"U.S. Department of Education employees inappropriately used government credit cards to purchase $49,500 worth of goods and services, including meals, items at clothing stores and rental cars, for personal use, according to a review by the department's inspector general."

I'm sure this is nothing new. When I was in the army our battalion (a unit with 500-600 men) had a credit card. I never understood why, as I couldn't fathom what we would need that the army wouldn't provide for us.

Perhaps travel expenses, so the colonel wouldn't have to pay out of his own pocket if he needed to go to Fort Bliss or the Pentagon for official business? Maybe something like that.

For a time I held the job that made me responsible for reconciling the credit card statement. Turns out that I got that job at about the time our command sergeant major retired, and as I looked at the statement, I saw all these strange charges--for example, at golf courses - in places nowhere near our post. And each successive charge was further from post than the previous one, all in the direction that our command sergeant major was heading. When I brought this abuse up to the colonel, he said that the charges were authorized and to leave it at that.

Source: By Right On The Left Coast Blog http://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/