This is how they dismantle the government

1) Hire an unqualified crony to run a major government department. Cut funding if possible.

2) Ignore a national emergency until it becomes too severe to deal with.

3) Minimize oversight of the agency's work.

4) Watch as chaos ensues.

5) Gravely announce the elimination of the department because it isn't doing its job effectively.

So far this plan is working smashingly in the case of FEMA, the agency led by "Brownie" that took much of the fall for last year's hurricane response.

Today comes what will undoubtedly be the final nail in FEMA's coffin -- a report on the sweeping abuse of funds in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:

Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion.

A hotel owner in Sugar Land, Tex., has been charged with submitting $232,000 in bills for phantom victims. And roughly 1,100 prison inmates across the Gulf Coast apparently collected more than $10 million in rental and disaster-relief assistance.

[Note: Sugar Land is Tom DeLay's hometown. They sure grow good Christian Americans down there, don't they?]

There are the bureaucrats who ordered nearly half a billion dollars worth of mobile homes that are still empty, and renovations for a shelter at a former Alabama Army base that cost about $416,000 per evacuee.

And there is the Illinois woman who tried to collect federal benefits by claiming she watched her two daughters drown in the rising New Orleans waters. In fact, prosecutors say, the children did not exist.

The tally of ignoble acts linked to Hurricane Katrina, pulled together by The New York Times from government audits, criminal prosecutions and Congressional investigations, could rise because the inquiries are under way. Even in Washington, a city accustomed to government bloat, the numbers are generating amazement.

"The blatant fraud, the audacity of the schemes, the scale of the waste — it is just breathtaking," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Such an outcome was feared soon after Congress passed the initial hurricane relief package, as officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross acknowledged that their systems were overwhelmed and tried to create new ones on the fly.

"We did, in fact, put into place never-before-used and untested processes," Donna M. Dannels, acting deputy director of recovery at FEMA, told a House panel this month. "Clearly, because they were untested, they were more subject to error and fraud."

Officials in Washington say they recognized that a certain amount of fraud or improper payments is inevitable in any major disaster, as the government's mission is to rapidly distribute emergency aid. They typically send out excessive payments that represent 1 percent to 3 percent of the relief distributed, money they then ask people to give back.

What was not understood until now was just how large these numbers could become.

The estimate of up to $2 billion in fraud and waste represents nearly 11 percent of the $19 billion spent by FEMA on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as of mid-June, or about 6 percent of total money that has been obligated.

"This started off as a disaster-relief program, but it turned into a cash cow," said Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, a former federal prosecutor and now chairman of a House panel investigating storm waste and fraud.

I'm taking bets on how long it's going to take Congressional Republicans to call for the elimination of FEMA because of this waste, fraud and abuse. These calls are likely to be met with applause from the kind of sheeple who equate "government spending" with "welfare."

Unfortunately, THIS kind of government spending, the kind that happens when you privatize government functions, doesn't seem to matter to them:

• $213 million in overcharges by Kellogg, Brown and Root for importing fuel into Iraq.
  
• A contractor who paid $2 million in bribes in order to steer $8.6 million in Iraq contracts to his business.
  
• The company Custer Battles being handed $2 million of government funds in shrink-wrapped bundles of $100 bills.
  
• Halliburton giving >polluted water and expired food to American troops.
  

As the Baltimore Chronicle asks,

So where are these watchdogs when it comes to waste in Iraq and Afghanistan? Are they investigating favored contractors making billions for work not performed, or shoddily performed? (See the links below) What about wartime contractors who bill the American public for work not requested? Yes, it all adds up to fraud in the billions, but I see no congressional rush to call these people into account.

Clearly, it’s a bit safer politically to chase down Katrina fraud than to take on corrupt contractors in Iraq, who figure among the top Republican Party donors. So brace yourself for more accounts of FEMA debit card abuse. You can count on it. But are those antics really responsible for $1.4 billion in Katrina fraud? Think about it. Who’s doing the rebuilding, the heavy lifting at New Orleans redux ground zero? Why, it’s Halliburton, and a handful of other names very familiar amongst certain fund-raising circles. So you can be sure the libatious habits of aid recipients are going to continue to be the main focus of any congressional investigation into Katrina fraud. Overbilling and waste by the President’s supporters will be reported by only a handful of brave media outlets.

Among the first companies to receive Katrina reconstruction contracts were those with close Bush-Cheney ties: Bechtel, Shaw Group, and Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root. Meanwhile, a Congressional report from a committee convened by Sen. Frank Lautenberg shows that Dick Cheney still has significant financial interest in Halliburton, with stock options that increased 3281% in just one year.

But has this report received much press? Hardly. Instead we get the above-cited New York Times article reframed in Jeb Bush's state with a new, even more inflammatory headline.

Ronald Reagan used to say that the most frightening words in the English language was "I'm with the government, and I'm here to help." I'd say that "I'm with Halliburton, and I'm here to help" is far scarier -- particularly because Halliburton is unlikely to even show up, because its bosses are on the golf course with Cheney, counting their government largesse.