Katrina Fraud Likely to Balloon Past $1B

[deminks]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061225/katrina_contracts.html?.v=1

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Already at $1 billion, the tally for Hurricane Katrina waste will balloon next year as investigators shift their attention from fraudulent aid to the lucrative government contracts awarded with little competition.

Several of the contracts were hastily given to politically connected firms in the aftermath of the 2005 storm and were extended without warning months later. Critics say the arrangements promote waste and unfairly hurt small companies.

In January, federal investigators will release the first of several audits examining abuse in more than $12 billion in Katrina contracts. The charges range from political favoritism to limited opportunities for small and minority-owned firms, which initially got only 1.5 percent of the total work.

(snip)

"It's a combination of laziness, ineptitude and it may well be nefarious," Ervin said.

(end snip)

Merry Christmas to the Gulf Coast from Santy "W" Claws.

[DeepModem Mom]

1. Unbelievable!

[Ezlivin]

2. Believable!

(With apologies to DeepModemMom above.)

This is the normal mode of operation when you have a criminal enterprise in charge.

Integrity? Honesty? Those values are so last century!

The solution: Impeachment.

[Faygo Kid]

3. Predictable!

It's the Bush way. Got to feed the base, after all. Wait till the numbers come in from Iraq, if the Dems investigate as they promise. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

[lonestarnot]

4. No need to change course! Brought to you by the W Network.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

5. Who assigned the money? That is the question.

Is this a Federal, State, or local dole? Corruption has always been a part of LA and especially New Orleans politics. When the Fed govt gives the area money for anything, the local and State govts insist that they be the ones who dole it out, not the Feds. The levee board is a prime example. Money for the levees dried up b/c it is technically an Army Corp of Engineers project, however, the levy board fought hard to get the right ot dole out the money and squandered it on things not related to the levees. The Fed govt finally got fed up and drastically cut the funds. But after Katrina, this is still going on.

So I would be careful painting ****co with this brush. I am sure there are plenty of other things we can find, but in this case, lets chastise the right crooks.

[seemslikeadream]

6. Reason for Impeachment # 3 New Orleans

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/seemslikeadream/131
Reason for Impeachment # 3 New Orleans
Posted by seemslikeadream on Sat Nov-11-06 09:48 PM



She calls out to the man on the street

sir, can you help me?

Its cold and Ive nowhere to sleep,

Is there somewhere you can tell me?

He walks on, doesnt look back
He pretends he cant hear her

Starts to whistle as he crosses the street
Seems embarrassed to be there

Oh think twice, its another day for

You and me in paradise

Oh think twice, its just another day for you,

You and me in paradise

She calls out to the man on the street

He can see shes been crying
Shes got blisters on the soles of her feet

Cant walk but shes trying

Oh think twice...

Oh lord, is there nothing more anybody can do

Oh lord, there must be something you can say

You can tell from the lines on her face

You can see that shes been there

Probably been moved on from every place

cos she didnt fit in there

Oh think twice...



Thanks again to Phil Collins for the words
My heart to the people of New Orleans

[jmowreader]

7. Can you say $3 billion total?

In the Army we were taught to be on the lookout for "fraud, waste and abuse." You don't have to look far to find all three in the aftermath of Katrina.

There were $12 billion in Katrina contracts let. Knowing how the Bush Administration lets contracts, there's probably AT LEAST two billion in fraud, waste and abuse in there somewhere.

Let's start out with the fact that the most-heavily-impacted states of Louisiana and Mississippi had the majority of their National Guard troops fighting in Iraq. The National Guard works cheaper than private firms do because there's no profit margin involved. (Unfortunately, this may have been one of the primary factors entering the Administration's mind when deciding whether to redeploy the LA and MS National Guard units.)

The $1 billion we know about so far covers individual victims--things like the infamous $600 tattoo some guy got. Individual victims are unable to throw around the kind of cubic dollars a corporation can. Look for them to find AT LEAST $2 billion in corporate fraud, waste and abuse.

That may be low.

[lovuian]

8. All that money could have gone to education and health

this is so sad

[truthisfreedom]

9. Under bushco, the "Administration of Fraud." bush has presided over the greatest expansion of fraud

and outright theft of the Treasury in our country's history.

[Lipton64]

12. Tell me about it, RepubliKKKans like to make a big deal out of Katrina fraud in order to further....

victimize victims of Katrina. There's so much waste and fraud to go around in every single spending bill in congress it makes me want to fucking puke. Just remember the "bridge to nowhere." That was supposed to cost roughly a seventh of the TOTAL amount of Katrina "fraud." This is what makes me so fucking angry. Read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge

It was a pork provision for that Republican idiot from Alaska named Stevens. The only difference is that most of that wasted tax-payer money would have gone into the bank-account of a hooked-up and connected friend to the Republican elite, so it would have been okay and justifiable then.

Remember, better to help a good old-fashioned American "businessman" rake in the dough off the tax-payer's backs then give it to the "criminals and degenerates" from the New Orleans area!! :sarcasm:

Of course they deserve it, you have to work for a living in this country, yes sir goddammit! You have to be a hard-working, red-meat eating good old-fashioned American white male who believes in family values, yessiree you do!! And amen to that!! Not some cotton-pickin' good-for-nothing nigger or white trash. Kick the Mexicans out and let them pick my goddammed grapes and tomatoes!! :sarcasm:


Considering the total hell and bullshit they had to endure and go through, and I mean the total, complete destruction and devestation of their city, homes, jobs, livelihoods, friends, families, way of life, culture, and everything, I think a little pork and "fraud" here and there may have actually have been good to help allieviate some of their pain and hopelessness. That's the least we could have done for these poor people.

Can you imagine if New York were the city instead of New Orleans and how many rich white assholes would lose everything. A little extra money for a bottle of bourbon or gin never hurt anybody who's had to endure the hell that these poor people had to go through. They were poor by-and-large to begin with and the hurricane merely exasperated this condition.

Just when you criticize this so-called waste imagine if a natural disaster uprooted you and your entire family and neighborhood and friends from your city and you were forced to move a state or even further away to live with relatives and/or friends. Imagine your job being gone. Your house, everything, gone. That's the hell of what these people went through and so many people have sadly already forgotten that.

[Telly Savalas]

10. So if I donate $100 to the RNC can I be the exclusive supplier of snow tires

for the relief efforts in New Orleans?

I'll sell 'em to the government at a mere 30% mark-up from the price I paid for 'em at Sears Auto Center. It's a win-win deal!

[Lipton64]

11. So what, at least the money's for the most part staying in the country....

That's more than can be said of the billions in fraud, waste, and incompetence in Iraq. When you send money over there it dissappears into bank accounts in Switzerland or in the Caymans and/or it goes to pay Iraqis who don't pay taxes to our government and who don't deserve any benefits from the American taxpayer.

By and large these "fraud" claims bought items which one way or another for the most part put the money back into the US economy - which is more to say than the feast of tax-dollars that Cheney and his hooked-up friends are enjoying right now connected with the war in Iraq.

[Heidi]

13. Kick. (nt)

[Doctor_J]

14. Yahoo - Auditors expecting Katrina fraud to reach $2B

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer Mon Dec 25, 5:17 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The tally for Hurricane Katrina waste could top $2 billion next year because half of the lucrative government contracts valued at $500,000 or greater for cleanup work are being awarded without little competition.

Federal investigators have already determined the Bush administration squandered $1 billion on fraudulent disaster aid to individuals after the 2005 storm. Now they are shifting their attention to the multimillion dollar contracts to politically connected firms that critics have long said are a prime area for abuse.

...

Based on their track record, it wouldn't surprise me if we saw another billion more in waste," said Clark Kent Ervin, the
Homeland Security Department's inspector general from 2003-2004. "I don't think sufficient progress has been made."

He called it inexcusable that the Bush administration would still have so many no-bid contracts. Under pressure last year,
Federal Emergency Management Agency director David Paulison pledged to rebid many of the agreements, only to backtrack months later and reopen only a portion.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061225/ap_on_bi_ge/katrina_contracts

Will someone please have sex with Smirk so we can impeach him? Please?

[truthisfreedom]

15. bush, presiding over the largest expansion of fraud, waste, and government theft in the history of

the United States.

[deminks]

16. Just to let the powers that be know...

The title of this article was changed many hours after I posted it yesterday, from 1 billion to two billion. I have also seen estimates that go way beyond this, but I did not change the title, AP did.