Welcome Instapundit readers. If you want to get even more upset, here’s a big list of posts about waste, fraud, and abuse, including one about Social Security bureaucrats enjoying a $700,000 junket and another about a lawyer getting $25,000 of “stimulus” money for writing a two-sentence memo.
=====================================================
While I’ve been somewhat critical of Senator Coburn’s willingness to raise taxes, I’ve never doubted that he is a sincere and tireless fighter for smaller government.
Indeed, his staff periodically share examples of government waste that boggle the mind, though I don’t share many of them on the blog since I’m afraid people will become desensitized to the sleazy boondoggles that are so beloved by lawmakers.
However, the last email from Senator Coburn’s office included a story that shows, in a rather remarkable fashion, how a bloated federal government has a corrupting impact on the rest of society.
According to a Wisconsin newspaper, a local governments is trying to “sell” federal funds, sort of like how I used to scalp football tickets as a student.
River Hills, Milwaukee County’s richest suburb, has found little use for what has become an annual allocation of about $20,000 in federal community development block grant money. So village leaders instead have cut deals with other suburbs to lend or transfer the grant money and have even sought unsuccessfully to sell the River Hills block grant allocation to another community. …Assistant Corporation Counsel John Jorgensen said selling the HUD allocation wouldn’t break any rules or laws, as long as the grant money is used for allowable projects. In a memo to county supervisors, Jorgensen said his opinion matched advice he’d gotten from local HUD officials. But Sullivan said the Milwaukee field office had questioned the practice in the past. Officials from the Milwaukee office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development declined to comment.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has always been near the top of my list of government entities that should be shut down. This latest scam is merely the cherry on the ice-cream sundae of the argument to eliminate HUD as soon as possible.
Thanks to Barney Frank (Democrat-Massachusetts) for the whole Idea of committing fraudulent bailouts.
On Feb. 17, 2009, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 at the urging of President Obama, who signed it into law four days later.reinvestment recovery act.
Barney Frank is the conspirator of this scam on Amerand is so proud of his accomplishment, he had this act all drafted and ready for Obama to press into law.
Obama apparently went along with the idea and still presses the scam as if it was legit. Where there is smoke there is fire… Fire Barney frank he’s smiles like a cheerio and is a little overblown.
Search his scandals and watch him on you tube it is not surprising he is managing all his efforts of wanting to be a land lord as to feed into HUD all this money that is reinvested in perpetuating more fraud to the American tax payer in stealing our assets through criminal conversion and the powers of eminent domain.
Mr. Frank your days are numbered, retire now, at least you can suckle your little pig at home in your basement on your own time.
Pigs go to feed Hog’s go to slaughter. Barney Frank is a HOG!
[…] Well-off community doesn’t need annual HUD grant, seeks to sell it [Dan Mitchell] […]
HUD still owes me a $1500.00 house insurance refund from 2003. I won’t hold up much hope of ever seeing that money.
Local governments exchange restricted funds pretty regularly. If my city gets some funds restricted to housing and your city gets some funds restricted to transportation, but I have a big transportation project and you need housing funds, why not? From the perspective of the cities, they are both better off. From the taxpayers perspective, I’m not so sure. It is almost like an exchange, where restricted funds (ie, monies that can only be spent on a given type of project) will sell at a discount for unrestricted funds (funds that can be spent on anything). Typically you have to get the grantors permission, but usualyy they will agree, if the project is worthwhile and meets their criteria.
When do we go after NASA? I hear to little castigation of what has become our modern version of “bread and circuses.” We get “bread and astronauts.” This belongs in the private sector. And the private sector needs business incentives (and free floating cash) to perform research.
{^_^}
Just another case of government gone wild and not representing the people. Seems that there are two classes-them and the rest of the population. They can do what they want and we cant.
The savvy without a conscience have decided that it is better to work with the hypocrisy than to fight it – and perhaps their victories are small and discrete in order to hack away at the system, if they are guided by ethics. You should read a story in today’s news in Vancouver, Canada about the upcoming distribution of free, unused crack pipes because that is “cleaner and safer.”
Just to prove how thoroughly we’ve been brainwashed in the government/socialist society, I have trouble seeing the problem with this. Woe unto me.
The largest EVER HUD loan to a “for profit” entity was recently given to a cardiologist in Lakeway Texas to build a physician owned hospital ($220,000,000). The Lakeway Regional Medical Center was originally bankrolled by a Dr. Demaio who is currently being investigated by the Texas medical board for unethical activity such as euthenizing a patient by turning off his defibrillator and giving the patient propofol, and for putting an astounding number of heart stents into people (as many as THIRT TWO in one guy). Interesting.
Yet whenever we threaten to cut off the flow of blood to these parasites, we get threatened with losing granny’s SS check. On the state level, it’s laid off cops, firefighters and teachers.
I worked as a contractor for HUD in pre-Katrina New Orleans. Your example is nothing – absolutely nothing – compared to the racket I discovered down there. FEMA too, I might add.
[…] DAN MITCHELL: Just in Case You Need One More Reason Why the Department of Housing and Urban Development Should Be … […]
What’s the big deal? It’s just like selling Women-Infant-Child food vouchers to raise cash for cigarettes.
Logic somehow escapes the room where there is board of govt. officials.