GAO: Government employees should pack their own silverware


The federal government is not your mom and therefore is not in the business of setting the table for lunch, says a new decision from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The watchdog agency has banned the federal government from supplying employees with disposable silverware, plates, and cups for purely personal use.
As the decision notes, “It is axiomatic that public funds are generally not available for the cost of personal items for the public’s employees,” and eating utensils which inevitably “serve no purpose other than accommodating employees’ personal tastes” just don’t make the cut.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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