We need to raise taxes because there’s totally no waste to eliminate in government. Why, they’re so frugal it’s embarrassing!

The Justice Department spent more than $120 million in fiscal 2008 and 2009 to host law enforcement conferences across the country, many of which featured “extravagant and wasteful” costs for food, beverages and event planning, including spending $16 on each of 250 muffins served at an August 2009 legal conference in Washington, D.C., a report said Tuesday.

Acting Inspector General Cynthia Schnedar, in an audit report that examined taxpayer expenditures incurred by the Justice Department at 10 of 1,832 conferences held during fiscal 2008 and 2009, said investigators also found that another conference featured a lunch that cost $76 per person and coffee costing more than $1 per ounce. Other costly items cited in the report included a $32-per-person snack break consisting of Cracker Jacks, popcorn and candy bars, $7.32 Beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres, $10 cookies and $5 Swedish meatballs.

We’re gonna need you to pay higher taxes. I mean, you don’t want bureaucrats to go without $76 lunches, $32 snacks, and $8 cups of coffee, do you? That would downright unpatriotic. So fork over more cash to Barack Obama.

On a more serious note, the report also found internal components of the agency, “are not taking all necessary steps to minimize conference-related costs and to eliminate wasteful spending.” No duh.