Posted on 07/24/2007 5:44:04 AM PDT by JohnA
WASHINGTON -
The Agriculture Department sent $1.1 billion in farm payments to more than 170,000 dead people over a seven-year period, congressional investigators say.
The findings by the Government Accountability Office were released Monday as the House prepared to debate and pass farm legislation this week that would govern subsidies and the department's programs for the next five years.
GAO auditors reviewed payments from 1999 through 2005 in the report, which was requested by Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.
"It's unconscionable that the Department of Agriculture would think that a dead person was actively engaged in the business of farming," said Grassley.
The auditors said they found that the department has not been conducting the necessary checks to ensure that subsidy payments are proper.
"USDA has made farm payments to estates more than two years after recipients died, without determining, as its regulations require, whether the estates were kept open to receive these payments," their report said.
Of the identified payments to deceased farmers' estates or businesses, 40 percent went to those who had been dead more than three years, and 19 percent went to those who had been dead for seven or more years.
John Johnson, a deputy administrator for the Farm Service Agency, said there is no indication that the payments were improper, since some rules allow estates to continue receiving money after a two-year grace period. The department is hoping to rely less on self-reporting and is working with the Social Security Administration to boost its record keeping, he said.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said the report bolsters the argument there should be lower ceilings and stricter limits on farm subsidies.
"Given extremely tight budget restraints, it is no longer tolerable to permit billions of dollars in farm bill payments to go to individuals who in instances don't even farm or are no longer alive," he said.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said he is looking into ways to stop estates from continuing to collect farm payments long after the designated recipient for them has died.
"They have plenty of people to check to make sure they aren't handing out payments to dead people, for God's sake," he said.
The GAO findings were first reported Monday by The Washington Post (nyse: WPO - news - people ).
typical of burocracies to do something idiotic like that
Hey US Government! It’s me, deceased Farmer Old McDonald! Wire me big bucks immediately!
Are these subsidies to not plant the dead farmers?
Yes - grow new farmers and then the ethanol shortage will be solved.
End subsidies. Period. To anyone. It isn’t in the Constitution anywhere are a job duty of Congress to redistribute seized wealth...
(RIMSHOT!)........
Brought to you by the government that renewed the visas of two of the dead terrorist that flew planes into buildings.
Rule: Whatever you subsidize you get more of.
Proof: They subsidized dead farmers and got more dead farmers......
We need to Tax government instead of continuing to subsidize it...
Now let’s let the government do this with our HEALTH CARE~!!!
I agree. Sugar, Corn, Wheat, Peanuts, all farm subsidies should just go away!!!
Farm. Airline. Auto industry. Poor folks. I don’t care. Our Federal tax dollars shouldn’t be spent on any of it. “General welfare” doesn’t mean “craddle to grave income redistribution”.
How about a one-year amnesty (and a small fine) to all such cheaters- and then MANDATORY JAIL for any goverment fraud.
The amnesty is to help root it out and FIND IT, the fine is just for principle, and the mandatory jail (double or triple current guidlines) is to scare people into not doing it again.
Maybe as fertilizer?
And we were told the government would incorporate 20+ million plus extended families of illegal aliens who would be given anmesty.
Why is there a problem with this?
Dead farmers can NOT PLANT just as much live farmers.
The government subsidizes “poor people” via welfare and many other programs. We got, in return, many more “poor” people than we actually had.
But they also subsidize “rich” people and corporations, via grants and “corporate welfare” programs, so we get more of those also.
It’s not difficult to get “free” money from the government if you’re willing to work at it........
In his book “Parliament of Whores”, P.J. O’Rourke recounts an experience he had while visiting a friend’s dairy farm. While touring the operation, P.J. helped steady a cow’s head while one of the farm hands artificially inseminated her. P.J. said that he would *never* forget the look on that cow’s face.
Before offering specifics of USDA lavish and wasteful spending, O’Rourke concluded that what that farm hand did to that cow is what the USDA does to the American taxpayer on a regular basis. :)
I would only add that the real culprit here is a Congress that appropriates the money in the first place.
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