Friday, November 16, 2007
"Wasted money" designed to be wasted by aministrations friends
Yet another story about wasted funding is in today’s WaPo. “Wasted” isn’t the right word, though. It’s like the stories about overblown contract pay-offs for incompleted work in Iraq, for defense systems that don’t work, for DHS safety inspections that overlook bombs, and a few dozen (or score? Hundred?) other examples of government spending that...well, doesn’t quite shape up.
That “wasted” money actually went exactly where it was supposed to go. Years and years ago, Robert Kennedy was conducting hearings on the food stamp program and the continuing problem of hunger in this country. (Yeah, the problem continues, doesn’t it?) Kennedy said, wtf, the food stamp program isn’t working! The Dept of Agriculture people said, oh, no, it’s working just fine. It wasn’t written to benefit the hungry; it was written to benefit the farmers!
So these kajillions of missing, misplaced, mishandled dollars...well, gee whiz, that money was destined from the beginning to end up in pockets. The administration wanted it to go to cronies, donors, and friendly folks, and they wrote the rules so the money would go to those people. Reconstruction? No, pay-back. Alleviation of suffering? No, pay-back. And so forth.
It’s a crooked system, folks, run by crooked politicians. You know their names.
FEMA Accused Of Wasting More Katrina Funding
$30 Million Misspent Last Year On Trailers in Miss., GAO Says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/15/AR2007111502311_pf.html
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 16, 2007; A18
The Federal Emergency Management Agency wasted about $30 million last year in maintaining trailers for Hurricane Katrina survivors in Mississippi, according to a new government report. In one case cited, FEMA awarded contracts that could have cost as much as $229,000 to support one family in a single trailer -- roughly the price of a five-bedroom home in Jackson, Miss.
By not awarding work to contractors with the lowest bids, FEMA misspent $16 million, said the Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit arm. The agency misspent an additional $15 million on inspections that it could not prove were performed, preventive maintenance for which contractors falsified documents, and emergency repairs on trailers that FEMA did not own, the GAO said.
"Over 2 years have passed since the storms and FEMA is still wasting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars as a result of poor management and ineffective controls," the GAO concluded in a draft report to be released today. The agency said it would refer apparent criminal conduct it discovered to the Justice Department.
That “wasted” money actually went exactly where it was supposed to go. Years and years ago, Robert Kennedy was conducting hearings on the food stamp program and the continuing problem of hunger in this country. (Yeah, the problem continues, doesn’t it?) Kennedy said, wtf, the food stamp program isn’t working! The Dept of Agriculture people said, oh, no, it’s working just fine. It wasn’t written to benefit the hungry; it was written to benefit the farmers!
So these kajillions of missing, misplaced, mishandled dollars...well, gee whiz, that money was destined from the beginning to end up in pockets. The administration wanted it to go to cronies, donors, and friendly folks, and they wrote the rules so the money would go to those people. Reconstruction? No, pay-back. Alleviation of suffering? No, pay-back. And so forth.
It’s a crooked system, folks, run by crooked politicians. You know their names.
FEMA Accused Of Wasting More Katrina Funding
$30 Million Misspent Last Year On Trailers in Miss., GAO Says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/15/AR2007111502311_pf.html
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 16, 2007; A18
The Federal Emergency Management Agency wasted about $30 million last year in maintaining trailers for Hurricane Katrina survivors in Mississippi, according to a new government report. In one case cited, FEMA awarded contracts that could have cost as much as $229,000 to support one family in a single trailer -- roughly the price of a five-bedroom home in Jackson, Miss.
By not awarding work to contractors with the lowest bids, FEMA misspent $16 million, said the Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit arm. The agency misspent an additional $15 million on inspections that it could not prove were performed, preventive maintenance for which contractors falsified documents, and emergency repairs on trailers that FEMA did not own, the GAO said.
"Over 2 years have passed since the storms and FEMA is still wasting tens of millions of taxpayer dollars as a result of poor management and ineffective controls," the GAO concluded in a draft report to be released today. The agency said it would refer apparent criminal conduct it discovered to the Justice Department.
