IRS Apologizes For Spending So Much Money On Perfect Star Trek Parody “Training Video”
God, I love this story so much! You know, just because you’re a government employee with the Internal Revenue Service does not mean that you don’t know how to cut loose and have a good time. That’s one thing that I learned today. It also doesn’t mean that you can’t make the decision to spend $60,000 ($60,000!!!) on a Star Trek parody “training” video without allocating any of that ridiculous amount of money to hiring actual actors, instead just using other IRS employees. Sadly, though, it also doesn’t mean that you don’t have to apologize for it. From The Washington Times:
The IRS said Friday it was a mistake for employees to make the six-minute video. It was shown at the opening of a 2010 training and leadership conference but does not appear to have any training value.
“The IRS recognizes and takes seriously our obligation to be good stewards of government resources and taxpayer dollars,” the agency said in a statement. “There is no mistaking that this video did not reflect the best stewardship of resources.”
The agency said it has tightened controls over the use of its production equipment to “ensure that all IRS videos are handled in a judicious manner that makes wise use of taxpayer funds while ensuring a tone and theme appropriate for the nation’s tax system.”
The agency also said, “A video of this type would not be made today.”
The agency also said, “Holy shit, though — did you watch this thing? Oh my god. Oh my god, guys. Like, definitely we shouldn’t spend so much taxpayer money on garbage like this in the future, but is it ok for me to say that I’m not TOTALLY upset that we spent it this time? Like. Did you watch this thing?!”
Isn’t the Twitter reference at the beginning completely disorienting, even though you knew that the video was filmed in 2010? “HOW DID THEY KNOW ABOUT TWITTER IN 1982?!” I love that you can’t understand almost everything everyone is saying. I love the gasp at 1:30. I absolutely love the wedged in Avatar joke at 2:35. Everything about this is very good. $10,000 a minute seems fair enough! (Via ViralViral.)
