We Oink Reporters understand the desire for things.  We are gadgetheads, are always lusting after the latest and greatest in personal electronics, and feel the same way about the iPhone as Tom Cruise felt about Rene Zellweger in Jerry McGuire.

It would complete us.

But despite our rampant materialism, we have always felt that one should fund his/her things budget with personal money.  Not money purloined from taxpayers.

 Federal employees used government credit cards to pay for lingerie, gambling, iPods, Internet dating services, and a $13,000 steak-and-liquor dinner, according to a new audit from the Government Accountability Office, which found widespread abuses in a purchasing program meant to improve bureaucratic efficiency.

The study, released by Senate lawmakers yesterday, found that nearly half the “purchase card” transactions it examined were improper, either because they were not authorized correctly or because they did not meet requirements for the cards’ use. The overall rate of problems “is unacceptably high,” the audit found.

Just to make sure you all got that straight, these purchase cards were meant to make government more efficient.  What they accomplished was facilitating a government bureaucrat spending spree so eggregious it defies belief.

I mean, panties?  A $13,000 steak dinner?  How did these people not expect to get caught?

Apparently some 300,000 government employees used these purchase cards.  With 50%  of those transactions being inappropriate, or at least inappropriately authorized, you’d expect there to be a bloodbath of firings and embezzlement indictments.  That’s what would happen in the pricate sector.

But it’s the government, so instead I’m sure a few scapegoats will be sacrificed and then we’ll spend millions on some new purchasing program that will eventually be abused as bad as this one.