Zero Tolerance for Charge Card Abuse

Here's Bush administration management chief Clay Johnson, quoted in Steve Barr's Federal Diary column in the Washington Post, on the latest revelations of misuse of government charge cards:

"The vast majority of civilian employees, government employees, use the cards responsibly. At the same time, I would say there is abuse, and the goal is zero, and we need to make it zero."

Zero? Setting aside the issue of whether that's at all realistic, it strikes me that getting even close to such a goal would be a lot more expensive than simply setting tough controls and accepting some minimal level of abuse as unavoidable. I know the anecdotes about misuse of cards are irritating (and, at the same time, amusing) but eliminating them entirely seems like a very costly and labor-intensive endeavor. Why does that have to be the standard for an effective card program?

(Hat tip: IEC Journal.)