Let's pretend for a second that the nation isn't facing its current fiscal challenges. That any surplus would go toward certain areas such as infrastructure, social services and educational programs. These are the types of things, after all, that justify spending taxpayer dollars.

Unfortunately, this is not the scenario. And many, if not all, of those areas listed above are in desperate need of federal funding — which makes a recent report on federal employees' extravagances that much more appalling.

According to the Government Accountability Office, federal employees representing a dozen agencies wasted $146 million of taxpayers' money over a one-year period on business- and first-class airline tickets.

The higher airfare "resulted in expenses often five to 10 times more than what was authorized under government travel rules."

Federal rules dictate that government employees must fly coach, unless the flight exceeds 14 hours. The only exceptions include certain medical conditions, security concerns, lack of coach seats or "because of agency mission."

Investigators, however, found that employees showed a disregard for the policy, and in some cases, tried to skirt it with weak excuses, including medical notes written by colleagues.

The troubling part of this mess, among other things, is that this unregulated system has allowed employees to get away with the abuses for an indeterminable amount of time. The investigation spans only one year, from July 2005 to June 30, 2006 — who knows how much more has been spent to provide federal employees with more leg room?

Safeguards must be put in place to prevent these abuses from happening again. And as the report suggests, agencies should recoup the extra cost from those who abused travel policies.

Such wastefulness is shameful, given all the programs that could have benefited from $146 million. Even if the nation was on strong fiscal ground, such arrogance would still be unacceptable.