A classic example of why I don’t believe any of the snake oil sales pitch about health care costs.

Maybe when you print money all day, it becomes easier to spend.

A Republican congressman is taking a hard look at a program in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that would give hundreds of senior employees $75 gift cards in exchange for their printers, which the government already owns.

“It’s absurd and demeaning that managers would offer employees gift cards for the simple act of returning office property,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee, said in a written statement Tuesday.

It gets better, wait until you see the rationale behind the incentive program.

The Washington Post reported that the bureau created the incentive program because it wanted to cut down on printer use to save money.

The article said at least 534 employees have individual printers. The gift cards were offered as a way to induce those who might otherwise be possessive about the printers to give them up and use a network printer.

The medical community has a name for this kind of behavior: functionally retarded.

In the real world, where people use brains and other silly stuff at work, employees would have been ordered to return property that belonged to their employers, or else. But there is no “or else” in the la-la, can’t-fire-me-unless-I-kill-someone world of federal employment (thank your local labor union official for this mess).

There are no real business, math or fiscal responsibility rules in the world of the fedtards, that’s how they continually claim to be saving money while spending it. It doesn’t matter which bloated arm of the federal government is making things up, inefficient appropriation of taxpayer funds is their mission statement.

Just look at today’s CBO report that the Democrats are lauding as proof that Obamacare won’t raise costs.

Before taking account of federal subsidies to help people buy insurance on their own, the budget office said the bill would tend to drive up premiums. But as a result of the subsidies, it said, most people in the individual insurance market would see their costs decline, compared with the costs expected under current law. The subsidies, a main feature of the bill, would cost the government nearly $450 billion in the next 10 years and would cover nearly two-thirds of premiums for people who receive them.

Get that? The government will be spending $450 billion to keep costs down. Where does it get that money? From its summer job? No, it’s a direct cost to the American consumer. So, if we all just spend almost half a trillion dollars for ten years, most premiums won’t cost more. But get the KY out on April 15th every year for the next decade. It’s a semantic game, not an economic reality. In the interest of me getting to my lunch quicker, let’s not even examine the history of government expenditure predictions that are almost always lower than actual costs.

Most people focus on whether the government should be attempting to do all that Team Lightbringer wants it to do. I remain focused on whether it even can do any of it.

And if we’re looking at past performance as an indicator of future behavior…