Government Waste: A Redundancy

Since the poor people ravished by Katrina, were, well, poor, we had to spend taxpayer dollars to assuage their misery. After all, people need to eat; and watch porn; and drink champagne; and stay in nice resorts; and go watch football games. These are legitimate needs which a humane government should pay for.

Fraudsters splashed on raunchy videos, 200-dollar champagne, ritzy resort stays and American football tickets as part of a one-billion-dollar bill in swindled payments meant for US hurricane victims.

Gregory Kutz, managing director of special investigations at the General Accounting Office, which audits US government spending, said one billion dollars -- or 16 percent of hurricane assistance payments -- were fraudulent.

Considering that the government loses seventy percent of welfare money in administrative tangles, according to Larry Elder, the Katrina debacle is hardly worth noting. Of course, we haven't factored administrative waste--another redundancy--into the cost as yet.

Kutz said one individual stayed at a vacation resort in Orlando, Florida between September and November 2005 -- at a cost to taxpayers of 12,000 dollars, or 249 dollars a night. The fraudster also got 4,000 dollars in emergency rental payments.

Another recipient relaxed in Hawaii for three months -- at a cost of 115 dollars per night -- even though that person lived in North Carolina, hundreds of miles north of the area devastated by the two hurricanes.

Kutz also said some people abused special emergency debit cards given out to hurricane victims.

One person splurged on a 200-dollar bottle of Dom Perignon champagne at a Hooters restaurant, a chain famed for its scantily clad waitresses, he said.

Another scammer enjoyed a 300-dollar collection of "Girls Gone Wild" videos, which show risque shots of partying women, in various stages of undress and drunkenness.

It is easy to simply say, as liberals and conservative apologists are wont to do, that fraud happens, but that doesn't indict the program. Poppycock. Not one dollar of anyone's money should go to redistribute superfluous wealth. This is not un-Christian, but simply an application of common sense. If one can get porn and resort stays on the government dole, why work? This only works until Atlas shrugs, but judging from the scarcity of libertarians, the protestant work ethic will scam enough Americans into slaving away right into totalitarianism, which should be just around the corner.

Sure, we'll get mad over this, but the next time a hurricane hits, we'll ante up. We always do.