More Government Waste, Fraud and Abuse

Those who believe that the government is an incompetent and derelict manager have further ammunition for their argument with the 12 February 2013 Wall Street Journal article, “Millions Improperly Claimed U. S. Phone Subsidies”. 

The story provides the sad details and mishandling of the Lifeline Program, begun in 1984 to ensure that no one would be cut off from phone service due to inability to pay for it. Other phone subscribers pay $2.50 per month to provide this relatively new benefit, whose cost has soared from $819 million in 2008 to $2.2 billion last year.

The most outrageous quirk in the program is that not until last year was there a rule that required beneficiaries to prove their eligibility to participate. The Federal Communications Commission conducted a review which concluded that a whopping 41% of the six million program participants could not demonstrate their eligibility or declined to respond to requests for documentation, thus the conclusion was reached that millions may be enrolled fraudulently or inappropriately.

The late U. S. Senator Everett Dirksen is reported to have said, ““A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking (about) real money."  He was right.  Government does a magnificent job of wasting money with no consequences for those that presided over the depletion of precious resources.

Since the Lifeline Program has been such a smash success, what new government benefit can we dream up next?