Where do you think more fraud could be found, Medicare or Defense

[Toots]

I have no knowledge one way or the other, just curious as to opinions here. Republicans always make a big deal about eliminating fraud from the Medicare system and I am sure there is a bunch but I never hear one peep about eliminating fraud from the Defense Industry. Why is that do you think? Is the Defense Industry completely without fraud? Are the six hundred dollar hammers a thing of the past? :shrug:

[librechik]

1. fewer doctors carry guns

anyway, this is one I can't answer. Except I suspect Defense because doing harm is part of their natural purview, but caregivers promise to do no harm.

[hobbit709]

2. A few years ago

the state of Texas spend $15 million on a computerized system to catch welfare cheats. They caught about a dozen people that had defrauded the state for about $16,000. Real value for the money-HAH.

[donco6]

8. That's interesting. Repugs are always saying . . .

. . . we don't need more tax revenue, we just need to cut on the "fraud and waste." And yet, when confronted with the facts, suddenly they fall silent. Hmm, wonder why . . . ?

[donco6]

9. Defense.

War profiteering has had a lot longer to mature as an art.

[spuddonna]

18. Now THAT is an awesome quote!

And if you think about it, it makes sense. The amounts that people receive on welfare are relatively small, so even if corruption was relatively widespread, you still aren't looking at the equivalent of huge corp. waste. (ie Enron type scandals)

On the other hand, we give blanket 'no bid' contracts for billions of $$ to defense companies, with no stipulations on them, and expect good results...

All I can say is Henry Waxman is a God and I hope he nails all the companies that are walking off with millions of $$ in Iraq...

[Booster]

3. Wasn't it the Defense Dept that "lost" over a trillion?

[Mnemosyne]

7. Pentagon missing $2.3 trillion as of Sept. 10,2001. n/t

I'll try to find a link.

Report was due to come out approx. 9/10/2001, for some reason it was never released. Hmm...

[wli]

10. no big surprise

A bunch of Enron papers and John O'Neill got blown away, too.

[Mnemosyne]

14. Isn't that just the way it goes since this maladmin. has been in office?!

:puke: :argh: :nuke: :grr:

[wli]

15. there were lots of convenient bombings and "suicides" for the BFEE

[Mnemosyne]

20. Too many, imo. n/t

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

4. Defense. The budget is MASSIVE and Congress has no clue how $$$ is spent.

Even DoD inspectors general have said they can't account for insane amounts of money.

[JDPriestly]

5. Defense contractors make the big bucks.

And they pass it on in political contributions.

[endarkenment]

6. by dollars or by number of incidents?

medicare probably wins by number of incidents since there are so many transactions every year. Defense - heck practically the entire budget could be considered fraud - hands down winner on the dollar side.

[WinkyDink]

11. Let's see, now....

GE, Gen. Dynamics, Halliburton, Bechtold, Carlyle Group, et al.,

....vs. doctors.

I'm stumped.

[Terran]

12. Haha, is this a rhetorical question?

Given that the Pentagon's budget is a hundred times as big as Medicare, what would you guess? Not to mention that well-known history of hundred dollar hammers.

[mattclearing]

13. Look at the size of their budget appropriations.

It's Defense by a staggering margin, I'm sure.

[bemildred]

16. For sheer dollar volume you just can't beat the Defense Bidness. nt

[LSK]

17. gee, its hard to say....

Im gonna go out on a limb and say Defense.

[Obamanaut]

19. Neither of the OP choices. I think that

Congress itself through pork spending is worse.

<snip>

Cost of Government Day for 2005 is July 4. Americans now work more than half of the year 185 days to pay their share of the cost of government. This year, the average American will need to work an additional 5 days out of the year to pay off his or her cost of government compared to five years ago. Ninety-seven percent of this increase is due to federal spending. To put the modern tax and regulatory burden in historical perspective, the American Revolution was fought over British taxes that consumed 3 percent of colonial income. Serfs of the Middle Ages turned over about one-third of what they produced to their landlords.

“In exchange for surrendering more than half of their working lives to the government, taxpayers get $1.1 million for alternative salmon product research in Alaska and $1.7 million for the International Fertilizer Development Center,” Schatz continued. “Taxpayers should be infuriated by the government’s ongoing waste of their hard-earned money.”

Earlier this year, CAGW identified 13,997 federal pork projects in its 2005 Congressional Pig Book, an increase of 31 percent from last year. The cost of these projects was $27.3 billion, or 19 percent more than last year’s total of $22.9 billion. The group also identified $1.3 trillion in potential savings over five years in its Prime Cuts report.

“Politicians are constantly finding new ways to turn Americans’ lives into a financial struggle,” Schatz continued. “Congressional excess is in large part responsible for helping push Cost of Government Day to July 4, such as $70,000 for the Paper Industry Hall of Fame and $100,000 for the Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center Museum.

<more>

http://www.cagw.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9054


Paper Industry Hall of Fame is a must see on my summer travels this year.