White House Paper Shredding Costs Spiral

We could barely believe this either. In an elegant summary of the Bush administration�s record on secrecy and obstruction of justice, Radar reports that White House document shredding costs have increased more than six-fold since 2000. [Radar]

In 2000, the federal government spent only $452,807 on �contracts for paper shredding services,� according to the new site, USASpending.gov. By 2006, that number skyrocketed to $2.9 million.

What on earth could they be shredding? Hmm… let us think. How about millions of politicized e-mails, records of Jack Abramoffâ��s White House visits, Cheneyâ��s energy meeting transcripts, descriptions of the CIA torture tapes, internal documents related to the firing of the U.S. attorneys, or State Department files on shady Iraqi reconstruction contracts? [House Government Oversight]

Not only that, but the Bush administration has also been achingly slow in response to document requests under the Freedom of Information Act. [MicCheck]

In 2006, only two of every five requests were processed, and the �number of exemptions cited to support the withholding of information� increased 83 percent since 1998.� [Think Progress]

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