The Los Angeles Times Doesn’t Mind Ridiculous and Unacceptable Levels of Government Waste, Fraud and Abuse

This will warm your wallet this morning.

It comes from a Los Angeles Times Saturday editorial (may require registration) about widespread Katrina fraud. The Times not only doesn’t think it was so bad, but is also unfazed by unacceptable levels of waste and fraud in established government programs:

Bad spending decisions are an unfortunate side effect of a clever and responsive policy.

The 16% of improper expenditures is indeed high for a federal aid program — food stamps and unemployment insurance, by comparison, had respective rates of 5.9% and 10.1% last fiscal year. But these are established programs, not on-the-fly responses that had to process a sudden rush of 2.6 million claims. Unlike a permanent safety net, disaster relief’s top priority is to help as many people as fast as possible, which comes at the price of reduced efficiency.

But just because FEMA faced a daunting task does not mean it should be given a pass for its sloppy oversight. The GAO cited several quick fixes that should be put into effect immediately, most notably simple tests for misrepresentation when citizens register for federal disaster assistance. FEMA’s response thus far — cutting expedited payments to $500 — misses the point and will undercut relief efforts in future catastrophes.

It’s easy, and necessary, to criticize FEMA’s across-the-board incompetence in responding to the largest displacement of Americans since the Civil War. But obsessing about the spending habits of refugees comes perilously close to blaming the victim.

The Times’ nonchalance about the inappropriate use of 1 of every 17 dollars spent in the Food Stamp program, 1 of every 10 dollars spent on unemployment compensation, and 1 of every 6 dollars spent on FEMA’s Katrina relief gives away the game — as long as the feds are in control of things, no matter how ineffectively or incompetently, it’s better than having it under the supervision of the (“evil”) private sector. The fact is that in many lines of work, a private company that is losing even 2% of revenues to waste, fraud, and abuse would be in danger of going under. But too many in the government simply don’t care about installing adequate controls, because they know if they run short that they’ll usually be able to raise taxes or print more money to cover up the problems.

As to FEMA and Katrina, what in the world is “clever and responsive” about putting a bunch of money on a piece of plastic and saying, “Here it is. Do whatever you want with it”? As I’ve noted several times in the past, this is the direct opposite of effective and compassionate charity (go to second half of post for principles of effective charity).

And there’s that word “refugees” again. Arghhhh — This post disposed of that term. Nobody is being prevented from returning to the Katrina-affected areas. Those who are staying away are doing so by choice. True refugees can’t go back without a regime change or are being kept away for some other reason.
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UPDATE: Sister Toldjah calls out The Times for assigning no blame to the creeps and crooks who abused their aid: “So victims of a hurricane should be given a free pass on misusing the money they were supposed to be using on essentials just because FEMA didn’t catch what they were doing? Yes, FEMA deserves some criticism for falling down on the job but does SOME blame not fall on the people who received the money for spending it the way they did in the first place?”

UPDATE 2: Irish Trojan agrees with Sis — “L.A. Times endorses the death of personal responsibility”

UPDATE 3: Ed Lasky at American Thinker calls the editorial a “sop-ed.”

UPDATE 4: This will make you feel a little better (HT Cam Edwards) — “The Hooters restaurant chain is looking for FEMA’s address. Company Chairman Bob Brooks said Thursday that he wants to reimburse the agency for the $200 bottle of Dom Perignon Champagne that was purchased with a government credit card issued to Hurricane Katrina victims.”

UPDATE 5: With junky editorials like this that betray a “Who cares?” mindset about massive waste, fraud, and abuse involving our tax dollars, we shouldn’t be too surprised that Moody’s just reduced the credit rating of LA Times parent The Tribune Company to “junk” (HT Newsbusters commenter “jdhawk” at this post).
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