FatCratz

Why Not Let Us Vote on Stimulus Projects?

We're seeing lots of local news stories about grants submitted for stimulus money. Like this one, to study seaweed:

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and the City Parks and Recreation Department have applied for a $3.1 million grant to study seaweed. The federal stimulus money would be used to conduct a variety of different studies. The university, for example, would study the formation of seaweed and investigate possible new uses of seaweed, as bio-fuel for example.

We have no way of knowing whether this grant, for example, will ever be made, until after it's been made, for example. And then of course we'll have moved on, for real.

I have an idea. Why not let us vote? If we have websites dedicated to transparency, why not post incoming grant applications online for the public to review BEFORE they're funded. We can rate them, and the public rating can be one factor among many determining whether or not they are funded. Or the only factor.

Let's face it, we can't trust bureaucrats to be discriminating, particularly when they're being told to give away almost a trillion dollars, and fast. After all, it's better that the money be spent wastefully, even fraudulently, than not at all.

Is Feinstein A FatCrat?

It may be too early to tell, but it will be interesting to see how many news outlets pursue this story tomorrow.

Seems that on the first day of the new congress this year the Senior Senator from California proposed routing $25 billion of TARP funds to FDIC to handle foreclosures... at the same time her husband's real estate firm had landed a plumper-than-usual contract to provide said services to said FDIC.

This is a complicated deal--You have to click through 8 pages to read the whole Washington Times piece. But when you have hundreds of billions of dollars sloshing around, as is the case with TARP and Stimulus spending, they're all complicated deals. It makes it remarkably easy to route a billion here or there to friendly parties. Or to your husband.

Most of us don't do complicated anymore. That's why it's highly unlikely that this story will generate any public outrage.

How Have Your Responded to the Recession?

A lot of us have had to change our plans for spending as a result of the current recession. There are a lot of ways we tighten the belt... putting off a big trip, or maybe delaying by a year or two trading up to a new car.

Government, too, is having to change its plans. But remember, in the public sector the incentives and behaviors are exactly opposite that of the real world:

The faltering economy threatens to disrupt plans to retire the U.S. space-shuttle fleet next year and free up funds to develop a new generation of manned spacecraft.

That's right... the recession is disrupting plans for the government to STOP SPENDING money.

"So What If We Blow a Few Billion?"

Stimulus waste is good, don't you know? [The title of this post is a quote from the subtitle of a Washington Post opinion piece]

It's a little refreshing, actually, to have someone come out and say that waste is not only inevitable, but desirable, when it comes to stimulus spending:

When the whole point of a major government spending program is to stimulate the faltering economy as quickly as possible, what exactly counts as "wasted" money? After all, if some stimulus cash is misspent -- say an errant official or contractor buys himself a Cadillac or a Harley Davidson, only to suffer the full force of law -- might not such fraud boost the economy more than if the cash languished in a law-abiding state account?

Might not such fraud boost the economy more than if the cash languished in a law-abiding state account? You see, too much oversight and talk about "making sure taxpayer money is wisely spent" slows down how quickly the dollars get spent. Those unfortunate government officials, scared about potential investigations and bad press, will be too cautious and too slow to spend money.

Note, dear reader, that waste, even fraud, is assumed to be a necessary byproduct of government spending, by a proponent of government spending!

Stimulus Fraud in 34 States Deemed Irrelevant

The Washington Post reports that the Government Accountability Office (henceforth on FatCratz, GAO) is asking for help from Americans in reporting waste related to the $787 billion economic recovery package, because "Experience tells us that the risk of fraud and abuse grows when large sums are spent quickly." Apparently, the normal federal spending rate of about $8.5 billion a day is far more manageable.

Unfortunately, it seems that tracking fraud and abuse in the (rapid) spending of $787 billion is too big a job even for government. So they're only going to try to keep track of two-thirds of it:

The agency will track Washington, D.C. and 16 other states that account for 65 percent of the U.S. population and are expected to receive at least two-thirds of the stimulus funding: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Apparently, GAO isn't interested in stimulus fraud in the remaining 34 states and 5 territories. 

In the interest of good government, FatCratz is looking to take up the slack. We're asking for help from Americans in reporting stimulus waste in Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Northern Marianas Islands, Oklahoma, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Virgin Islands, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Oh, if you're from one of the important states and think GAO might miss an abuse or two, feel free to let us know.