Katrina funds down the drain

I know much has already been written about the waste and fraud following Katrina. (I've been afflicted with the equivalent of Ignatius' closed valve the past few weeks and haven't had the energy to post). However, a new round of revalations gives me another opportunity to put in my 2 cents.

$1.5 billion, around 15% of the funds doled out so far has been designated as misused. The vast majority, if not all, of this is due to mismanagement by the federal government. A cool thirty percent of this ($400 million) was for FEMA trailers that were never used, and $8 million to refurbish an army base for refugees (remember we use this politically incorrect term to remind us that US citizens are being treated like a 3rd world populace). The focus of press reports though appear to be on fraud by opportunists. We expect these people to come out of the swamp when disaster strikes. The blame for the fraud lies squarely at the door of FEMA.

Of course the documented fraud is probably only the tip of the iceberg. The no bid contracts that have cost us trillions of dollars in Iraq may have cost countless billions on the Gulf Coast. We need government accountability for the rampant spending at the Federal level. Much of this is actually a civil service issue. The government machine is out of control and needs to be reined in by Congress. I know this makes me sound anti big-government; I actually don't have an opinion on this. Whatever size government, it needs oversight.