Any taxpayer money spent on bureaucratic memorabilia is money wasted. Public servants shouldn’t need swag to commemorate doing their jobs. Still criticism of Scott Pruitt over a proposed redesign of so-called challenge coins for the EPA is just too much.
A 1,200-word New York Times expose details Pruitt’s ideas for redesigning the coins, keepsakes given out in appreciation of a job well done. He wanted a Buffalo and a Bible Verse added, innocuous odes to Oklahoma and his faith. Bottom line, the Times reports, Pruitt wanted to “make it bigger, and delete the E.P.A. logo.”
But that was just a proposal. The coins were never minted. The EPA even said so on the record.
“Administrator Pruitt does not have a challenge coin,” EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement, “but while we’re on the subject, President Obama’s Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs Tammy Duckworth spent taxpayers dollars on challenge coins.”
And that’s true. As the Chicago Tribune first reported in 2016, while at the VA, now Sen. Duckworth spent $1,875 on the coins “with the VA logo on one side and her name on the other.” Duckworth also spent another $2,100 on fine china with VA branding.
While that wasn’t a prudent use of taxpayer money, it’s not a huge scandal either. It briefly became a mini-scandal for Duckworth during her Senate campaign but was quickly dismissed (more troubling was the $100K she spent on media training while in that office). The same should happen here with Pruitt.
The EPA administrator is defending his record in light of more serious revelations like his decision to rent an apartment from a lobbyist, his sound-proofing expenditures, and his first-class flights. The scandal about the challenge coins certainly scrapes the bottom of the metaphorical barrel.
But because any waste is too much, here is a simple solution: bureaucrats should be prohibited from buying knick-knacks.
