A lively and at times hilarious look at a grim topic: the way the government

wastes taxpayers' money, and the way some citizens take extravagant advantage of that fact. Mr. Grace proves to be a fine raconteur, who takes us with him through his excavations: "When we first went down there, we looked into how much the government owed--about $1.2 trillion. How much is the government owed? That came out to over $800 billion, including what they had guaranteed. It's not that bad. When is this money that is owed to the government due, and when is it going to be paid? We found to our horror that no one had ever aged any of that debt ... Nobody knew when it was due or whether it was overdue." The most comical/infuriating example: 46,000 government employees or former employees, who were receiving a government paycheck or Civil Service retirement--and who collectively owed over $60 million in unpaid student loans.