The oversight reports continue to roll in on the progress post our national, head hanging disaster response, otherwise known as Hurricane Katrina. To date auditors estimate $1 billion in fraudulent individual assistance and over $2 billion in corporate inefficiency, malfeasance or just plain waste from a taxpayer perspective. Businesses call the money “profits”, which are celebrated quarterly on Wall Street.
As the Bush administration has little internal capabilities anymore, “your tax money” is stacked up, sorted and subsequently moved out to businesses performing the work of government. Next time you hear of Bechtel’s, Fluor’s, CH2M Hill’s or Shaw’s record quarterly profits know some of that is courtesy of your hard earned money.
You say you never spent your money with any of those organizations? Well, President Bush did it for you. The man can spend money, but that doesn’t mean he gets anything for it. Ask the board at Harkin Energy.
The latest oversight report to Congress has one glaring omission from my perspective. Once again the responsibility for hospital evacuations in future unprecedented, catastrophic events is not addressed. An audit on nursing home evacuations got ink, but hospitals once again received short shrift. President Bush’s Lessons Learned report made no mention of the trade group that coordinated hospital evacuations, the Louisiana Hospital Association.
Somehow, Frances Townsend’s keyboard couldn’t type the keys required to include the hospital with the largest number of patient deaths post Katrina. Lifecare Hospitals, a brand new Carlyle Group affiliate received not one mention in the Bush tome despite its 24 deaths.
Now Congress follows up with a similar goose egg. Why do I continue to expect our leaders from the two elected branches of government to serve the people? They are accountable, aren’t they…
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