News coverage today is filled with talk of the U. S. House of Representatives passage of $50 billion in “recovery” for states impacted by Hurricane Sandy. It would be great to see some enterprising media outlet use this as an opportunity to really get behind the details of this kind of government spending, instead of just covering the political back and forth that is commonplace in any government action today.
Reading the bill, you see some fairly exact dollar amounts going toward specific programs. It would be nice to see the media answer some of the following:
- Who determined the exact amounts deligated toward all the categories listed?
- How is the money getting spent? Track it down to say amounts of $1,000.
- There are a lot of reporting requirements listed in this law. Who is going to read these reports and do what?
I’m sure those more familiar with politics and government spending will say the details in this law are standard for disaster relief. That is part of the problem with how our government spends money today. A disaster happens, we rush to spend money, then starting at some point after the government checks start flowing reports of fraud, scams and such start rolling in. This is our money being spent and I for one think we need to start getting a lot more accountability of where the money is actually going.
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