Saturday, August 26, 2006
Another reason to dump the Republicans
In a report issued by the Democrats because of the Republican attitude of "see no evil", losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars are indentified in the no-bid contracts following Katrina.
The full report can be found here.
Remember in November.
The government awarded 70 percent of its contracts for Hurricane Katrina work without full competition, wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the process, says a House study released Thursday by Democrats.Much of this was already known, but this report brings all the previous reports together to illustrate the full extent of the Republican policy of "no bid is good bidness".
The report, a comprehensive overview of government audits on Katrina contracting, found that out of $10.6 billion in contracts awarded after the storm last year, more than $7.4 billion were handed out with limited or no competitive bidding.
In addition, 19 contracts worth $8.75 billion were found to have wasted taxpayer money at least in part, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the report. It cited numerous instances of double-billing by contractors and cases of trailers meant as emergency housing sitting empty in Arkansas....
....The report came as House Democrats announced a new six-member "truth squad" they said would highlight the problems before the November congressional elections.
"It is apparent that taxpayers and the residents of the Gulf Coast are paying a steep price for the failure to stop waste, fraud and abuse in federal contracting," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee and a member of the new panel.
He said the new panel, made up of six House Democrats, was needed because the Republican-controlled Congress has resisted probing such allegations against the Bush administration.
The full report can be found here.
Remember in November.
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