Posted on 05/06/2015 7:08:41 PM PDT by markomalley
Let me just say, that anyone who did this is an irresponsible idiot. Having said that, this is not as bad as it seems. Government credit cards work like ordinary credit cards. That is, the credit card holder is still responsible for paying the bill—not the Government. When I was in the Air Force, they made you use Government credit cards for travel. The purpose of this was two fold:
1. To ensure that an employee’s credit situation did not prevent them from traveling on Government business. This was the PRIMARY reason.
2. To ensure that the employee did not profit off travel, by getting bonus points or rewards on their credit card. Though I had a Gov CC, I used to use my GM credit card for travel—back when you earned 5%—until I was told to stop (and this was the reason given).
So, if some Yahoo wants to go to pay for lap dances with a Gov CC, he is still liable for the bill—not Uncle Sam. It also obviously looks bad, but it is that person’s career. The employee will have all his/her LEGITIMATE expenses reimbursed, which should allow them to pay off the entire CC balance each month (which is what you are supposed to do).
Maybe things have changed since I retired, but I doubt they’ve changed that much.
About not profiting off travel, the policy used to be that you could not even keep frequent flyer miles. At some point they changed that and let you keep ‘em. It really pi$$ed me off because I probably lost about a few hundred thousand FF miles due to that policy.
It is as good for the economy as illegal immigrants on welfare!
They could have been talking about travel cards or they could have been talking about IMPAC cards (government purchase cards). The article doesn't specify which kind.
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