The cronyism continues in the Bush administration's dealings in the American Gulf region. Says the NY Times today:
Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions By ERIC LIPTON and RON NIXON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 - Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La.
The first detailed tally of commitments from federal agencies since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four weeks ago shows that more than 15 contracts exceed $100 million, including 5 of $500 million or more. Most of those were for clearing away the trees, homes and cars strewn across the region; purchasing trailers and mobile homes; or providing trucks, ships, buses and planes.
More than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency alone were awarded without bidding or with limited competition, government records show, provoking concerns among auditors and government officials about the potential for favoritism or abuse.
Already, questions have been raised about the political connections of two major contractors - the Shaw Group and Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton - that have been represented by the lobbyist Joe M. Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former leader of FEMA.
"When you do something like this, you do increase the vulnerability for fraud, plain waste, abuse and mismanagement," said Richard L. Skinner, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, who said 60 members of his staff were examining Hurricane Katrina contracts. "We are very apprehensive about what we are seeing."
Bills have come in for deals that apparently were clinched with a handshake, with no documentation to back them up, said Mr. Skinner, who declined to provide details.
"Most, if not all, of these people down there were trying to do the right thing," he said. "They were under a lot of pressure and they took a lot of shortcuts that may have resulted in a lot of waste."
Shortly after Katrina struck, the grumbling Louisiana contractors began. They were worried that few if any of the fat rebuilding contracts sure to be on the horizon would go to them. Turns out they had reason to worry. Combine the no-bid contracts to friends of the GOP with the waiving of the Davis-Bacon rule requiring those federal contractors to pay the prevailing wage, and you have yet another fat "gimme" to the administration's friends.
Sadly, this isn't some error of expediency, we now know, after the experience in Iraq, that this is simply the way they do business.
It isn't just the Bush who lives in Washington. The Bush right here in Florida operates in much the same way, as the state saw with the recent Scripps Research Institute deal, which was reported this way in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in October, 2004:
When Gov. Jeb Bush announced in October 2003 he had lured The Scripps Research Institute to Palm Beach County with more than $300 million in public money, he touted it as an economic boon to Floridians.
But before taxpayers see a return on the investment, among those who could benefit most from the Scripps Florida windfall are those who have donated thousands to the Republican Party and GOP candidates and have ties to the Bushes.
Several of the developers and landowners with interests in the leading sites for the biotech community are generous donors to President Bush's re-election campaign or to the Republican National Committee. There are Democratic contributors involved in the project, but those who give to the GOP stand out for their number and the size of their donations.
And it just goes on and on from there, in Florida, in Ohio, in Washington, and in Iraq...
With Bill Clinton you knew what you were getting: a bit of a cad but someone you could trust with your tax money. With this crowd, all you get is cronyism and corruption. That and the occasional rolled up sleeves photo op.
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dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
