Managing Federal Credit Cards

The NYTimes has an article on the Federal credit cards, with a purchase limit that was raised in the context of Katrina.

"The thought of individual employees able to charge up to a quarter-million dollars per trip with only the plastic in their wallets, directly payable by Uncle Sam, has government watchdogs agog."

The cards were pushed in the Clinton administration, as part of Gore's "Reinventing Government" program. They're a good idea that was poorly implemented, IMHO. The cards were used both for travel and small purchases, but the management controls were lacking, as GAO discovered. I've a couple suggestions in the new context:

• the credit card companies have software that identifies breaks from a normal pattern of usage, hoping to find cases where a card has been stolen. The Feds should apply the same software among cards--the pattern of usage among employees with similar responsibilities should be similar (i.e., if they're only used for travel, or for small purchases).
• public servants have no privacy, so make the record of purchases for each employee available on the internet and authorize rewards for people discovering abuses.
• have the employee's supervisor log on to the account and approve it each month. (Sort of like the controls that parents can put on their children's cards.)