Posted on 06/13/2006 4:01:53 PM PDT by Libertarian444
WASHINGTON - As requests for emergency assistance poured in after Hurricane Katrina, one applicant listed as his address the Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans. FEMA promptly issued a check for $2,358 for rental assistance.
That's just one of thousands of examples of alleged fraud and abuse described in a new report by the investigative arm of congress — abuse that cost taxpayers about $1 billion.
One person applied for aid 13 times, using 13 bogus addresses, and received a total of $139,000.
The report says FEMA didn't even try to verify the identity of people who applied for aid by phone and says FEMA's fraud controls are “weak or nonexistent.”
More than 2,000 people applied for aid from prison and received about $12 million.
The report also finds that FEMA debit cards, which were supposed to be used for necessities, were used for a week-long Caribbean vacation, a $600 tab at a gentleman's club and a visit to Hooters, which included a $200 bottle of champagne.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I'm shocked....SHOCKED, I tell you!! (/sarcasm)
Gee...you insist that a Federal agency do things outside its jurisdiction, and look what you get!
Of course, I have seen very little coverage of the fact that the Louisiana officials were named in the report, too.
Exactly. I would hope this would make him think twice about his Big Government ideals.
FEMA did that, and were ready to step in to assist in coordination. When it turned out that LA officials had mismanaged things so much, Bush grabbed the blame himself and made it seem like FEMAs role was to have been there! Well, if FEMA had gone in originally, they would have rightfully complained about Federal interference in their jurisdiction.
Especially living in an area that has had great warnings for many years about the potential of this occurring. But then they tax me--who can't afford to own a house--to build houses for people who just waste the money away in a floodplain again!
No, this isn't a surprise but these stories of FEMA fraud were rampant months ago on conservative news sites. These stories are not new. Why are we just now seeing them in the MSM? Could it be to just show more proof of GOP mismanagement closer to the 2006 election? Nothing happens by chance in DC.
The Katrina "victims" were the kind of people who live by different rules than mainstream society... the kind of people used to collect government hand outs and hang out all day in the 'hood, the kind of people who bitch about illegal aliens rebuilding New Orleans but refuse to get their hands dirty.
My parents received a loan from the SBA back in the '70s to repair their flood damaged home. They had to record every cent they spent in a record book so it could be checked.
Yet we're told that those middle-class "bourgeois" values are a bad thing, that they exist to disenfranchise the proletariat and to perpetuate a stagnant status quo. On the other hand, the reprehensible conduct of the scammers and frauds is earthy, rebellious, exciting.
In the Marxist world, good literally is bad, and vice is a virtue.
And this surprises, who? I saw this one coming the day they started issuing debit cards.
I agree 100%. Prosectue to the fullest extent of the law. But, if you think about it. Most of the New Orleans displaced were already welfare and handout babies anyways. Not all, of course, but a good many were already receiving freebies and they could care less who had to pay for their theft.
And they did.
I did animal rescue in NOLA, and it was amazing to watch as 5 dogs and 3 cats -- none of which knew each other -- could be piled into the back seat of a sedan and they didn't kill each other because they KNEW they had been rescued from a disaster. They knew they had a choice to either "deal with the opposite species in the back seat of this car or perish on the streets of NOLA." In every case that I know of, these frightened animals of predator/prey species got along fine in the midst of the rescue.
Hah...! what an interesting vignette... thanks for sharing it.
You're welcome. It was quite an amazing sight. If only humans could behave half as well, eh?
Of course it's no surprise. I'm pretty sure much of the fraud was done by the people we saw screaming and crying at the Dome, you remember them don't you, the ones who were told to leave the city because a BIG storm was coming and there would be no way to help them!!!! The same people who got free apartments all this time while the media tells us what a failure the President is. What a disgusting bunch of whiners. Oh, never mind, I get sick just thinking about it.
What do you think comes next? And why would any government program serving this dubious clientele not be constructed so as to prevent these kinds of fraud? Because in the world of socialism -- and that's exactly what the Katrina relief effort was -- the only important thing is that you throw money at the problem.
Ahhh, carter again, I should have known.
oh, pleeeeeeese spare me.
The media crucified this president over his "lack of response"
Now, naturally, they are now trying to fry him for all of the totally predictable waste and insane overspending for doing everything possible to move a systemically slow government at warp speed to help. Yup, the gov. threw money at everything that moved; guilty as charged.
No
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