Fraud, Waste & Abuse
Finding any fraud, waste or abuse in the government, whether on the state, local or national level is probably rather easy. The problem comes when you try to deal with it.
Fraud is punishable by law and should be eliminated and prosecuted. The blame game starts and the distractions begin to swirl when accusations are made. Meanwhile, after long court volleys back and forth the accused is just a scapegoat for the designer, a government appointed or elected official with ties to the money in a way only the forensic accountants can ascertain. The policy allowing the fraud is defended for humanitarian reasons and the circus continues.
Waste is no stranger to the government. Find a system ran be bureaucrats and there will be waste. They have now need to be concerned with costs and expenses over budgeted. They are assigned a task to be done with plans made up and adjusted on the fly. It's an emergency situation that needs urgent and immediate response, no matter the cost. In the meantime, as the plan is being formulated by those who have no idea what needs to be done, they hire people to figure out what can be done and then hire more people to manage the people who need to figure out the results of what may be done. If a business, of any kind, worked the way a government agency works, they would not be in business. However, since the government somehow deemed it necessary, the entity goes on, it is not important if it is successful or not.
Abuse is simply the combination of fraud and waste. Since there is an agency mandated by the government to accomplish much of nothing then how much of nothing can we accomplish in favor of one's own agenda. How far can one go by extending the overreach of the organization and making sure it is deemed essential in its scope and nature. At some point, the result is simply abusing the purpose of the agency in order to secure a source of support, electorally or financially.
We think of fraud, waste and abuse in the agencies or departments of government. I propose that congress itself is full of it also. The longer one serves the people in an elected role, the more fraudulent one gets to maintain the position. The initial intent of running has long been accomplished and now some are just wasting our time as well as theirs. And once again, combine long terms of fraudulent claims for election with wasteful use of words in unnecessary bills and it equals a severe abuse of the electors and of the constitution.
