So La Jeunesse wanted to know why the SSA’s taxpayer funded retreat was okay, when the AIG Corporation’s retreat was not. “There’s a clear distinction between the two” SSA Spokesperson Peter Spencer explained. “They (the AIG Corporation) received specific bailout funds, we did not…”

Mr. Spencer was, of course, playing the American people for fools. Whether you call it “bailout funds” or an operating budget, government money is our money, the people’s money. All the money that government possess comes from our tax payments.

And while American workers in the “real world” face layoffs, pay-cuts, the elimination of expense accounts, and moratoriums on corporate travel and entertainment ( wasn’t the annual “holiday party” eliminated at your place of employment a year or two ago?), it is disgraceful that government employees think its okay to sit in the lap of luxury at our expense.

Neither the President nor members of Congress are able to control all the indiscretions of government bureaucrats, but they can certainly demand an investigation into the waste of our tax money. Republicans in Congress should demand congressional hearings on this matter, and demand them now.

But whether or not Congress acts prudently, the rest of us private citizens can not act like the ignorant fools that Mr. Spencer presumes us to be. Americans must stop turning a blind, passive, albeit cynical eye to agents of our government who insist on taking ever-increasing amounts of our private wealth and re-distributing it according to their own plans, all the while enjoying the spoils of our labor and using their positions of power for their own selfish purposes. This description applies to government bureaucrats, members of Congress, and the President, alike.

And as for Mr. Spencer - he should determine how Social Security will continue to pay-out benefits to American workers, rather than budgeting for stress-reducing retreats.