I am already pissed about the amount of taxes I have to pay. But when I found out today that my hard-earned dollars (and yours) are paying for lingerie, gambling, iPods (you KNOW how I feel about those), Internet dating services, and steak & booze dinners, I nearly burst a blood vessel.

Look, I know this shouldn’t/doesn’t come as a surprise, but it’s no less infuriating.

The Washington Post reports (with the most understated headline ever—”Federal Credit Cards Misused”):

The study, released by Senate lawmakers yesterday, found that nearly half the “purchase card” transactions it examined were improper, either because they were not authorized correctly or because they did not meet requirements for the cards’ use. The overall rate of problems “is unacceptably high,” the audit found.

The GAO also found that agencies could not account for nearly $2 million worth of items identified in the audit — including laptop computers, digital cameras and, at the Army, more than a dozen computer servers worth $100,000 each.

…

The GAO found that 41 percent of the transactions it examined did not follow government purchasing rules. The problem was worse with larger purchases: Forty-eight percent of transactions over $2,500 were in violation of federal rules, the report said.

Read the rest (and more highlights)—if you can stand it.