Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Careful What You Wish For

Back in October, Herb Jackson pointed out that Representative Scott Garrett joined in on presenting a list of complaints about federal spending on "Budget Boondoggles." One such "boondoggle" was printing of the Congressional Record, of which Garrett and his colleagues had this to say:
Even in the current era of on-line data, the Government Printing Office[GPO] prints thousands of excess copies of floor proceedings and legislation – most of which are never read.

Garrett supported an amendment to decrease the printing budget for the GPO. On those grounds, in this "current era", one would think that President Bush going to a paperless budget, saving taxpayers around a $1 million, would make Garrett happy. One would be wrong.
“I think people who request a copy of the budget should be given it gratis,” said Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.), another Budget panel member. “You want something in your hand so you can thumb through it and mark it up and reference it.”

Garrett is skeptical of the business vision of entrepreneurs such as Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, who are hawking digital books and claim that paper versions will someday become a thing of the past.

“The whole idea of books going online, I don’t think it’s going to catch favor,” he said.

To be fair, I don't know Garrett's practice. He may make notes on every page. However, if he doesn't he should practice the fiscal responsibility he preaches and save taxpayers money by printing only the pages he needs.

1 comment:

Theresa said...

And he should use both sides of his letterhead when he sends his constituents mail. I constantly receive two page letters that could be reduced to one page if he use, oh the horror, the other side of the paper.

The last one had his closing salutation and signature printed on the second page.

Naturally, my suggestion to use both sides went into some black hole.

Theresa