GOP leader says Labor Dept. is wasting tax money

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of a House panel is asking Labor Secretary Thomas Perez to turn over to Congress documents and information the lawmaker alleges will show "a pattern of wasteful spending and mismanagement" at the Labor Department.

Rep. Darrell E. Issa, R-Calif., who leads the House Oversight Committee, asserted that the Labor Department's Office of Public Affairs "frivolously spends taxpayer money on unnecessary items." As an example, the lawmaker cited elevator posters changed weekly in the 23 passenger elevators at the department's headquarters, at a cost of $2,637 a week.

Since 2009, the posters have cost a total of more than $600,000, Issa wrote to Perez in a letter dated Monday. He also criticized what he depicted as excessive travel by Labor Department officials, and charged that the department used taxpayer dollars to hire a Washington Nationals baseball team mascot for an agency event "and spent over $100,000 to promote a book club."

The department issued a statement defending the spending as a valid morale booster for employees. "Our internal communications efforts make a difference in employee satisfaction, retention and most importantly, performance. Better performance from our employees translates into better value for the public," the department said.

Issa suggested such spending flies in the face of a November 2011 executive order by President Barack Obama directing executive-branch agencies to cut spending on "extraneous promotional items" and to "devise strategic alternatives to government travel."

"Spending taxpayer dollars on elevator posters, award contests, and unnecessary travel seems to be precisely the type of conduct President Obama intended to curtail," said Issa, a frequent critic of the Democratic administration