Missing in all of James O'Keefe and his aspiring actor/investigative journalist buddy's complaints about “waste” and “fraud” in the Census, is the fact that the duo completely ripped off taxpayers by getting paid to train for a job they had no intention of doing. Indeed, it cost taxpayers far more money to train O'Keefe and his pal (and future star of Adventures of Gorilla Bob) Shaughn Adeleye than it did to pay them for a few extra hours they claim they didn't work.

O'Keefe claims to have worked 19.5 hours “over the course of two days of training,” 3.5 to 4 hours of which he claims were for “work” he “never did.” He was reportedly paid $18.25 an hour for his training; so, if we're to take him at his word, he made at least $282 to train for a job that by his own admission, he had no plans to do. Likewise, Adeleye claims he “was paid for a total of 20.75 hours, 3.5 of which I did not work.” He says, “I was paid with your money, money that was stolen from you.” Adeleye was reportedly paid $13.25 per hour for his training. Like O'Keefe, Adeleye quit “prior to doing any of the enumeration work door-to-door,” which means Adeleye was paid $228 to train for a job he was never going to do. Combined taxpayers paid over $510 for O'Keefe and Adeleye to engage in some silly “gotcha” sting operation on a couple local Census offices. Talk about stealing from taxpayers.

By contrast, only about $110 of taxpayer money was allegedly “waste[d]” on the “extra” hours the duo claimed to have been paid for work they “never did.”

O'Keefe has offered to refund the money for the extra hours for which he claims he was paid. But what about all the money he and Adeleye were paid for a job they had no intention of doing? Are they going to refund the taxpayers for that “waste” and "fraud?