{"id":13927,"date":"2007-12-14T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-14T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13927.html"},"modified":"2007-12-14T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-14T21:00:00","slug":"coming-soon-to-a-shredder-near-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/coming-soon-to-a-shredder-near-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming soon, to a shredder near you"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a year ago, Wonkette published<\/a> an interesting picture: an industrial shredder from the Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services was delivered by truck to the Cheney compound at the Naval Observatory. (The company, apparently, was “contracted by the Secret Service for our Executive Branch’s record-not-keeping needs<\/a>.”)<\/p>\n

Part of the problem with this, of course, is that Cheney already treats government materials with an almost-comical degree of secrecy<\/a>. Man-size safes, used elsewhere in government for classified secrets, store the workaday business in Cheney’s office. The VP has even created his own classified designation for all of his documents — materials are stamped “Treated As: Top Secret\/SCI” — including mundane papers like talking points for reporters.<\/p>\n

Given this, the question quickly became obvious: if Cheney is keeping secrets classified and in man-size safes, why does he also<\/i> need industrial shredders brought in by truck to his residence?<\/p>\n

Apparently, that was only part of the problem. It’s not just Cheney — the administration’s shredding needs are downright exorbitant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Federal spending on paper shredding has increased more than 600 percent since George W. Bush took office. This chart<\/a>, generated by usaspending.gov<\/a>, the U.S. government’s brand spanking new<\/a> database of federal expenditures, shows spending on “contracts for paper shredding services” going back to 2000. Click here<\/a> for the full, heartbreaking breakdown.<\/p>\n

In 2000, the feds spent $452,807 to make unpleasant truths go away; by 2006, the “Cheney Effect” had bumped that number up to $2.9 million. And by halfway through 2007, the feds almost matched that number, with $2.7 million and counting. Pretty much says it all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation for all of this. I just don’t know what it is.
\n
\nNow, I have not yet entered the small but lucrative niche of chartblogging<\/a>, but here’s the rundown<\/a> on the expenses by year. I think you’ll notice the trend.<\/p>\n

2000: $452,807
\n2001: $456,235
\n2002: $756,086
\n2003: $1,033,910
\n2004: $2,329,466
\n2005: $2,874,185
\n2006: $2,902,855
\n2007: $2,274,143<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “But look at 2007! Finally, the shredding expenses have gone down! Maybe this is a sign of progress?”<\/p>\n

No such luck. The $2,274,143 only covers the first half of 2007 — meaning the Bush administration is poised to spend far more on shredding this year than in any previous year. This is the year, of course, that Dems took back Congress and started issuing subpoenas.<\/p>\n

Great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a year ago, Wonkette published an interesting picture: an industrial shredder from the Mid-Atlantic Shredding Services was delivered by truck to the Cheney compound at the Naval Observatory. (The company, apparently, was “contracted by the Secret Service for our Executive Branch’s record-not-keeping needs.”) Part of the problem with this, of course, is that Cheney […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}