Of Haircuts and “Error Rates”

I really do wish I had a GOP example or two on this particular topic; anyone who has one is welcome to send it in.

But at the moment I have only have examples of follicle follies involving Democrats, with one of them very recent. They are indicative of a bipartisan political culture that is as indifferent to mind-boggling levels of waste, fraud, and abuse as you and I are at the idea of picking up a penny off of a filthy floor in a public place.

First, there’s the Democrats’ 2004 presidential candidate (third item at Boortz link; external links added by me), with an allusion to the party’s last White House occupant:

Apparently eager to look as out of touch as possible, John Kerry decided he needed a haircut while he was campaigning in Portland, Oregon last week. So what did he do? Go visit a local place, socialize with the locals for a perfect photo-op? Nope…once again, he flew his own private hair stylist across the country for a haircut. Must be nice.The New York Daily News (HT GOPcity) is reporting that French hair stylist Isabelle Goetz, from the exclusive Washington D.C. hair salon Christophe, rushed to groom The Poodle on the campaign trail. If the name sounds familiar, that’s the same hair stylist that shut down LAX in 1993 to give then-President Bill Clinton a haircut on the tarmac. What’s with Democrats and expensive haircuts? Who knows.

Yep…that’s a man of the people right there. He’s so much like you and me, he flies his hair stylist from Washington, D.C. all the way to Oregon just to give him a haircut. It doesn’t get any more like the common man than that.

Then there’s the more recent story about Hillary Clinton:

Recently released federal fund-raising records show Clinton shelled out $1,500 in April for Goetz to carefully craft her coiffure and another $1,000 for a camera-ready clip in May. She passed off both styling sessions as “media production” expenses.

Clinton was so desperate for Goetz to style her gilded mane, she picked up the scissor siren’s $405 travel tab in April and a $38 expenses tab in May.

Goetz, a fixture at the swank Cristophe salon and the favored stylist of John Kerry, has been clipping the former first lady’s locks for years - she’s credited for updating Clinton’s coif from country to chic. To complement the touch-up of her tresses, Clinton invested another $3,000 for makeup maestro Barbara Lacy to brush on some blush.

….. Clinton paid Lacy an eye-popping $1,600 for some eye-lining in mid-May and another mind-boggling $1,300 for some makeup two weeks later.Again, Clinton justified the makeovers as a media production expense.

So John Kerry and Hillary Clinton think nothing of spending what for many people is over a month’s pay on hair and makeup, while Hillary’s husband didn’t mind spending what was almost certainly taxpayer money on what would almost always be a personal expense for you and me.

It should be no surprise that if these folks (and I’m sure the GOP is not exempt, which is why I have asked for examples) treat contributor and taxpayer money so cavalierly on “little” things such as these, they are probably less than conscientious about how the big bucks are spent.

Need an example? Fine — Here’s an example from a state controlled by Republicans:

Already under fire for poor accounting practices in Hamilton County that could cost state taxpayers millions of dollars, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services has been sanctioned by the federal government for sloppy handling of food-stamp money.

Ohio has been fined $3.1 million by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for having one of the nation’s highest error rates in administering its $1.2 billion food-stamp program, The Dispatch has learned.

On average, $1 out of every $12 in payments was wrong.

Last month, the USDA notified Ohio that it was one of three states being fined for having error rates well above the national average for two consecutive years. Ohio’s fine accounted for most of the $3.6 million in penalties being assessed because of the size of the state’s program.

Ohio’s combined error rate, which accounts for underpayments and overpayments to food-stamp recipients, was 8.65 percent in 2005 and 8.43 percent in 2004, compared with the national averages of 5.84 percent and 5.88 percent, respectively.

Over those years, Ohio paid out about $150 million more than recipients were entitled to, more than any other state, the Agriculture Department determined. The report has been shared with states but not distributed publicly.

I believe the Dispatch meant to say $150 million each year (i.e., that much money was wasted in BOTH 2004 AND 2005).

The real stunner isn’t Ohio’s error rate, which is bad enough, but the national error rate of almost 6%. States with these error rates apparently are not being punished, ergo wasting 6% must be “acceptable.”

A corporate payroll or purchasing director who told his boss that his or her department’s error rate was “only 6%” would be out on the street within seconds of saying so. But a 6% error rate in a multibillion-dollar entitlement program is tolerated, and doesn’t even get a rise out of our “watchdog” media. This travesty gives new meaning to the phrase “close enough for government work.”

Despite their occasional lip service, don’t count on the people who shell out thousands for hair and makeup on someone else’s dime to do anything about it.