NY Times: ‘Breathtaking’ Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid: Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion.
The Times is doing great work on this story, but no news organization has enough people to do the job the way it should be done. What we need is a citizen-journalism component, where people in the affected communities work with major media to expose the fraud that’s already occurred and prevent new lawbreaking.
This project is sitting there for someone to try. I hope someone will give it some thought.
on Jun 29th, 2006 at 6:11 am
Where was the NY Times when politicians where running to the cameras to proclaim that only they cared enough for the victims of Katrina to pile billions apon billions into Louisiana? They were, of course, claiming that hard hearted Americans weren’t taxing and spending enough.
This kind of waste , fraud and abuse is oh so predictable and, as always, egged on by our compassionate betters in the press. Excuse me it doesn’t seem suprising that now there isn’t a journalist to be found who wants to report on what the press so obviously facilitated.
on Jun 29th, 2006 at 6:12 am
upon… sorry
on Jun 29th, 2006 at 7:29 am
Excellent thoughts! That definitely would be a great idea!