May 18, 2012
All American Blogger:
More wasteful spending from the failed Stimulus Plan. This time, hundreds of enterprise grade routers, meaning routers that can handle office building computer systems of up to 500 different computers, were purchased by West Virginia with Stimulus money. One of the routers was installed in a rural library with only two computers.
Hundreds more still sit in a warehouse, waiting for a place to be installed.
What gives? Turns out there was a fire sale on $22,000 routers:
Strickling says that NTIA looked into the situation and found that the average cost of the routers was only $12,000—not the $22,600 reported by the paper. (The contract for the devices was $24 million and 1,064 were purchased; 1,064 x $22,600 = $24 million. It’s not clear how Strickling broke down the numbers.)
He explained that West Virginia actually got a good deal.
In his defense, West Virginia did get a good deal.
The rest of America got a crap sandwich, but West Virginia came out smelling like a rose.
It’s very easy to justify spending, and by spending I mean “wasting,” other people’s money. But if this guy were running a business, or better yet, trying to justify buying a HUGE television to his wife, there’s no way he would use this argument.
“Well honey, I got the Sony Jumbotron because while they usually go for $22,000, I was able to get this one for $12,000. Now I know the numbers don’t really add up, but if you think about it, we actually saved $10,000. What a great deal, right?”
That’s not going to work.
Trust me.
I’ve tried it.
Image Credit: Niko Vermeer
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