Late Payments

I caught a little of the news tonight before heading out to do some yard work.  There was a story that caught my eye as one of those holy crap moments.  If the cost is this much for just New York State, imagine what it could be for the United States!



The story I'm referring to is regarding a statement made by the state comptroller's office stating that making late payments in the last fiscal year cost the state $1.9 million dollars in fees.  I think what makes this even worse is that of the fact that a majority of this money was wasted in one area, the department of health.  How could one department waste $1.3 million dollars in late fees?  The unfortunate part of this is that it is nearly impossible to remove someone in a government position for doing something like this.  It is something that needs to be fixed as it is a complete waste of taxpayer money!


I have to admit, that isn't a huge total when you compare that to the total budget but if the same scale is pushed out to the federal budget, you could be talking about billions of dollars!  And the thing that I don't get about it is how or why it happens.  At what point will the world credit rating of the United States become so bad that other countries refuse to do business with us?  Something needs to happen before we get to that point.