Our tax dollars at work

From The Washington Times:

In its rush to provide Katrina disaster aid, the Federal Emergency Management Agency wasted millions of dollars and overpaid for hotel rooms, including $438-a-day lodging in New York City, government investigators said yesterday.

This is a good example of what the federal government does when placed under pressure to "JUST DO SOMETHING". I remember when it was first announced that FEMA had contracted with cruise lines to house people on their ships. It was hailed as not just a good decision, but an inspired one. Then a few months later it was described as an act of irresponsibility bordering on moronic.

Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, who chairs the committee, decried the findings, noting that a series of audits and hearings after hurricanes in Florida in 2004 highlighted similar accounting problems and had called on then-FEMA Director Michael D. Brown to make immediate changes.

"The problem, once again, is that FEMA failed to prepare for the very type of disaster that happens every year," Miss Collins said. "This 'pay first, ask questions later' approach has been an invitation to unscrupulous behavior."

Imagine the outcry from bloodsucking leach "community activists" like the "reverends" Jesse Jackson and Al Shaprton, their enablers in the Party of Treason and their cheerleaders in the MSM if FEMA had taken a slow and careful approach to Katrina relief. Fools from both parties and both houses of congress would have trampled each other to get to the nearest microphone to call for Brown's head on a plate.