CATEGORY 5 MALFEASANCE
February 15, 2006 -- Give away free money, and people will take it. No surprise there.
No surprise, either, to learn that politicians everywhere were far better at giving money away in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita than they were scrupulous in making sure that it was spent as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Indeed, the totality of the fraud and abuse that accompanied relief efforts will never be known.
But a recent report by the Government Accountability Office gives a rough idea of the extent of the pillage.
In investigating the Federal Emergency Management Agency's hurricane-relief control measures, GAO discovered just a few of the ways FEMA helped evacuees get their lives "back on track."
Among the items purchased with money that hardworking Americans sent to the government last April 15: a $400 visit to a massage parlor; a $200 bar tab; a $1,300 .45 caliber pistol; a $1,200 visit to a Houston strip club, and a $1,000 visit to a Baton Rouge casino.
That's just the beginning. The GAO randomly sampled 248 individual FEMA payments and discovered that:
* Some 165 of the 248 applications — fully 66 percent! — contained Social Security numbers that had never been issued, belonged to dead people or did not match the name provided.
* In one case, "17 individuals, some of whom shared the last name and current addresses, used 34 different [social security numbers] that did not belong to them and addresses that were bogus or not their residences to receive more than $103,000 in FEMA payments." (It's unclear whether any of these individuals were actually affected by a hurricane.)
Meanwhile:
* No fewer than 80 of the 200 Texas and Louisiana properties that GAO audited were bogus, many either vacant lots or nonexistent apartments.
* Many of the Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) that the National Guard distributed to hurricane victims were gathered up at distribution centers and resold on eBay by the "victims."
* Some 11,000 so-called "expedited assistance" debit cards worth $2,000 apiece were issued — roughly 5,000 of them to recipients who managed to score duplicate payments.
An earlier report by the Boston Herald found that Katrina evacuees temporarily housed at Camp Edwards on Otis Air Force Base in Cape Cod also merrily indulged on booze and strippers on the taxpayers' dime.
"They were tipping me $5 a pop," said Angel, a stripper at a club near Camp Edwards. "I told them I felt bad taking their money. But I still took it."
Politicians faced with such damning reports can save their outrage.
That people swarmed when politicians threw open the doors to the federal treasury shouldn't be much of a surprise. And how else does one spend an unexpected windfall?
With enthusiasm, apparently.
After Katrina, with the compassion sweepstakes in full-gear, politicians vied only to see who could promise more money for "relief." $100 billion? $200 billion? (Thank goodness they settled on "only" $84 billion or so.)
Many hotels in New York are still housing Katrina evacuees at the public's expense. At the Radisson Hotel near JFK Airport, many evacuees were livid after the management suggested they might at some point have to move on.
But it's not as if their expense-free living days are over.
A spokesman for the city's Department of Homeless Services, Angela Allen, said the city has plenty of housing for anyone who needs it, adding that the department is helping evacuees find permanent housing in each of the five boroughs.
Such displaced persons, she said, are entitled to financial assistance from FEMA and the city's HRA.
The hurricanes were genuine tragedies. That people were so quick to take advantage of the taxpayers' generosity simply compounds that.
But there's a lesson to be had here.
No free dollar goes unspent.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/63568.htm
