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Houston woman who exposed scam still waits for repairs(hc)
Why does it seem that some of the best examples of government waste come from Texas?

This one is not even a surprise. The government comes up with a plan to help people repair their homes after hurricanes and whatnot. As in any situation where the government is giving out money to help the taxpayers, it goes through a series of shady groups and organizations who are generous enough to spend some time skimming cash off the top.

This time they did it by quoting the price of 2 roofs on one house, 500 feet of sewer main to get 50 feet, etc. etc. After getting paid for the quote, they (poorly) installed the 1 roof, the 50 feet of main, etc. etc. As it turns out, over half of the jobs quoted were quoted for the exact maximum allowable under the plan. There are several other pretty obvious indications of swindling going on.

The government and its various investigative arms still can't figure out where the missing money went, who got a little richer on taxpayers behalf. The FBI claims to still be investigating, but had no comment. The city of Houston decided that the best way to handle this situation was to not pursue the investigation at all and to just give a bunch of cash back to the Fed. They stated that it is better to invest the money into fixing the repairs of the shoddy workmanship than it is to spend money investigating the crimes. I imagine someone in the government had a specific reason for being concerned about having an investigation into the scheme. Wouldn't want that probe to lead back to him or her...

In fact, if it wasn't for the hero of the story, Marsha Farmer, the government would have kept on giving away your hard earned dollars. She's the one that had the 2 roofs quoted. Because she had the audacity to try to get the government to look into it, she still hasn't had her house repaired 8 years later.

Read the article for more details. Its pretty run of the mill scam the system stuff. You know, so long as you're a contractor with connections in the government.

THIS is whyipaytaxes.