Shocked. Absolutely stunned.

[dog428]

Really, is there anyone not working for the federal government who didn't see that this was going to happen?

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060613200009990001&ncid=NWS00010000000001

The GAO said it was 95 percent confident that improper and potentially fraudulent payments were much higher - between $600 million and $1.4 billion.

Federal investigators even informed Congress that one man apparently used FEMA assistance money for a sex change operation.

The investigative agency said it found people lodged in hotels often were paid twice, since FEMA gave them individual rental assistance and paid hotels directly. FEMA paid California hotels $8,000 to house one individual - the same person who received three rental assistance payments for both disasters.

In another instance, FEMA paid an individual $2,358 in rental assistance, while at the same time paying about $8,000 for the same person to stay 70 nights at more than $100 per night in a Hawaii hotel.
FEMA also could not establish that 750 debit cards worth $1.5 million even went to Katrina victims, the auditors said.

Among the items purchased with the cards:

· an all-inclusive, one-week Caribbean vacation in the Punta Cana resort in the Dominican Republic.

· five season tickets to New Orleans Saints professional football games.

· adult erotica products in Houston and "Girls Gone Wild" videos in Santa Monica, Calif.

· Dom Perignon champagne and other alcoholic beverages in San Antonio.

· a divorce lawyer's services in Houston.

To demonstrate how easy it was to hoodwink FEMA, the GAO told of an individual who used 13 different Social Security numbers - including the person's own - to receive $139,000 in payments on 13 separate registrations for aid. All the payments were sent to a single address.

 

[pallister]

Government bureaucracies are susceptible to fraud? Noooooooooooo!

I'll blame Bush now and get it out of the way.

End of thread.

 

[Freelance Hack]

Up to $1.4 billion in fraudulent payments is stunning.

Pallister -- I know you're being sarcastic, but that's who is really to blame. Bush started this whole mess by appointing a cronie to head FEMA.

 

[dog428]

Government bureaucracies are susceptible to fraud? Noooooooooooo!

I'll blame Bush now and get it out of the way.

End of thread.

Still haven't got that humor thing nailed down, I see.

 

[pallister]

Someone's still cranky after a night of sleep, I see.

Back to the subject. No defending the appointment, but bureaucratic fraud and mismanagement, unlike Brownie, will never go away, regardless of who's running the show. Greed and incompetence are truly bipartisan.

Now I'll let this thread play out in its inevitable direction.

 

[Ace]

Being able to buy booze and Girls Gone Wild videos with your FEMA assistance check is what makes this country great.

 

[MacDaddy]

There's a lot about government that simply doesn't work. It's unfortunate our elected officials spend their time bickering instead of fixing things.

 

[leo1]

There's a lot about government that simply doesn't work. It's unfortunate our elected officials spend their time bickering instead of fixing things.

surprisingly (to me, at least) congress actually has a good idea for how to start fixing this problem. the first step is to take FEMA out from under homeland security. as it is now, homeland security has no problem sucking money in and out of FEMA at will. but if FEMA is its own department, it will have a little more autonomy. i realize it was its own department before DHS came along, but it's obvious that this model has failed.

not that the reorganization would stop this kind of fraud, but it's a start.

 

[Freelance Hack]

Back to the subject. No defending the appointment, but bureaucratic fraud and mismanagement, unlike Brownie, will never go away, regardless of who's running the show. Greed and incompetence are truly bipartisan.

I'll agree with that. But there comes a point when the senior leadership is so clueless that it damages the entire organization. That's when happened when Brownie took over.

I also realize there will always be some misuse of funds in any government endeavor and that the government will not get it all back. But just as stunning as the $1.4 billion figure is to me is the fact that it could be up to 16 percent of what was issued.

1-3 percent I could accept, but 16 percent is just plain criminal.

 

[dog428]

Someone's still cranky after a night of sleep, I see.

Back to the subject. No defending the appointment, but bureaucratic fraud and mismanagement, unlike Brownie, will never go away, regardless of who's running the show. Greed and incompetence are truly bipartisan.

Now I'll let this thread play out in its inevitable direction.

Right. Because, you know, you're not here desperately trying to push it into some sort of partisan argument. Noooooo, you're above all that, as proven by your two posts here.

 

[pallister]

At least you understand, Dog.