Governmental Hypocrisy
Post by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit
It came out this week that several (numerous?) federal employees have been selling their transit subsidy passes on the Internet in lieu of using them for commuting as they were intended. How dumb are these people?
And let me clarify that, I don’t mean the people who sold the passes, but the government individuals who let this go on.
The federal transit subsidy program goes to 300,000 federal employees nationwide and seems to be abused just as widely. According to a report by the General Accountability Office, $17 million in the Washington area alone has been defrauded from the government.
The scam basically works like this. The federal employee signs up for the transit subsidy program, drives or is driven to work and then sells the passes via eBay, Craigslist or some other means.
And while they did break the law, I’m not as upset with the people who tried to do this as much as the government who let it go on. See, here’s the thing, the government is all up in arms that these people are making a quick buck off of them, but they’re missing the larger picture — how much money is being lost through this program overall.
Many of the people receiving this subsidy were also given free parking spaces at their workplace, some no longer worked for the federal government and some never had. First of all, these people working for the federal government aren’t like the guy who is flipping burgers at McDonald’s and takes the bus to and from work. They probably aren’t making minimum wage and more than likely are receiving decent insurance coverage from being a federal employee. Why would someone in this position need a transit subsidy?
Okay, let’s assume this is a plan by the government to increase the number of its employees who are using public transit. If that’s the case, then why are only these individuals receiving the subsidy?
And let’s not forget that there isn’t one department that is charged with overseeing this program. The larger question is how many of these subsidies are being handed out and not used at all — not sold, just not being used. Why even have this program then? Sure, free passes to transit are a good idea, but I am sure there are people out there who are far more deserving of (and who would be more thankful for) them than the current program.
I hear everyday how we need to break our “addiction to oil,” we need to look for alternative fuels and think “green.” Sorry, but how is anyone to believe any of that if our government isn’t behind it? We can sit back and bash the President all we want for not talking about public transit in the State of the Union Address, but this story just proves that it isn’t the President who is solely to blame here.
This story is an indictment of the entire federal government and its lack of support for public transit. If the government wants me to break our “addiction to oil,” we need to say, “No problem. You first.”
Thanks for reading the MT Position, updated every Thursday.
April 26th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Say something nasty or uncalled for while on the air - get fired! In fact, get enough tickets while holding a CDL - get fired. Be a racist in public - someone wants your job. Well, stealing from an employer, my government, me, is also grounds for dismissal. Fire the thieves! It most certainly was intentional.
April 26th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Fred, I look forward to your articles every week and really look forward to reading them. I almost always agree with you, but I’ve got to say that this one doesn’t really make any sense.
The government is doing a good thing here to support public transit by offering this commuter benefit to 300,000 people…they shouldn’t be criticized for this. There are LOTS of things the feds do wrong, but this isn’t one of them.
The people who are in the wrong here are the ones who are abusing the program. It is stealing, plain and simple. It’s not the government’s fault that some people are abusing the program, and you shouldn’t make any excuses for these people.
I agree that the government needs to take a leading and much more active role helping to end the country’s addiction to oil, and a bigger investment in public transit would be a big help. But your rambling criticism of the free transit benefit program for commuters is not helpful, as this program is actually something the government is doing right. The program should be expanded.
April 26th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Let me clarify my position, Chuck.
You’re correct, this program should be expanded. In fact, it probably should be mandatory.
Those people who sold their passes committed theft, plain and simple. They should be at least fired. But the government should be held accountable for not monitoring this better. The amount of these passes that were sold is arguably miniscule to the number that were given out and never used at all.
The government did do a good thing, but they implemented it poorly and it ended up costing tax payers money as a result.
We are told that we need to cut our “addiction to oil” and yet look at the government effectively wasting money through mismanagement. They need to get their house in order first.
April 26th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Employees should be held accountable. I don’t know about being fired but some form of restitution should be required. I think employees should pay a portion of the cost for these passes and they shouldn’t go to people who are not interested in using mass transit. If passes are given out as a benefit of employment then what difference does it make if these employees turn around and sell them for a profit. Its a very natural consequence that is made even more enticing when there is no accountability. Much of this would be avoided if employees paid a share of the cost for transportation.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
The commuter benefit for 300,000 people which is provided by my tax dollars should be available to all taxpayers, not just federal employees.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
I don’t see how the government could be giving away free passes that can easily be sold without knowing this could and would happen. Wouldn’t a picture on the passes prevent them from being able to be sold? Or are we talking about passes that are prepaid by the employee but are considered subsidized because the the employee pays no taxes on the money used to purchase these passes. If the latter is the case, the employee may be trying to recoup the money he spent in months when he cannot use the pass perhaps because he is sick or on vacation. There may be a logical explanation and the program needs to be adjusted accordingly to lessen any potential abuse.
April 28th, 2007 at 11:10 am
The passes are to encourage people to take transit instead of driving. If you live in the DC Metro area, you can only imagine if everyone on Metro drove instead. No one would get to work on time.
Many agencies do not give out the actual passes anymore. You get a SmarTrip card that looks and acts like a debit card. You simply swipe it at the machine, and your subsidy is added electronically. No chance of fraud this way because only your card with your matching serial number can receive the money.
And to answer the other question from Hudson, the same is available for the private sector. Companies, many in this area, chose to do this for employees. It is a pre-tax benefit.
While I think this article is worthwhile in that it shows there are problems, there are many facts left out. Believe it or not, federal employees are not sitting around thinking of ways to make money off of their employer.
April 28th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Employees should be required to sign an agreement that the passes are only for their own use and not to be transferred or sold. free parking must be eliminated as well except in special cases for their if verification that transit service doesn’t exist either due the shift or location involved. For those allowed to drive a special pass should be required to be on display in the windshield and the issuing pass agency should not be giving both permission to park and a pass to the same employee. A guaranteed emergency ride home program should also be established. In addition, free parking for users of government services should be eliminated (except where necessary due disability) unless an equivalent benefit is given to those who walk, bike, or use transit.
April 30th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I get (and pay for) a monthly pass. There’s a (way too small) discount for getting it through a business program. Some days, I have to drive to remote locations. My wife uses the pass on those days to commute to her job. Nobody’s being ripped off, here, just using what I’ve paid for in a different way (and increasing the use of mass transit).
While I suspect that it’s not quite the same, these Federal employees are moving their use of mass transit to another person’s commute. That isn’t a bad thing. The Federal employee may be in the same position as I am, having to drive to go to multiple meetings in a number of locations, or to go to destinations not reasonably accessible by mass transit. The person they sell it to may reliably use that same mass transit pass every single day.
How much value is there to a pass if you only use it five days a month? It may make simple financial sense to sell it.
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Following up, all these pass holders affirm on application that they will use these passes for public transportation instead of using private transportation and actually sign a statement on the back of each and every card agreeing to their proper use and to use by the holder only. They are intentional theives.