My tax dollars at work

Here's a story that just hit my inbox: US Paid $1 Million to Ship Two 19-Cent Washers

It reminded me, on a much, much smaller scale, of a woman I know (not like, just know) who is pregnant with her third child. Her husband works for the U.S. Gov here in C.R. and she was telling a group of women that I happened to be in how she just shipped all this crap down here from Wal-Mart (at the government's U.S. taxpayer's expense, of course). Then she kept going on and on about how they were flying back to the U.S. (the entire family) to have kid #3, and the U.S. government taxpayers would be footing the bill for their stay at a local resort and their hospital stay when the kid was born. When asked by one of the women in the group why they were doing all of this (i.e., why not just stay in C.R. and have the baby here), her answer was basically, "Because I can." Read: Because I can screw the U.S. taxpayers, so I will. My friend from Canada was looking at me, somewhat horrified, because we had recently had a conversation about how I was sick of paying taxes to support a government I no longer have any faith in, and especially for a war I am completely against. And no, lady, I don't want to pay for you to have your kid in the States just because "you can." You came to Costa Rica to live; if you don't like it here, go home. But don't assume everyone agrees with your abuse of my money. Actually, I don't think anyone agreed with it, but we were all too much in shock to say anything. Ugh.