Posted on 06/26/2006 7:39:38 PM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion.
There is the hotel owner from Sugar Land, Tex., who has been charged with submitting $232,000 worth of bills for phantom victims. There are the 1,100 prison inmates across the Gulf Coast who apparently collected more than $10 million in rental and disaster-relief assistance.
There are the bureaucrats who ordered nearly half a billion dollars worth of mobile homes that are still empty, and renovations for a shelter at a former Alabama Army base that cost about $416,000 per evacuee.
And there is the Illinois woman who tried to collect federal benefits by claiming she watched her two daughters drown in the rising New Orleans waters. In fact, prosecutors say, the children did not exist.
The tally of ignoble acts linked to Katrina, pulled together by The New York Times from government audits, criminal prosecutions and Congressional investigations, could rise because the inquiries are under way. Even in Washington, a city accustomed to government bloat, the numbers are generating amazement.
"The blatant fraud, the audacity of the schemes, the scale of the waste — it is just breathtaking," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine
Such an outcome was feared soon after the initial Katrina relief package was passed, as officials at FEMA and the Red Cross acknowledged that their systems were overwhelmed and tried to create new ones on the fly.
"We did, in fact, put into place never-before-used and untested processes," Donna M. Dannels, acting deputy director of recovery at FEMA, told a House panel this month. "Clearly, because they were untested, they were more subject to error and fraud."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Con artits only got chump changes.
The real theives/beneficiaries are GOVT. CONTRACTORS.
No one can or will investigate them.
Its always the pawns that pay the price.
No shocker there, waste and fraud are rampant in any big government exercise.
tih was warning people about FEMA way-hay back before anyone paid it a second glance. had seen 'em all around Florida.
you mean like Halliburton and stuff?
"'I' before 'e' except after 'c.'"
Topped only by the defense contracting process, Social Security, and Medicare.
ELAINE: Well, to tell you the truth, Dr. Feffa, I , I was surprised to hear you use a word like breathtaking to describe a baby, I mean, because you also used it referring to me.
BEN: Well, you know Elaine, sometimes you say things just to be nice.
Katrina was a pickpocket who hit Uncle Sam.
That's right.
Imagine the low-life morons conning Govt. out of 2 billion.
The smart millionares, will take them for billions.
Let's see...
A city that is notorious for its graft and scams (and celebrates them), meets up with the most disorganized division in the Fed Gov't (DHS), at a time when politicians can't spend money fast enough.
Talk about a perfect storm!
When the record is written on Dubya, his inablity to get DHS under control will be regarded as his biggest downfall. Everytime you see hatchet job on Dubya, it's either from a DHS division trying to sabotage him (NSA, CIA, etc), or a division that can't do its job (ICE, FEMA, etc).
WHAT?!!!
Boy am I surprised!!!
I do, however, find it ironic that the newspaper that was on the forefront of accusing the federal government of not doing enough quickly enough now shifts its attack to that same government doing too much in some of the wrong places. This is literally a "damned of you do, damned if you don't" approach and if the Times had any shame, which it does not, it wouldn't pursue it.
The liberal press virtually forced Bush to spend a fortune on this to deflect their criticism that he was doing too little. Now they are complaining?
I would have done it. Hell, it's our money anyway.
One of my favorite episodes.
I amazed that the Media whines first about bush doing not enough, then about the waste from doing too much?
I've been there...
I see the blue-tarped roofs, with the new expensive cars the insurance and FEMA checks got spent on instead....
My thoughts exactly. I would have considered it a tax refund of sorts, that we never get. Since my wife and I both make enough to be considered "rich" by the wealth distributors in Washington and get taxed to hell and back, I would have no guilt whatsoever. Too bad I have a strong sense of right and wrong, or I would get a great tax attorney and file 'creative' tax returns every year.
We had here government waste during a disaster d ue to an inept government? When isn't government inept during a disaster? During the northridge quake here in CA in 1994 I heard of people who got a check from FEMA because they happened to live in heavily damaged area, even though they sustained minimal damage.
When don't you have people trying to scam the governmentt?
Yeah, everyone should have been checked out thoroughly, problem is, then you hear bitching about how long it's taking to get help to the people.
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