June 15, 2006--Multiple Choice
This one should be easy—is the answer (a); (b); (c); or (d), all of the above? Though there is no prize this time for the right answer.
From a story in the NY Times (linked below) about financial corruption, we learn that one person stayed more than two months on the government tab at a luxury hotel in Hawaii; in another instance someone was given money to buy NFL football tickets, used government money to run up a restaurant bill of more than $200 that included a bottle of Dom Perignon Champagne (must have been non-vintage), and on the government tab had at an “all-inclusive, weeklong Caribbean vacation.”
So, were the perpetrators (a) Members of Congress; (b) Halliburton executives; (c) New Orleans evacuees; or (d) all of the above?
Would it help if I added, from the same article, that there were gross overpayments made to the individuals or company that government auditors missed for more than a year? And that the government still does not know the full extent of the fraud and/or over billing? It is though estimated that it could total as much as $1.4 billion.
All right, I’ve tortured you enough. The answer is (b) Halliburton. Actually, I’m lying; the correct answer is (c), New Orleans evacuees.
But isn’t the real story that an almost equally good answer is (d), all of the above. Actually, isn’t the real story that even today, after being pounded upon relentlessly, the Office of Homeland Security and FEMA still don’t have their acts together? I think though that the really real story is how FEMA and Homeland Security and Halliburton have slipped off the screen and that the headlines are now not about them but about “welfare cheats” getting away with murder in New Orleans.
Obviously it is outrageous that people are scamming the government in this and worse ways, but at least in some perverse manner we can at least understand why desperately poor people might try to get away with whatever they can. Again, this is not to excuse this behavior but simply to point out that there are more despicable felonies being committed and ignored by those who are supposed to protect and represent us. But from that we’ve moved on.
I’m out of range of Fox News, thankfully, but I can only imagine what I might be hearing nightly on The O’Reilly Factor.
From a story in the NY Times (linked below) about financial corruption, we learn that one person stayed more than two months on the government tab at a luxury hotel in Hawaii; in another instance someone was given money to buy NFL football tickets, used government money to run up a restaurant bill of more than $200 that included a bottle of Dom Perignon Champagne (must have been non-vintage), and on the government tab had at an “all-inclusive, weeklong Caribbean vacation.”
So, were the perpetrators (a) Members of Congress; (b) Halliburton executives; (c) New Orleans evacuees; or (d) all of the above?
Would it help if I added, from the same article, that there were gross overpayments made to the individuals or company that government auditors missed for more than a year? And that the government still does not know the full extent of the fraud and/or over billing? It is though estimated that it could total as much as $1.4 billion.
All right, I’ve tortured you enough. The answer is (b) Halliburton. Actually, I’m lying; the correct answer is (c), New Orleans evacuees.
But isn’t the real story that an almost equally good answer is (d), all of the above. Actually, isn’t the real story that even today, after being pounded upon relentlessly, the Office of Homeland Security and FEMA still don’t have their acts together? I think though that the really real story is how FEMA and Homeland Security and Halliburton have slipped off the screen and that the headlines are now not about them but about “welfare cheats” getting away with murder in New Orleans.
Obviously it is outrageous that people are scamming the government in this and worse ways, but at least in some perverse manner we can at least understand why desperately poor people might try to get away with whatever they can. Again, this is not to excuse this behavior but simply to point out that there are more despicable felonies being committed and ignored by those who are supposed to protect and represent us. But from that we’ve moved on.
I’m out of range of Fox News, thankfully, but I can only imagine what I might be hearing nightly on The O’Reilly Factor.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
9:41 AM
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