Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Criminal Probes into Bailout Funds

Why am I not suprised. The LA Times reports that there are 20 different criminal probes ongoing of corruption in the $750 billion financial bailout program. The probes are looking into securities fraud, insider trading, tax violations and other crimes.

Unfortunately, there should be no surprise to the statement that TARP funds were "inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse" but why is that? Why couldn't the government, with all its resources, and 750 billion dollars at risk, take steps to insure accountability and the safety of those funds. Is the government really this dumb?

And why is the intelligence of the government becoming a recurring question. The taxpayers are becoming more and more disenchanted with our government leaders, with the constant "mistakes" and mis-steps that have led us into this recession, and which may very well have allowed billions of dollars to be wasted.

Prosecute the criminals, get the money back, of course. But what about the accountability of the politicans and federal staffers who allowed this to happen?

Is there any accountability for this nonsense?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-tarp-fraud21-2009apr21,0,2443377.story?track=rss