek The Motion Picture, and cheaper too.
If you are of the “percentage” mindset, $60K is indeed trivial when compared to billions of dollars.
If you are of the “absolute” mindset, $60K will buy 60,000 “dollar menu” items at McDonalds for hungry people (less sales tax).
If you believe that both mindsets have merit, hopefully you’ll still agree that ignoring bad fiscal behavior is a tacit endorsement that spawns repeated and even more creative ways to waste taxpayer money.
When is enough, enough?
Demonstrative of why we need smaller government.
To some… it seems that anything is “demonstrative that we need a smaller government”… to me, over simplifying statements like that simply demonstrates to me that there are a lot of morons in this country and that unfortunately they are not embarrassed enough to keep quiet more often.
To liberals who desire the most basic black and white topics expressed in 1,000 shades of gray so they can feed their ego of wanting others to believe that they are highly intelligent due splitting of hairs, then I suppose so.
Not so for intellectuals who can keep things succinct and recognize the comment is with respect to wasteful government spending and that larger governments only compound the problem.
That all said, your apparent lack of embarrassment is duly noted.