Good ol’ Mikie v.2.0
The Bush administration’s response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster was beset by fraud on such a colossal scale that emergency aid was paid to nearly one million bogus applicants.
The two audits of the $2.3 billion in emergency cash spent in the weeks after the hurricane found that 900,000 of the 2.5 million applicants who received federal aid did so after fraudulent claims.
Because the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s oversight of the cash payments was so flawed and “token”, the reports add, the agency made “millions of dollars of payments” to applicants who supplied bogus addresses, names, or fake or duplicate Social Security numbers.
Of most political concern to the White House, the report states that the US government has failed to learn the lessons of the September 11 terror attacks, and that America remains ill-prepared to respond to another attack.
The report singles out Michael Chertoff, Mr Bush’s Secretary of Homeland Security, for its most stinging criticism. He triggered the government’s emergency response “late, ineffectively or not at all,” the report says, delaying a flow of federal troops and aid by as much as three days.
You shouldn’t have to worry about Chertoff running FEMA too much longer. Bush wants to appoint him to replace Gonzo.
aid was paid to nearly one million bogus applicants.
That’s the last straw! That makes me mad as a hornet!
If it is that easy then from now on, when there is a disaster, I am going to use fraud to personally profit. I’m sick of being honest and not getting a dime for it!
[sarcasm]
I, for one, welcome our lying, cheating and corrupt overlords!
[/sarcasm]
#2 – To be more accurate, in this case the overlords were inept, and not the ones doing the lying, cheating, or corruptifying.
1. So what would you consider a disaster in Indiana? When the Piggly Wiggly runs out of Pall Malls?
Is there a reason you linked an article from Feb 2006? Its well known in my profession that the government is rife with fraud and waste.
soooo…. who else is mentally kicking themselves over not having taken advantage of the government when we could?
it would seem that everything Bush has touched including Iraq is fraught with incompetence and corruption. I guess people get the government they deserve.. or do Americans deserve this? his historic legacy will mark him slightly behind Carter for leaving a bigger mess than he got upon his election. oh well!
#7 “his historic legacy will mark him slightly behind Carter for leaving a bigger mess than he got upon his election.”
Does anyone think Bush will join Habitat for Humanity like Carter, and work to help the less fortunate?
Is it possible that the millions of crooks that took your money and mine fine, upstanding citizens of the Gulf coast that have pissed and moaned that no one did anything for them?
Ray Nagin for Senator!
FEMA was this bad way before Bush. I was in Northridge in 1994 when it was hit by the big earthquake and I remember the bogus FEMA scams were off the charts then. Nothing has changed because no one wants to take responsibility for fixing it. I remember one real estate agent scamming FEMA enough to almost pay for a new second story on his house.
I wonder if this story, while true, is just a red-herring to keed us all from full consciousness regarding worse fraud in the privatization of the Iraq war effort?
Its one thing when individual small folks after a calamity file fictitious claims for a short period of time while they basically have nothing, or very little.
Quite another for the richest companies in the GOUSA to regularly and routinely rip the taxpayers off, and then move headquarter to Dubai?
I wonder how much Bushco Libary will ultimately get of the purloined funds?? You know he will.
#11 – this may help:
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/
I watched a report on Keith O tonight, where only 20% of the work to be done has been done. Also, the canal that was the major cause of the flooding has yet to have any work done other than the hasty repair.
Slow down, everyone.
Ask two questions:
1) how much money would it have cost to verify every claim?
2) how long would verification have delayed money desperately needed by real victims?
Hell yes, I was pissed when I heard some stripper got new tits from my taxes but I’d have been a lot more upset if she didn’t get them at the cost of a couple of kids’ lives…
12–God==good one. No mind control though unless you think what I posted isn’t true.
#14, Nimby,
Good point and I agree.
this is nothing new.. you should have seen the madness here in NYC with 9/11.
all you needed was utility bill with your name on it or proof that you worked in the area. depending on how you claimed, you were either cut a check on the spot, or had back bills payed. etc. on the spot. i forget which street it was, but they had set a cutoff street.. anyone who worked or lived below that street could make a claim for emergency funds.
i knew a few people that made between $4k-$13k without even working or living in the area. several had cousins come from out of state to make bogus claims..
this has been going on for ages. only now is getting harder due more extensive computer records..
-s
The federal government can not dispatch government troops into any state to take over any situation unless it is “REQUESTED” by the governor of that state. The blame for the late dispatch of federal troops is the Governors.
I believe there is a federal law about this, which was put in effect some time after the civil war.
18. Not true. All they need to do is declare a national emergency.
#18,
I believe there is a federal law about this, …
And therein lies your mistake.
08/31/2007 Friday
Eugenia Michelle Brown
My family and I are Hurricane Katrina Survivors and HomeCare
Business owners from New Orleans,La relocated to Houston,Tx
We did not want to leave; but we were forced to leave by armed Military; my family and I were ordered to leave our home the Sunday
before Labor Day we were then flown to Phoenix,Az then we relocated
to Houston,Texas to locate my daughter and granddaughter who were missing; we did not get assistance immediately from no government agency because we exhausted our own money and
after that it was still difficult to recieve assistance, so everyone that
was in this DISASTER did not fraud the government; I’m a tax payer
and I would have been stealing from myself.
Yours in Christ
Ms Eugenia Michelle Brown