Posted on 12/26/2006 10:50:26 AM PST by KantianBurke
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The tally for Hurricane Katrina waste could top $2 billion next year because half of the lucrative government contracts valued at $500,000 or greater for cleanup work are being awarded with little competition.
Federal investigators have already determined the Bush administration squandered $1 billion on fraudulent disaster aid to individuals after the 2005 storm.
Now they are shifting their attention to the multimillion dollar contracts to politically connected firms that critics have long said are a prime area for abuse.
In January, investigators will release the first of several audits examining more than $12 billion in Katrina contracts. The charges range from political favoritism to limited opportunities for small and minority-owned firms, which initially got only 1.5 percent of the total work.
"Based on their track record, it wouldn't surprise me if we saw another billion more in waste," said Clark Kent Ervin, the Homeland Security Department's inspector general from 2003-2004. "I don't think sufficient progress has been made."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/15/bush.transcript/index.html
One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at this incompetence.
And the Washington-Elites/Cocktail-party gossipers trumpet that "BUSH abandoned the Gulf Coast to drown in raw sewage."...
No. He didn't abandon them. He left them rip the taxpayers off. Whoo hoo. Go team!
How much of it wound up in freezers?
So the Bush administration hunted down all of those criminals and made them file fraudlent claims? They are more talented than we thought!
The only problems I hear of from Katrina these days are in New Orleans and Houston. The other areas moved on.
"Federal investigators have already determined the Bush administration squandered $1 billion on fraudulent disaster aid to individuals after the 2005 storm."
By doing exactly, actually less than, what was demanded of them. The people who TOOK the money squandered it. Bush wasn't the one buying booze, porn and Gucci bags.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't for Bush on this one.
Yeah God forbid the Federal government be responsible with our money and not hand it out haphazardly and to frauds.
That figure pales in the face of the sums that are being proposed to be spent on rebuilding a city below sea level in a hurricane zone.
Clark Kent Ervin joined the Aspen Institute in January 2005, to explore the creation of a homeland security initiative.
Aspen Institute
Walter Isaacson
President & CEO
This is what CNN is squealing now. Earlier, they demanded that Bush spend more billions of tax dollars, and fix the whole problem the day before yesterday.
$2 billion is probably a very conservative number.
Carolyn
Related:
Katrina Fraud Likely To Balloon Past $1B
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1758312/posts
Very good!!
This sort of thing is the biggest reason that a lot of people got discouraged with the Republican congress. We had both chambers and the White House and spend recklessly while at the same time paying lip service to fiscal conservatism. Had we shown restraint and acted better than sailors on shore leave, we'd still be in power.
I wish the best to you and your husband. That sounds like a rough year....
ONLY $2 Billion?
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