There's no way they could consider all the evidence, right? I agree on the surface with their evaluation, but the amount of data we're talking about is significant.
There are so many cases pending, relating to fraud and misuse of federal funds, it boggles the mind. This event had repurcussions far beyond what anyone accounted for. The government is in the process right now of spending thousands of man hours a day investigating petty fraud relating to the $2k FEMA checks they were giving out by the bucketfull to anyone who asked. They dropped the ball and lost a bunch of taxpayer money, now they're wasting BILLIONS of dollars scrambling around in a circle trying to pick up pennies and assign blame to subordinates.
www.pogo.org...
$250k limits on government credit cards! Billions in contracts awarded without oversight!
The government couldn't squeeze a penny out of a dollar, even if they used both fists. They're a giant, goddamned money vacuum (well intentioned most of the time, sure, but they still suck)!
It's bad enough a bunch of people lost their lives because of poor preparation on all fronts, it got worse when there was no coordinated rescue effort, and it's in the process of getting worse still as billions of dollars are flowing into what amounts to organized corporate fraud.
Their initial incompetence, combined with their current expenditures, will probably increase the loses that can be reasonably associated with the Katrina aftermath, by a factor of ten or more. This is serious money.
These are the folks who assigned 100 ATF agents to work the Alabama church fires! The FBI is tripping all over itself trying to handle this enormous poo-storm of fraud, and they're spending much, much more in doing so than the damages of the fraud they're investigating amount to! They could better use their time investigating the more massive instances of fraud occuring at the corporate/government level.
They're doing a little of that, but not nearly enough. Too busy wasting 1000 man hours and countless thousands of dollars tracking down a homeless man in a hotel room funelling $2k checks to his buddy across state lines.
The only thing more economically devastating than the hurricane has been the government's attempts at remediation. It looks good for the economy on paper because money is moving from the government to the private sector, but the paper doesn't account for the grossly inefficient process or the rampant abuse of the contracting process. Basically, the money is getting spent by the BILLIONS, and we have little, if anything, to show for it.
$10k bucks can get you a freakin' house! What right do these jerks have to waste millions of dollars, let alone billions, funelling it into the pockets of their buddies and future employers (revolving door), while people are homeless and starving in this country?
It's a goddamned outrage. If we're going to crap on the poor victims of a natural disaster, can't we do it without spending billions of dollars ostensibly for their benefit! Is that so much to ask?
[edit on 13-2-2006 by WyrdeOne]
