-Caveat Lector- http://www.federalist.com/current/fedbrief-01-26.html FOR THE RECORD Sen. Fred Thompson's list of the 10 most egregious examples of the central government's fraudulent and wasteful use of your confiscated income. "For some time now, our government has been mismanaged to an extent that the average American would find shocking. The federal government's core management problems have persisted for years, and, in fact, have grown worse." -- Sen. Thompson 1. THE BIG DIG -- Boston's Central Artery -- is the most expensive federal infrastructure project in the nation's history. Its cost continues to rise and now is estimated at $13.6 billion, an almost 525 percent increase from the original $2.6 billion. 2. ABUSING THE TRUST OF AMERICAN INDIANS -- The Department of the Interior does not know what happened to more than $3 billion it holds in trust for American Indians. A judge overseeing this case called it "fiscal and governmental irresponsibility in its purest form." 3. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT -- There is widespread agreement that the Department of Defense finances are a shambles. It wastes billions of dollars each year, and cannot account for much of what it spends. 4. NASA MISMANAGEMENT CAUSES MISSION FAILURES -- In spectacular example after example, NASA lost billions because of mismanagement of some of its biggest programs. The cause of the Mars Polar Lander failure, for example, was that one team used English measurements (inches, feet, and pounds) to design and program the vehicle, while another used metric measurements. 5. MEDICARE WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE -- Medicare wastes almost $12 billion EVERY YEAR on improper payments. It misspent that $12 billion last year from the fee-for-service part of Medicare alone, which was about 7 percent of the total fee-for-service budget. The amounts wasted on improper Medicare payments would go a long way toward funding a prescription drug benefit or other program enhancements. 6. SECURITY VIOLATIONS AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY -- The department does not adequately safeguard America's nuclear secrets. In just one case, an employee was dead for 11 months before department officials noticed that he still had four secret documents signed out. 7. IRS FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMENT -- The IRS manages its finances worse than most Americans. The agency does not even know how much it collects in Social Security and Medicare taxes. GAO found significant delays -- sometimes up to 12 years -- in recording payments made by taxpayers. 8. VETERANS AFFAIRS PUTS PATIENT HEALTH AT RISK -- The Department of Veterans Affairs' inspector general found that "[a hospital's food service] shares the loading dock with the Environmental Management Service's hazardous waste containers. Dirty Environmental Management Service and red biohazard carts were located next to the area where food is transported to the kitchen." 9. BILKING TAXPAYERS OUT OF STUDENT FINANCIAL AID -- Federal student aid programs are rife with fraud and abuse. A cottage industry of criminals advise people on how to cheat to get federal loans and grants. In one case, scam artists passed off senior citizens taking crafts classes as "college students" who qualified for federal Pell grants. 10. UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FRAUD -- A Las Vegas, Nev., man illegally collected at least $230,500 in fraudulent unemployment insurance benefits from four different states between September 1996 and November 1999. He set up 13 fake companies and submitted bogus claims based on false reported wages for 36 nonexistent claimants using the names and Social Security numbers of dead people, and then collected the claims by mail from California, Massachusetts, Texas and Nevada. ======================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh,, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: *Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends ======================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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