FEMA Wants Over $300 Million in Katrina Aid Back

[BPSCG]

Link.

In the neighborhood President Bush visited right after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government gave $84.5 million to more than 10,000 households. But Census figures show fewer than 8,000 homes existed there at the time.

Now the government wants back a lot of the money it disbursed across the region.

The Federal Emergency Management Administration has determined nearly 70,000 Louisiana households improperly received $309.1 million in grants, and officials acknowledge those numbers are likely to grow.

The pattern was repeated in nearly 100 neighborhoods damaged by the hurricanes. At least 162,750 homes that didn't exist before the storms may have received a total of more than $1 billion in improper or illegal payments, the AP found.

The AP analysis discovered the government made more home grants than the number of homes in one of every five neighborhoods in the wake of Katrina. After Rita roared ashore, there were more home grants than homes in one of every 10 neighborhoods.

 

[brodski]

Well, they need all the money they can get. Those secret death camps and Chinese made guillotines don't buy themselves you know!

 

[Overman]

Talk about throwing money at your problems.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Link.

This is what comes of giving in to crybabies.

The great hue and cry that went up from the "you hate New Orleans because it is chocolate, and you blew up the levy" crowd, and other critics who were less unhinged, got the following undisciplined response: "We are going to throw money at you until you shut up." The sympathy move, in an attempt to look good and thus mitigate political image issues, was aimed at PR.

Given how many billions were promised immediately a la "we'll pay whatever it takes to rebuild New Orleans" I am surprised that it is only $300,000,000 that seems to have gone astray.

This is one of many data points in the BushCo team's fiscal irresponsiblity.

Tax and spend Republicans for fifty, Alex, who wonder why they lost seats in 2006.

DR

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

Every month or so, there's a court case here in Orlando where someone (or number of people) are tried for a Katrina related scam. It seems the majority of the scammers have not even been to New Orleans yet alone lived there.

I guess it's the American way to scam, cheat, or open a dubious business. It's all righteous ....

Charlie (until you get caught) Monoxide

 

[BPSCG]

Given that the total FEMA Katrina aid was about $5.3 billion, $300 million amounts to about five and a half percent.

I wish I could say that the rest of the government wasted only five or six cents out of every tax dollar I send them April 15.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Every month or so, there's a court case here in Orlando where someone (or number of people) are tried for a Katrina related scam. It seems the majority of the scammers have not even been to New Orleans yet alone lived there.

I guess it's the American way to scam, cheat, or open a dubious business. It's all righteous ....

Charlie (until you get caught) Monoxide

It's all about Other People's Money(OPM).

T Boone Pickens for fifty, Alex.

DR

 

[Katana]

I wonder how much of our tax money the government will spend trying to get back the tax money it wasted.

 

[slingblade]

I wonder why I never get any of it?

 

[strathmeyer]

So there are just small cells of corrupt, evil people in the world just waiting for a natural disaster to strike?

 

[Schneibster]

I wonder how much of the other 5 billion went to Halliburton subsidiaries. I see that KBR made a tidy $120 million. Then there'd be the contract with Gulf Stream Coach; check out their political donations (follow the link and scroll down). They walked away with a cool $520 million. Bechtel got $250 million. Keep lookin'. Gets more and more interesting.

 

[LostAngeles]

So there are just small cells of corrupt, evil people in the world just waiting for a natural disaster to strike?

There're small cells of corrupt evil people in the world who just wait for the next opportunity to bilk someone or some entity.

I used to call them my neighbors.

 

[davefoc]

There seems to have been a fair amount of routine ineptitude on the part of the federal government with the handling of the Katrina relief.

But I have wondered if the handling of the bus contracting wasn't the smoking gun for an explanation that some of the Katrina mistakes went beyond incompetence. Landstar, a company that doesn't own buses was contracted to provide emergency transportation by the FAA to FEMA. Landstar's claim to fame seems to be that its CEO was a former lobbyist.

When the Katrina emergency hit Landstar seems to have played no significant role in providing transportation resources, instead in a sort of ad hoc process lots of bus companies were organized through FEMA and their own industry trade group to get buses to Katrina victims.

My suggestion here is that Bushco has been so dominated by corruption and political considerations that the ability of government to provide emergency assistance was compromised. In order to cover up their malfeasance, Bushco attempted to solve the Katrina problem by throwing money at the problem.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13142

 

[Schneibster]

I think the worst thing about it is that they've got all this fraud going on, and meanwhile there are people who STILL haven't gotten the help they need. And they point to the neighbors of some of those people, who made false claims, to justify that fact, while ignoring the enormous sums of money (three times as much? Five?) going to corporations that were doing just fine without the government handouts.

 

[BPSCG]

I wonder how much of the other 5 billion went to Halliburton subsidiaries. I see that KBR made a tidy $120 million. Then there'd be the contract with Gulf Stream Coach; check out their political donations (follow the link and scroll down). They walked away with a cool $520 million. Bechtel got $250 million. Keep lookin'. Gets more and more interesting.

And what, you think contracts to repair levee pumps should have gone to the Sierra Club?

Contracts to provide trailers should have gone to Ben and Jerry's?

Fact is, Halliburton is one of the very few companies around that's in the business of fulfilling huge infrastructure requirements. Yeah, your local RV dealer will be able to provide a trailer or two for temporary housing. But will he be able to provide hundreds of them? Maybe your local plumber can fix the sump pump in your basement, which might have to be able to pump a gallon a minute; can he handle dozens that have to pump a hundred gallons a minute?

Like it or not, large corporations are going to get most of these kinds of contracts, because large corporations are best equipped to deliver. And large corporations, as you certainly know, have lobbyists on Capitol Hill and make large political donations.

To both parties.

 

[Schneibster]

And what, you think contracts to repair levee pumps should have gone to the Sierra Club?

Contracts to provide trailers should have gone to Ben and Jerry's?

Nice, I love seeing people resort to strawman arguments. It tells me I hit them where it hurt.

Fact is, Halliburton is one of the very few companies around that's in the business of fulfilling huge infrastructure requirements. Yeah, your local RV dealer will be able to provide a trailer or two for temporary housing. But will he be able to provide hundreds of them? Maybe your local plumber can fix the sump pump in your basement, which might have to be able to pump a gallon a minute; can he handle dozens that have to pump a hundred gallons a minute?

Like it or not, large corporations are going to get most of these kinds of contracts, because large corporations are best equipped to deliver. And large corporations, as you certainly know, have lobbyists on Capitol Hill and make large political donations.

To both parties.

See, I don't mind that. Those corporations exist partly in order to do things just like that, as you quite fairly point out. What bothers me is, every time we start looking under the covers at what the money was spent on, we find stuff like this bus contracting thing. And about half the time when we find some problem, we keep seeing the same company names come up. What that tells me is that there's an ethics problem there.

I got nothing against large corporations; I've worked for a few of them, and I'm working for one now. I got nothing against people making money; I'm making money. All I wanna see is a level playing field. And that means that nobody gets to unduly influence the decision making process. When I see someone who's connected, and then we go look and there's a bunch of malfeasance, sorry man, but I get a little uptight about that. I gotta pay taxes, you know? And if this crap keeps up, I'm prolly gonna have to pay MORE taxes, or else get caught in some crunch because there's not enough money to pay for some service that I ALREADY PAID FOR. Because it all went to these thieves. So pardon me, but what I want is some oversight; and if someone's stealing the money I paid in taxes, I want butts. In the slam. Period. And the evidence says they did, and so I do. It looks like we're gonna find out all about it pretty soon anyway, if Waxman keeps goin the way he's goin.