The General Services Administration has been caught, yet again, in a costly, unnecessary and irresponsible waste of taxpayer dollars.

This abuse came just four weeks after the infamous $823,000 party the agency funded at a Las Vegas hotel. In this incident, the GSA spent more than $270,000 to “reward good performers.” (Obviously, their salaries and benefits were not reward enough!)

More than half the total spent on the event went to a public relations-advertising-marketing firm for “coordination and logistical management.” Another $50,000 went for gifts and awards, and $50,000 went to travel expenses for out-of-town agency employees.

The event isn’t the issue. It shouldn’t have happened. The Las Vegas event shouldn’t have happened. All those events and the spending abuses cited in past years and decades should never have happened. But they did. And they did because there simply isn’t any sense of responsibility in government’s spending of taxpayer dollars.

President Obama, in perhaps his most honest, if not his most intelligent, moment, captured the essence of the problem perfectly when he said: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.” And Bill Gates, who built Microsoft from his garage, wouldn’t be the only one who disagreed with the statement, but there can be no doubt Obama believes it. It is the essence of the belief that government is ultimate savior and protector.

Think about it: If you believe that government should intrude into every aspect of American life, should regulate and control, oversee and direct, take charge of the children at birth, provide security for all from cradle to the death, then it should be no surprise that you would believe private enterprise, private initiative, cannot exist but with the assistance, the full partnership, of government. The next logical step is why bother with private enterprise at all, since government is the essential partner and does everything better.

And if you believe that, then government not only deserves every cent it collects, it deserves more — and those who collect the money and oversee it should be richly rewarded for their roles in preserving and protecting the system. They are not “abusing” anything; they have a complete sense of entitlement. In fact, without them, there would be nothing, chaos, collapse.

The latest GSA incident merely symbolizes a known and well-documented culture of excess, fraud and abuse evidenced throughout government over the decades. And the bigger, and more intrusive, government becomes, the harder it is to regulate and control.

Ultimately, however, it is the voters and taxpayers who are responsible. They can decry the bureaucrats, the abuse, the spending, but they, and they alone, can force an end to government excess. Once they tire of seeing their hard-earned dollars squandered, their government become oppressive and suffocating, then they can vote for meaningful change.

The next time you complain, remember that. November is fast approaching.