NYT : 'Breathtaking' Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid

[tocqueville]

By ERIC LIPTON
Published: June 27, 2006

WASHINGTON, June 26 — Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion.

A hotel owner in Sugar Land, Tex., has been charged with submitting $232,000 in bills for phantom victims. And roughly 1,100 prison inmates across the Gulf Coast apparently collected more than $10 million in rental and disaster-relief assistance.

There are the bureaucrats who ordered nearly half a billion dollars worth of mobile homes that are still empty, and renovations for a shelter at a former Alabama Army base that cost about $416,000 per evacuee.

And there is the Illinois woman who tried to collect federal benefits by claiming she watched her two daughters drown in the rising New Orleans waters. In fact, prosecutors say, the children did not exist.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/washington/27katrina.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1151467200&en=fc734cc14df0b54d&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

[JHB]

1. Well, if you treat an agency like it's not supposed to work...

...it won't.

[Ganja Ninja]

2. More proof that Republicans can manage the country or

a budget. Did they happen to mention how many billions were passed through Halliburton's hands and how much of that money was wasted? I'm guessing not.

Liberal paper of record my ass.

[Maine-i-acs]

3. Traitorous Times!

They're undermining BushCo's ability to pillage. Take away their press passes at once, Karl!

PS - Hotel owner in Sugar Land Texas? Friend of Delay maybe?