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IRS Spent $60,000 Producing Star Trek Parody
An anonymous reader writes According to the AP, the IRS is being "scolded for spending $60,000 dollars on an elaborate parody video that played at a 2010 conference. 'The video features an elaborate set depicting the control room, or bridge, of the spaceship featured in the hit TV show. IRS workers portray the characters, including one who plays Mr. Spock, complete with fake hair and pointed ears. The production value is high even though the acting is what one might expect from a bunch of tax collectors. In the video, the spaceship is approaching the planet 'Notax,' where alien identity theft appears to be a problem.' You can find the hilarious and/or nausea-inducing video on YouTube."
Well, this is better than some of the things our government spends our tax dollars on...
The IRS decided to produce videos in house instead of spending more money to hire outside contractors. Before they could start producing actual videos for use in training, public information, etc., they had to get up to speed with using their new video production facility. They had to make some dummy video during that checkout/internal training phase, so they chose to make parodies of Star Trek and Gilligan's Island. Big deal.
My girlfriend works at a library. A patron throw a hissy fit the other day because she thought they had used way to much salt on the sidewalk (this is snow country) and threatened to call the Mayor.
It costs about $1500 per day to run that library branch. Yet people freak out because they might use $1 more salt than necessary once a month to keep the City from being sued by somebody slipping and falling. This is how people think.
For instance the 2009 Iraq war spending ($95.5B) was about $1.13 per tax paying household. On the other hand, the 2010 $521 billion cost of Medicare was funded by grabbing $6167.43 on average from each tax paying household.
Score -1 Major math fail.
95 billion is about 1/6th of 520 billion. Therefore Iraq costs 1/6th the Medicare budget based on your figures.
Your figures say that there are about 90 billion households in the u.s. based on your iraq figures of 95 billion / $1.1
I guess you have deliberately confused millions with billions to try to make a political point. Your figures should probably say iraq cost $1100 per household in one year.