Where did all of that COVID-19 aid money go?

 

Sweetheart Island, off the coast of Yankeetown, Fla., is seen on Aug. 5, 2023. While Patrick Parker Walsh’s private island ranks among the most unusual purchases by pandemic fraudsters, his crime was not unique. He is one of thousands of thieves who perpetrated the greatest grift in U.S. history. They potentially plundered more than $280 billion in federal COVID-19 aid; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. (AP Photo/Julio Aguilar)

An AP review of hundreds of pandemic fraud cases presents a picture of thieves and scam artists who spent lavishly on houses, luxury watches and diamond jewelry, Lamborghinis and other expensive cars. The stolen aid also paid for long nights at strip clubs, gambling sprees in Las Vegas and bucket-list vacations. (Read More)

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Rand Paul's "Festivus Report" reveals over $52.6 billion in government waste.

Press release,  December 22, 2021, WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chairman of the Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight (ETSO) Subcommittee for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), released his 2021 “Festivus” Report, totaling over $52,598,515,585 billion in government waste.

This marks Dr. Paul’s and the subcommittee’s seventh edition of the Festivus Report as he continues working to alert the American people to how their federal government uses their hard-earned money. 

Sections are broken down into COVID-19 spending, Afghanistan, and Miscellaneous.

You can find Dr. Paul’s 2021 Festivus Report HERE.

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2021 Pork Report: 12 Recipes for Government Waste, Fraud, and Abuse

The Beacon Center, December 15, 2021 - The Beacon Center is proud to release its “recipe book”
themed Tennessee Pork Report, revealing hundreds of millions of dollars in government waste, fraud, and abuse.

This year’s infamous Pork of the Year “winner” was Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS). MNPS entered into an $18 million no-bid contract with Meharry Medical College Ventures which produced a $1.8 million website with all the visual appeal and functionality of AskJeeves.com. Experts say this website should have cost no more than $75,000. 

As if the no-bid contract and lighting tax dollars on fire weren’t bad enough, at the same time the city of Nashville decided to shut down schools because in-person learning was too dangerous due to COVID, MNPS partnered with the YMCA to have…in-person learning for children of Metro School employees and students from K-5th grade.

Other 2021 Pork Report entries included:

• $702 million government-owned broadband plan in Knoxville, despite 98% of Knoxville residents having multiple choices in broadband internet.
• A $20 million (and counting) taxpayer gift to build a waterpark in Jackson.
• Davidson’s County continued “emissions testing” tax grab that was deemed unnecessary by both the state legislature and the EPA.
• Hamilton County’s $16 million purchase of nearly 2,200 acres to turn into a manufacturing hub, yet only about one-third of the land is ready for development.

The 2021 Pork Report comes from state and local budgets, media reports, state audits, and independent research conducted by Beacon Center staff and scholars. You can read the full report here.

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Pork of the Year: Over-Stuffed Baked Apples. Metro Nashville Public School's COVID Favoritism and $18 Million No-Bid Contract with Meharry Medical Ventures

 

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2021 Pork Report: Beale Street Irish Car Bombs. Billion Dollar Handout for Ford to Move to West Tennessee Megasite

 

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2021 Pork Report: Exhaust Smoked Ham with Nashville-Hot Honey Glaze. A Tax Dollar Grab through Outdated Emissions Testing

 

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2021 Pork Report: Garlic and Wild Leek Park-Boiled Potatoes. A Taxpayer-Funded Gift to the Construction of a Waterpark in Jackson

 

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2021 Pork Report: Air-Fryer Roasted Chestnuts. Shelby County Schools' $25 million Contract to Improve Air Quality.

 

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2021 Pork Report: Grab the Money and Go Snack Mix. Governor Lee's Program that Paid for Tourists to Visit Select Tennessee Cities

 

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2021 Pork Report: Nutty Theater Popcorn Balls. Clarksville's Decision to Pay for a Performing Arts Center and then Raise Property Taxes

 

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2021 Pork Report: Field Greens with Lemony Breadcrumbs. Hamilton County's $16 Million Purchase of Mostly Unusable Land

 

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Nashville has allocated $60 million for sidewalks. Only 3.5 miles of new sidewalks!!

Writing in The Tennessean today, reporter Mike Reicher reports the city allocated $30 million a year for each of the last two years for sidewalks and the city build only 3.5 miles of new sidewalks. You can read the story here.

"At that clip," says the writer, "it would take more than a millennium to line all of Nashville’s streets." The amount of new sidewalks built in the last two years it only slightly more than build in previous years at a lot less money. The article gives the city's officials and apologist an opportunity to explain the failure to build sidewalks but there is no good way to sugarcoat such a disastrous failure.

I knew we were spending a lot on sidewalks and I knew we weren't getting much for it but I had no idea we were doing such a poor job building new sidewalks.  I have seen perfectly serviceable sidewalks with only hairline cracks, sidewalks I walk on, on a regular basis, get ripped out and replaced.  I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea it was this bad.  

It seems impossible to waste that much money.  It seems like to waste that much money one would have to do it on purpose. This should be criminal. Mayor Barry should be impeached.  There should be a through investigation. If money was misappropriated someone should go to jail. The council should hold hearings and the public should be outraged.

Thanks to the Tennessean for exposing this waste. Now, what if anything will be done about it?

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Oink! 2014 Tennessee pork report documents $609M in taxpayer waste

By Chris Butler | Tennessee Watchdog, NASHVILLE — Tennessee officials wasted $609 million in taxpayer money last year, according to the 2014 Tennessee Pork Report, which a free market think tank released Wednesday. The Beacon Center of Tennessee releases the annual report every summer.

Beacon President Justin Owen said this year’s report reveals the highest amount of taxpayer waste in the publication’s nine-year history, which places blame on a large variety of state and local government entities.

PORK: Tennessee Tax Revolt President Ben Cunningham,
Beacon Center Policy DIrector Lindsay Boyd, and Beacon
President Justin Owen introduce the 2014 Pork
Report at a press conference Wednesday in Nashville.

So how do government officials traditionally behave when they make this infamous list? Do they show embarrassment or remorse or do they get mad and defensive?

“It’s a mix,” Owen told Tennessee Watchdog at a press conference Wednesday. “I would say some realize they’re making mistakes and have started to clean up their act, but others think it’s OK to do what they’re doing, particularly on the waste side when you’re talking about spending money on stupid projects or things that aren’t wise for taxpayers.”

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development is the recipient of this year’s “Pork of the Year,” after Owen said it handed out $200 million in wrongfully paid unemployment benefits. Felons, dead people and gainfully employed state workers were among the recipients, Owen said.

This year’s Pork Report also cites 16 Tennessee Watchdog stories written over the past year, including:

• Tourism taxes paying $30 million to convert the Memphis Pyramid structure into a new Bass Pro Shops retail store/resort.
• A $60 million contract state officials signed with an out-of-state marketing firm in Missouri to promote tourism in Tennessee.
• About $42 million in Tennessee Department of Transportation money for a swanky airport in Cleveland, specifically designated for the corporate jet crowd.
• About $302,000 to pay a Robin Williams movie, “Boulevard,” to shoot on location in Nashville, supposedly to market the city — even though the movie never once references where it takes place.
• $750,000 paid by the Metro Nashville Arts Commission for colored stick art in front of the new Music City Convention Center.

STUCK WITH THE STICKS?: An artists’ rendering of the 
sticks that will be placed in downtown Nashville, at
taxpayer expense, at a cost of $750,000.

The report also details how local governments and public utilities in Tennessee wasted $7.5 million more than they had last year and frequently bypassed competitive bidding requirements.

In the report, Beacon staff members recommend their own solutions to taxpayer waste, including establishing independent commissions that would analyze the state budget line by line.
“At the local level, officials can create audit committees to analyze their budgets, maintain sufficient rainy day funds, impose debt disclosure requirements for taxpayers and overhaul financial management systems altogether,” Owen said.

Thanks to Tennessee Watchdog for permission to reprint this article. 

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Top 10 Ways Congress Wasted Your Money in 2013

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Congressman Phil Roe: 100 Reasons to Cut Spending

by Congressman Phil Roe, M.D. 1st District Tennessee,

Each year, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) releases a Wastebook. This document lists 100 projects that are questionable uses of taxpayer dollars. Now that the House and Senate have agreed on a plan to avoid future government shutdowns and reduce the deficit by $23 billion, it’s time we go a step further and look at each line item in the federal budget to identify waste, fraud and abuse. Senator Coburn’s report identifies nearly $30 billion in savings—a useful first step toward lowering our $17 trillion debt. While you might be able to debate the merits of certain projects listed in the senator’s report, there are projects listed that are undoubtedly a waste of tax dollars.  

Just a few of these projects include:

• A home loan program backed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that helped more than 100 individuals purchase a residence in Hawaii.
•  A $100 million endeavor at the National Endowment of the Humanities intended to “explore the fascinating, often contradictory origins and influences of popular romance as told in novels, films, comics, advice books, song and internet fan fiction”.
• A tax deduction for brothels in Nevada totaling roughly $17.5 million.
• At least $379 million spent to promote Obamacare and fix HealthCare.gov.
• Salary and benefits for the Fort Hood shooter.
• $3.5 million on solar panels at Manchester-Boston airport that were eventually covered because the glare was dangerous to pilots and controllers.
• $630,000 to increase Facebook likes for the State Department

There is no question that tax dollars should be not used to research romance novels, provide tax relief to brothels or increase likes on social media sites. And before the government invests in things like solar panels, which can help lower costs in some cases, we should be researching all possible outcomes to ensure that 3.5 million tax dollars aren’t wasted on an investment that will not work because of safety concerns.

Still, many liberals argue that the only way to cut our debt is to raise taxes on the “wealthy” to make sure everyone is paying their “fair share”. A new report released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, however, found that the top 40 percent of earners pay 106 percent of individual income taxes. How is that possible?  It’s because there are so many so-called “refundable” tax benefits that are guaranteed in full to the beneficiary, regardless of whether they have any income tax liability.

The truth is: we don’t have a revenue problem in this country, we have a spending problem, and the only way to get our country’s fiscal house back in order is to stop spending money we don’t have. Senator Coburn’s report identifies billions of dollars in savings potential, and now that we’ve returned to regular order in the budgeting process, I look forward to taking a hard look at the budget and fighting to eliminate frivolous government spending.  

Feel free to contact my office if we can be of assistance to you or your family. Our contact information can be found on our website, www.roe.house.gov.

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Former head of the Upper Cumberland Development District indited

If you recall the story of Wendy Askins, she was the head of the Upper Cumberland Development District who was supposed to help the poor, but she helped herself.  As part of what was supposed to be an assisted living facility for elderly, she build a luxuriously mansion for herself. She boarded her horses on the site and claimed they were therapeutic animals. She had family on the payroll. The level of fraud and theft she committed is unbelievable. She has finally been indited. I hope she goes to jail for a very long time. I will be disappointed if she gets a slap on the wrist. Read the story here.

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Questionable Contracts State Rental Car Bills Riddled With Questionable Charges

Anti-Tax leader Ben Cunningham is featured in this story.
NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather 

by Phil Williams, Chief  Investigative Reporter, NASHVILLE, Tenn, Jun 03, 2013 - An exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation has discovered some state agencies may be paying more to rent cars than they should. But the company behind the contract to outsource the state's motor pool insisted that it's not the one responsible for the questionable charges.

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New TN office of 'repealer' would target useless or unreasonable laws to sweep away

TN Lawmakers Create Office of the Repealer to Shrink Government

By Blue Collar Muse- Tennessee state GOP lawmakers Representative Glen Casada and Senator Jack Johnson, both from Franklin, announced they have filed HB 500 and SB 595 to modify the TCA and create the Office of the Repealer.

Under the direction of the Office of Tennessee’s Secretary of State, Tre Hargett, the Office of the Repealer would be tasked with “Investigating and collecting information regarding the state’s laws and rules and regulations to determine instances in which such laws and rules and regulations are unreasonable, unduly burdensome, duplicative, contradictory or unnecessary;”  Casada, Johnson propose 'repealer' to cut state laws

The Tennessean ‎- by Chas Sisk ‎

Glen Casada and state Sen. Jack Johnson, both Franklin Republicans, have filed a bill that would create an Office of the Repealer, whose job ..

My Comment: This is the kind of creative thinking we need to shrink government. Thank you to Glen Casada and Jack Johnson. This is a good start. Next, we need a process to systematically review every license or permit issued by State government to determine if they are necessary and if they are, are the requirements and cost reasonable or excessive. I would start with training for beautician. To protect me from a bad haircut why does the government require hair stylist spend thousands of dollars and two years in training. A bad haircut will grow out.  

The State government should also look at prohibiting local governments from passing laws that unduly regulate, license or fix prices. Metro Nashville's limo price fixing is the kind of law that the State should not allow. The Republicans have a super majority: use it.

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How to profit from a disaster

From the Heritage Foundation:

Today, the Senate will begin debating a bill that was supposed to be disaster recovery funds for those devastated by the storm. But so many special-interest projects were added on that the $60.4 billion request has turned into a farce. Roughly $28 billion of the request is marked for future disaster-mitigation projects.

It includes:

• $200 million for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to be used freely at the discretion of the Secretary;


• Money for salmon fisheries in Alaska; and


• $2 million for roof repairs at the Smithsonian.

The bill also seeks federal funding for things that are provided on a state and local level, or by nonprofits and communities, such as food for food banks.

 “Removing unnecessary items from the Administration’s request yields a reduced request of $12.8 billion in supplemental funds. These funds should be provided only after being offset by spending reductions.”

Using the excuse of a national disaster to fund roof repairs for the Smithsonian is almost enough to make one cynical, isn't it. 

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Vote now in the 2012 Lump of Coal Award poll! | Beacon Center of Tennessee

Who is the most irresponsible and/or wasteful public figure?

Vote now in the 2012 Lump of Coal Award poll! | Beacon Center of Tennessee www.beacontn.org Help Beacon award its annual dubious distinction to the person or group who, more than any other ove... The candidates are: Finalist #1: Wendy Askins, Upper Cumberland Development District Finalist #2: Nashville Mayor Karl Dean Finalist #3: Chattanooga Electric Power Board Finalist #4: Former Davidson County Clerk John Arriola  Wow! some good choices. As much as I would like to vote for Dean or Arriola, I think I am going to have to go with Wendy Askins. I followed that story closely and also read the Investigative Audit Report.  The cynical abuse of authority and thievery in that case is appalling and just unbelievable. She lived the opulent lifestyle at tax payers expense taking money intended for poor elderly. I am going to have to vote for Wendy Askins.  Rod

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