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Bailouts: Having spent more than $3 trillion on stimulus and bailouts so far, the government apparently can't be sure it's not being massively defrauded. So much for transparency and accountability.
During the transition early this year, President Obama vowed to "restore the American people's trust in their government by making government more open and transparent."
Yet, it's quite possible that this year's $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — also known as the "stimulus" — will turn into the largest fraud in history, and we'll never know.
The reason: It's become impossible to verify why those who are getting the stimulus money are getting it.
A new report from the Treasury Department's Inspector General for Tax Administration counts 56 tax provisions in the bill having a potential cost of $325 billion. Of those, 20 are tax breaks for individuals and 36 are for businesses.
The problem, the Inspector General says, is the IRS can't verify taxpayer eligibility "for the majority of Recovery Act tax benefits and credits." For individual taxpayers, 13 of the 20 benefits and credits can't be verified; for businesses, it's 26 of 36.
If this doesn't sound like a problem, it is.
To suggest, as Treasury does, that the biggest chunk of the $325 billion in stimulus package tax breaks can't be adequately followed violates the pledges of openness and fairness made when the stimulus was passed last February.
As the government-stimulus-oversight Web site, recovery.gov, notes, last year's package "requires that taxpayer dollars spent under the Act be subject to unprecedented accountability."
We wouldn't call being unable to verify upwards of two-thirds of the $325 billion handed out as "unprecedented accountability." Sounds more like an invitation to fraud, all at the expense of the taxpayers.
As of Oct. 31 of this year, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board — also known as the RAT Board — and its 13 separate inspectors general had gotten 471 complaints of wrongdoing with stimulus funds. Of those, 86 triggered "active investigations," the recovery.gov Web site says, and 14 cases are being prosecuted.
No doubt, that's just a tiny chip from a very large iceberg. "To a great extent," the IRS says, "(we rely) on taxpayers' voluntary compliance with tax laws to accurately report income and claim only those tax benefits and credits to which they are entitled."
We shouldn't be surprised. Anytime you have the kind of money we're talking about here — $787 billion just for stimulus — it's always an inducement to fraud and criminality to take advantage of government ineptitude. The temptations are just too great.
Narcoterror: Drug lords shocked Mexico on Tuesday by massacring the family of a marine killed in a raid. The same day, Colombia reeled from the killing of a governor. Both were hits on the state. But the enemy hasn't won. Cartels left no doubt about their al-Qaida-like depravity when a pack ...
Media: Following Senate passage of the most destructive legislation in U.S. history, the White House press secretary substituted a stand-up comedy act in place of a briefing — and no reporter seemed to mind. With the thousands of pages passed by the U.S. Senate at 1 a.m. Monday ...
Reform: There are many problems on the health care road the country is being forced to take. But one not getting as much attention as it should is the harm done to a critically important sector: medical innovation. The high costs, restricted choices and eventual rationing that will result ...
Democrats are right: Sleazy bribes and pork payoffs didn't start with their government health care takeover bill. They've been doling out taxpayer-funded goodies for votes all year. Harry Reid's latest Cash for Cloture deals are the culmination of a shopping spree at our expense. Go back to January ...
This was, nationally and globally, a lousy decade. I hate to put a damper on your holiday season, but the next one has every prospect of being worse. The name never really took, but it's too bad this decade wasn't called the "oughts," because so much that ought to have been done wasn't: controlling ...
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