Where's the $1 Billion+?
By proudamerican Posted in User Blogs — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Why isn't the Democrat Party having a field day?Remember that show, a while back, PBS's "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?"? Well, here's a new one, "Where in the World is the $1 Billion Dollars+?".
Turns out, as most of us know, that possibly billions of dollars, was somehow fraudently dispersed via the Hurricane Katrina FEMA cards. So where did all of it go? Wouldn't you think that the media would be having a field day with all of this? Even CNN has stopped reporting about it. It kind of makes you wonder. Why aren't the Democrats blaming it on Republicans and vice-versa? Quite frankly, I'm surprised Michael Moore isn't planning a movie on it.
FEMA cards were used to buy diamond jewelry, a vacation in the Dominican Republic, fireworks, a $200 bottle of champagne at a Hooters in San Antonio and $300 worth of "Girls Gone Wild" videos. I myself had independently heard from friends in the area, that when in Houston, some people offered to drive evacuees to the grocery store or clothing store or drug store. Instead some volunteers were asked to drive them to the jewelry store or electronics store or other places. One of those driving volunteers is my friend. I'm not trying to make all of the people in Louisiana sound like mean bad people. I'm not implying that at all. Most of the people who volunteered to drive evacuees to the grocery store or something along those lines, where taken up on the offer. I actually also have some friends down in N.O., and my neighbor down the block has a daughter living there. Most likely, it was just a select group of people who probably didn't even need the cards to begin with.
So, here are my questions. Why have we stopped hearing about it, and why isn't the Democrat party having a field day with it?
The cards were stupid, but they did not account for anywhere near $1bln. The $1bln figure is total fraud cost for Katrina. Most of the fraud was in the form of rental assistance and the like.
I wouldn't consider the examples of stupid purchases cited above to be indicative of fraud. If we give cash to people to use however they see fit, we can expect them to do that.
The vast majority of the Katrina fraud is a result of people claiming assistance they are not entitled to, such as (source):
- People signed up for assistance using Social Security numbers that didn't exist or belonged to other people.
- Aid applications contained bogus addresses for damaged property, or gave addresses for damaged property where the applicants did not live when the hurricanes struck. In one case, FEMA paid nearly $2,360 to a man whose allegedly damaged property was in a cemetery.
- Payments were made to people who listed post office boxes as their damaged residences.
- People submitted duplicate registrations, which FEMA did not detect.
- More than 1,000 registrations used the names and Social Security numbers of prison inmates. According to the GAO, in one instance, FEMA paid $20,000 to a Louisiana prisoner who listed a post office box as his damaged property.
Regardless of the Cards, though they did lose a good deal of money at $2,000 a piece, how come no one is talking about the over $1 billion that was lost, by any means?