MONEY FOR NOTHING (government spending out of control)

NY POST ^ | December 30, 2005 | EDITORIAL

[Liz]

"Funds appropriated for . . . small businesses adversely affected by the terrorist attacks may not have been used for that purpose," the report, released Wednesday by the Small Business Administration's inspector general, found.

Along with dozens of Dunkin' Donut shops and pizza parlors across the country, beneficiaries of the SBA's Supplemental Terrorist Activity Relief (STAR) program — which provided special post-9/11 loan guarantees — included:

* A tanning salon — in Las Vegas — basked in a loan of more than $500,000.

* A golf course in Texas scored a hole-in-one with a $640,000 advance.

* Jan's Janitorial Service, of Littleton, Colo., cleaned up with a $78,000 payout.

* And — this one's a killer — the application from an Oregon funeral home knocked 'em dead in Washington. (Maybe the 9/11 attacks gave Oregonians a new lease on life, hurting business.)

All told, the program granted some 7,000 loans, all supposedly to aid "small businesses adversely affected by the 9/11 terrorist attacks."

The problem: Nobody made any effort to ensure that applicants really were hurt by the attacks. Just the opposite: The feds dropped a wad of cash, and the circling vultures descended.

Indeed, Washington practically encouraged cheating. Many businesses didn't even know they were borrowing funds via a 9/11-relief program. Others made up stories about how they were hurt.

In turn, lenders didn't bother to keep track of the official justifications for the loans. But you can't totally blame banks, either: As The Post's Geoff Earle reported last month, SBA official Ronald Bew practically begged banks to make program loans, saying "time is short" and "it does not matter how severe the [9/11] impact was, or how long it lasted."

Still wonder why government spending is so out of control? Wonder no more.

[PeterPrinciple]

Good ideas attract money, Money attacts bad ideas

[MineralMan]

And your chicks for free...

[Rakkasan1]

we could lure the terrorists to the golf course with strippers and booze and then have Karl Rove initiate a lightning storm with his weather machine

[Liz]

Sounds good to me......LOL.

[PsyOp]

* And — this one's a killer — the application from an Oregon funeral home knocked 'em dead in Washington. (Maybe the 9/11 attacks gave Oregonians a new lease on life, hurting business.)

this may be the only legitimate one. Oregon, after all, is a bastion of liberalism. Oregon's liberal Democrats were suffering bouts of suicidal depression after the [s]election of George W. Bush as President. 9/11 was just the boost they needed. America really was as bad as they always thought (why else would we be attacked), and that it was Bush's fault (maybe we can get him impeached and Gore installed as the environmental pres.).

I imagine the decrease in liberal suicides hurt the funeral home immensely.

[Liz]

LOL.....great analysis. Makes sense to me.

[PsyOp]

One simply has to remember that "Liberalism is a mental disorder", and it all makes sense.

[PsyOp]

For example:

* A tanning salon — in Las Vegas — basked in a loan of more than $500,000.

Obviously, Las Vegas Liberals, over-joyed by 9/11, as were the Oregonian libs, cast aside the black drapes of their studio apartments and went outdoors to protest big-gamblings collusion with big-oil in the unwarranted attack on Afghanistan, resulting in natural tans that they would otherwise have paid for in the tanning salons. Simple.

* A golf course in Texas scored a hole-in-one with a $640,000 advance.

Only Republican's Golf. After 9/11 they traded their clubs for assault rifles and headed for the sand traps of the Middle East, or got to work making the weapons of war. Therefore, Texas golf courses suffered greatly from 9/11.

* Jan's Janitorial Service, of Littleton, Colo., cleaned up with a $78,000 payout.

Colorado, home of the new rich and hollywood elites who own second homes and ski-chalets in the state, all refused to fly after 9/11 and hunkered down behind the armored gates of their primary estates. The resulting loss of tourism hurt the poor janitors who lived to clean up their BS.

[untrained skeptic]

Just a small note.

These are small business LOANs.

If the small business succeeds, the loan will get repaid and the government will also get greater tax revenues. I considerable number will not succeed and will default on those loans at some point, however this money wasn't simply given away.

I definitely do not approve of how the SBA failed to use the money as is was supposed to be used. I believe this should be investigated, and there are likely a number of people who should get fired over this.

If there is evidence of fraud involved, it should be investigated.

However, many if not most of these small businesses did nothing wrong other than apply for a small business loan.