G.S.A. Las Vegas Trip Is the Talk of Washington WASHINGTON - When a vast but little-known government agency spent $822,000 in taxpayer money to fly 300 bureaucrats to a luxurious spa and casino outside Las Vegas for a conference in October 2010, its leaders had a goal: to make it "over the top," according to a government report that has set Washington abuzz. But it was news of the conference entertainment - a clown and a mind reader - that prompted snickering on Tuesday across this city, which always savors a scandal. And with the snickering, there was a question: If they had a clairvoyant, how come nobody saw the backlash coming? "Arrogance, immaturity, entitlement," said Kenneth Donohue, who spent nearly a decade investigating cases of fraud and abuse as inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Plenty of people in Washington (and Las Vegas) were saying much the same on Tuesday, among them Representative John L. Mica, Republican of Florida, and Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, both of whom lead committees that have been investigating the agency in question, the General Services Administration. The G.S.A., as it is known, is essentially the government's personal shopper for big-ticket items, like buying and leasing buildings and cars. Heads rolled there on Monday - the top official, Martha Johnson, fired her top two deputies, and then resigned in disgrace - hours before the agency's inspector general released a blandly titled "Final Management Deficiency Report," whose contents were anything but bland about the conference at the M Resort Spa Casino. Its details - $58,808 for "audio visual services;" a "networking reception" where the fare included "Petit Beef Wellington" and 1,000 sushi rolls at $7 apiece; $147,000 for airfare and lodging; a $75,000 "bicycle building project" designed as a "team-building exercise" - were enough to prompt people in Las Vegas to wish, as the old saw goes, that what happened there would have stayed there. "The perceptions are lousy," said Sig Rogich, a Republican fund-raiser in Nevada who also knows Washington well, from his days as an assistant to the elder President George Bush. Mr. Rogich defended his city: "This is a bargain place to stay, you can eat and sleep and be entertained here for a fraction of the cost of any place in the world." The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority was not so bold. It tried to keep a low profile. "We are always happy when people choose to visit Las Vegas," said Jeremy Handel, a spokesman for the group. However, we're even happier when people choose to visit responsibly. Taxpayers need to know that their money is being spent wisely, no matter where that is. Meantime, mind readers were finding themselves in hot demand. Gerry McCambridge, who calls himself "The Mentalist," said in an interview that he was not the person who performed at the G.S.A. conference. But he had received a call on Tuesday from the television program "Inside Edition" asking if he had. Back in Washington, Mr. Mica vowed to hold a hearing this month, while Ms. McCaskill, a former state auditor in Missouri, complained that Ms. Johnson had ducked a meeting with her two weeks ago, apparently aware that the damaging report was about to be released. "As a government auditor, I have found that there are two possible responses from an agency when they get a critical audit," the senator said. "One is to say, "You know what, you're right, we need to do better and we're going to fix it." The other is to circle the wagons, rationalize and obfuscate. G.S.A. had the latter down to an art form. Washington is no stranger to spending scandals and their accompanying mind-numbing reports. In 1986, there was the euphemistically titled "A Quest for Excellence: Final Report to the President by the President's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management" - an accounting of the Pentagon's $535 hammers and $640 toilet seats. The G.S.A. has a history of scandal. In 2006, a former agency chief of staff was found guilty on charges that he lied to the agency's inspector general and a Congressional committee in connection with investigations of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The same year, the head of the agency, Lurita A. Doan, was strongly criticized by its inspector general for proposing cuts in financing for investigations of fraud and wasteful spending. Ms. Doan, now a columnist for a conservative Web site, was forced to resign two years later after she was accused of trying to steer contracts to her friends - an accusation she denied. The latest report, coming as both Republicans and Democrats are emphasizing responsible spending, has proved an embarrassment for the Obama administration, which has issued a directive to all agencies to review expenditures on conferences. "I have a feeling that they're going to be looking under every rock and cleaning every cupboard at this point," Ms. McCaskill said. The report provoked a full day of chatter on cable channels, as members of the permanent Washington infrastructure and punditry class asked themselves, and one another, the obvious. "How could you be so tone deaf?" asked Melanie Sloan, who runs Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a good government group. Do you think no one's going to notice? And that all the zillions of people who work for you are not going to say anything? You live in Washington. What are you thinking? Mr. Mica framed the question a slightly different way. "I wonder if the $3,200 mind reader told G.S.A. officials that blowing more than $800,000 on a Vegas conference for a few hundred bureaucrats would get them fired?" he asked.