Bush Administration paid $254 billion for stock worth $176 billion

From TMQ's new article: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/090210#creep

TMQ Hats on Sale for $78 Billion, Treasury Department Said To Be Interested: The George W. Bush administration was so incredibly careless with your money that, according to this report to the Senate Banking Committee, it paid $254 billion this past autumn for bank stock worth $176 billion on the dates of purchase. Seventy-eight billion dollars wasted! Why isn't this on the front page of every newspaper in America? If you made a workplace decision that wasted several thousand dollars, you'd be in hot water -- yet Bush administration White House and Treasury Department officials wasted $78 billion without consequences or accountability. That amount would have been more than sufficient to create universal health care for a year. Instead the money was forcibly removed from your pockets and transferred to the rich of Wall Street and the banking world (buying stock at more than market value effectively is a gift to the firms). Your children will be paying for this and similar irresponsible use of public funds for their entire working lives.

Treasury officials had the temerity to tell Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the bailout oversight panel -- by the way, her excellent 2003 book "The Two-Income Trap" predicted a national financial meltdown caused by bad mortgages -- the mistake isn't quite as bad as it sounds because the stocks purchased have returned $271 million in dividends to taxpayers. So we threw $78 billion out the window but $271 million (three-tenths of 1 percent) blew back! In contemporary Washington, this is viewed as driving a hard bargain.

How is this not front page news everywhere?!  I'm tired of the government having NO oversight on spending.  For once Crazy Carl actually has what I think is a great idea (from an actual IM)

Crazy Carl: why don't we have a law that would be like the drug seizure law.  

Crazy Carl: if you're a Senate Aide, and you discover waste on that level, before it occurs, you get 1% of the money that would have been wasted.

Crazy Carl: or a presidential aide, etc.

Crazy Carl: a) you would attract good smart people to government, and the government would save trillions.

Crazy Carli: i'd rat my boss out for 1% of 87 billion dollars.

Carl Gucciardi: which, by the way, is 870 million dollars.

Crazy Carl: isn't it worth paying someone 870 million dollars if it will save taxpayers 86 billion dollars?