posted on Jun, 14 2006 @ 07:42 AM
Seems that FEMA is caught between a rock & a hard place.
Perhaps their mind-set & culture needs a radical change,
in an effort to get relief & money & resources out to the victims quickly
The FEMA org. expected that the storm victims were an honest lot,
and gave the benefit-of-any-doubt to the victim making a claim.
not only the sex change stuff you've noted, but there was one person
investigated who made $139,000.00 from 13 different (fraudulent) claims
made to the FEMA relief effort....
let 'em have that short 'day in the sun' & splurge that illgotten gain...
& then when he/she is caught, lock 'em up and throw away the key,
for at least 2 decades...make an example of all those wanton thieves.
as all these scheemers & scammers get discovered, it occurrs to me that
many of the screams and rants, blaming FEMA bureacuracy and slowness...
was just the disgruntled moans of dubious citizens who missed out on
successfully 'playing' or 'swindling' the relief agencies, FEMA, SBA, or
numberous other NGOs & faith based disaster relief groups.
You know
as well as I, that the street-grapevine is a up-to-the-minute news source,
one can learn rather quickly where the bleeding hearts are giving away $$,
or where you can change those free food-stamps for cash,
or where you can spend them for beer or liquor.
there is an expected and accepted level of misuse of help & charity
& up to now the safeguards & oversights were enough to dissuade rampant abuses
but the trick, imo, is to find that balance