Lost Cigarettes + Lost Lives = Government Involvement

The Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is a government agency that is supposed to keep track of all three. 

The ATF looked the other way when drug cartels loaded firearms into SUVs and drove them across the border into Mexico.  Since then, those “Fast and Furious” criminals have taken the lives of many Mexicans, and have also been responsible for the shooting deaths of border agent Brian Terry and ICE agent Jaime Zapata.

Now, according to the Justice Department’s inspector general, ATF agents, without authorization, participated in dozens of clandestine investigations into illegal tobacco sales. This resulted in $162 million in profits being misused, and 420 million cigarettes being lost in the process.

The inspector general claims that as a result of 20 separate ATF sting operations, it is now impossible to account for more than 2.1 million cartons of cigarettes whose retail value was approximately $127 million. The inspector general blames “substandard documentation and inventory control.”

Regardless of the reasons why, America should be reminded that the ATF is a perfect example of how government works.

If a branch of government is responsible for booze, cigarettes, and guns, rest assured that 420 million cigarettes will be misplaced. And subsequent profits will be misused and illegal guns will be provided by government agents to those who shouldn’t have them – inspiring millions of Americans to partake of large quantities of booze.

The whys and wherefores don’t matter, because what needs to be pointed out again and again is that the government will soon be in charge of overseeing the healthcare of millions of Americans.  Thank the good Lord it’s 120 million people fewer than the number of cigarettes the government seems to have misplaced.

So if the ATF can’t keep track of things like alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, how confident should we be that HHS will keep track of and adequately administer the healthcare of 300 million people?

And if a major government agency admits that errors were made because of “substandard documentation and inventory control,” how many American lives will be lost as a result of “substandard documentation and inventory control” in bureaucrat-administered healthcare?

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