Waste, Fraud and Abuse, huh?

Credit Timelyvisa.com

I am sure many of you out there in reality land have heard the terms, waste, fraud and abuse (WFA), especially from politicians at election time.  Well, having once been a politician, I can remember when I ran for office and even I used the term.  I meant it though and we at the the local level were very cognizant of the WFA because if we didn't, people walked over to our houses and knocked on the door.

At the local level, our Auditor-Controller and the Treasurer were usually very serious people and they for the most part, did a fine job for the people.  They were the one's who paid the bills and kept track of our money.  We Supervisors also would periodically have outside auditors come in and do special programs and the State and Feds would send some folks to check up on our special departments as well.  So at least here in Nevada County things were pretty tight.  We did have one fellow though who figured out a way to manipulate a program and he stole the money and turned it into gold coins.  He was found out though because he forgot to tell the the program folks he would be on vacation and they didn't know where to put the money.  He did significant jail time.

But on a wider note, WFA is a problem for everyone because in my view, there is just too many programs and too much money floating around to keep efficient track of it.  Some say there is 50-100 billion in WFA in medicare alone!  I am a firm believer the government auditors should be allowed to review and audit any program at any time without notice.  The fear of an effective audit with the commiserate consequences for any wrongdoing would keep a lot of these scofflaws in line.  But, unfortunately when you have a federal government that actually advertises to the public they are missing out on "free money" and other services as they did with food stamps, then you see the overarching problem

It is not their money, that is the problem.  There are not enough auditors and the scofflaws know it.  Look at the latest Andrew Breitbart expose'.  Based on the USDA discriminating against  loaning black farmers money, (the Pigford Case) the US Senate twice passed bills of restitution.  Breitbart then discovered the USDA was handing out $50,000 checks via shyster lawyers, to any client claiming to have ever thought about farming let alone actually owning a farm.  Billions of dollars, up in smoke and now of course Breibart is being called a racist.  Lesser men would have run off screaming, "don't call me a racist, please forgive me", but not Breitbart.  He exposed the ripoff of taxpayer money and is taking the heat.  This is one minuscule example of the WFA and believe me, it is in every "good intentioned" federal program and most state programs.

What I want to know is this, if the politicians mantra is getting rid of the WFA, then why have we not seen one of the scofflaw programs removed and fixed?  What the heck?  If there is 100 billion wasted in Medicare and Medicaid, FIX IT NOW!  If non-farmers are getting big checks illegally, FIX IT NOW! Maybe the politicians should read Citizen's Against Government Waste and then enact the audit police to get out there and root out the WFA. And Hell will freeze over. Don't the Feds have a gazillion different police forces anyway?

Is their problem one of blame?  Do the politicians who refuse to take part and support the capture of our billions from the bad guys do so because they fear they will be blamed and not get re-elected?  Probably.  Since we see little oversight from the Congress on these things it can only mean one thing.  If they bring up WFA, it is only for effect, not reality.  So here we are, the democrats want you all to pay trillions of dollars in new taxes and we are saying whoa nelly!  First make government efficient.  Treat our tax money as if it were your own.  I see Republicans doing this but never democrats.  The left think all money is the governments and they will generously allow us to keep a little I guess.

I don't think the people thought the 16th Amendment (click to enlarge and read) as passed would allow the Congress to tax a cell phone bill for goodness sakes. The 16th says "income"  and yet they have slapped at tax (or a fee, a renamed tax) on everything that moves and breathes, or even exists.  No, I think the idea of the feds getting a piece of our income has been pretty well manipulated into a huge monster.

So, since they can apparently get a piece of the action from all corners of the country, the till ranith over and they had to spend it.  They spent so much that by the time they started paying attention they had spent 15 trillion more than the poor dumb slobs of America could pay!  So, we are now being asked to pay more.  I say, perhaps the government needs to stop and take a deep breath, audit the crap out of every single department for a year, fire the bad guys and then see how much WFA they find.  Maybe they will find enough to let them be happy and leave us the hell alone for a while.