White House reports billions of improper payments in 2009

[Poll_Blind]

Source: CNN

The federal government made $98 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2009, and President Obama will issue an executive order in coming days to combat the problem, his budget director announced Tuesday.

The 2009 total for improper payments -- from outright fraud to misdirected reimbursements due to factors such as an illegible doctor's signature -- was a 37.5 percent increase over the $72 billion in 2008, according to figures provided by Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

In an evening media briefing, Orszag was unable to provide an overall figure for what percentage of the bad payments was due to fraud. He also lacked a breakdown on how much of the total improper payments involved spending on Obama's $787 billion economic recovery package passed in February.

Orszag said the executive order coming in the next week will promote transparency, strengthen accountability and provide incentives to improve the government payment process, Orszag said.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/18/government.improper.payments/index.html

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I had to highlight that number. $98 Billion. Read the whole article. Damn.

[SpiralHawk]

1. Is this another sloppy spillover from the Bush-Cheney Republicon crony era?

It sure smells like typical republicon fail & steal & rot...

[zbdent]

2. Gee ... ya think the gutting of personnel for reviewing waste

might have resulted in the fact that so much fraud was missed because the few people left to catch it were overworked and understaffed? I wonder if a hundred more people hired to help investigate claims might have saved the U.S. $97,995,000,000?

[frazzled]

3. How come we never heard of $78 billion in improper payments in 2008?

It wasn't a story because the previous administration never talked about such things, I assume. And if the WH didn't mention it, it wasn't a story to reporters.

So this is a story because this administration is trying to do something about it.

[Abq_Sarah]

7. It was 72 billion

In 2008 compared to 98 billion (37.5% increase) for this year. I'm sure, somewhere, there's a listing of the last decade or so and I'd be willing to bet it showed a gradual increase (with occasional spikes) over the last 10 years. It doesn't surprise me that there was a big spike this year with a new President elected.

This kind of crap isn't ever going to stop until the contractors and the government officials winking and lining their pockets are all prosecuted.

[frazzled]

8. That wasn't my point

The Obama administration is vowing to crack down on this kind of mismanagement of funds. Which makes the mismanagement of funds an actual story. It was not a story during the Bush administration.
I don't really care whether it was $72 or $78 or what the percentage increase was this year (we were paying out billions more in unemployment benefits and Medicaid because of the recession). I also don't care whether they technically reported on it during the Bush administration (I assume they did). The question is, why didn't they try to do something about the misdirected payments?

I was asking a question about the media, and how it comes to report on things.

[valerief]

4. I wonder how many pallets that money fits on. nt

[Wizard777]

5. This is very good. We have got to make sure every dollar counts.

Every vote should count and every dollar should count too. That's the absolute best way to maximize the true power of the government. Not some dumb knee jerk Constitution gutting laws.

[madrchsod]

6. here is a little known fact

private insurance and contractors have done the paperwork for medicare since day one.