Auditors: Katrina waste could top $2 billion

CNN ^ | December 26, 2006 | AP

[KantianBurke]

"Federal funds will cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the disaster zone -- from roads and bridges to schools and water systems. Our goal is to get the work done quickly. And taxpayers expect this work to be done honestly and wisely, so we will have a team of inspectors general reviewing all expenditures."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/15/bush.transcript/index.html

One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at this incompetence.

[ExcursionGuy84]

And the Washington-Elites/Cocktail-party gossipers trumpet that "BUSH abandoned the Gulf Coast to drown in raw sewage."...

[KantianBurke]

No. He didn't abandon them. He left them rip the taxpayers off. Whoo hoo. Go team!

[weegee]

How much of it wound up in freezers?

[ASA Vet]

Stop the waste, reverse the pumps, plant Lake Orleans with stripers.

[Jaded]

Federal investigators have already determined the Bush administration squandered $1 billion on fraudulent disaster aid to individuals after the 2005 storm.

So the Bush administration hunted down all of those criminals and made them file fraudlent claims? They are more talented than we thought!

[weegee]

The only problems I hear of from Katrina these days are in New Orleans and Houston. The other areas moved on.

[L98Fiero]

"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.

[Comus]

Clue for CNN - The Shaw Group - Gov. Blankstare's largest political contributor.

[KantianBurke]

Yeah God forbid the Federal government be responsible with our money and not hand it out haphazardly and to frauds.

[GovernmentShrinker]

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.

[kcvl]

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

[Cicero]

the Bush administration squandered

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.

[mtbopfuyn]

$2 billion is probably a very conservative number.

[CDHart]

I vote for crying. My husband has had open heart surgery and I'm on my second bout with cancer. We are paying medical bills and trying to pay everything off by retirement age. And this is what they do with money that I could really use, including tens of thousands that they have taken from us by force of law. In fact, crying is the least of what I want to do.

Carolyn

[PAR35]

Related:

Katrina Fraud Likely To Balloon Past $1B
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1758312/posts

[doberville]

Very good!!

[SmoothTalker]

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.

[GovernmentIsTheProblem]

I wish the best to you and your husband. That sounds like a rough year....

[Little Ray]

ONLY $2 Billion?