Judicial Watch » stimulus

$4 Mil To House 12 Homeless People

akajas — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 17:04:40 +0000

In an example of how government at every level wastes tax dollars, one U.S. county is spending around $4 million in combined federal and local funds to house a dozen homeless people in an affluent community.That translates into more than $330,000 per person, which means that Uncle Sam might as well buy them each their own, fully furnished house. After all, the median single-family home in the U.S. costs around $172,000 so the government could also throw in a few years worth of utility bills and even groceries.Instead officials in Bethesda Maryland will spend the money to operate a three-story apartment building, operated by the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission, that will house 12 homeless adults. The facility will have six studio and six one-bedroom apartments as well as a gym and computer center, according to the local newspaper (Washington Examiner) that exposed the costly project this week.A chunk of the money—$1 million—will come from President Obama’s fraud-infested stimulus, which has proven to be a disastrous waste of public funds. Judicial Watch has reported on the many scandals involving the president’s $787 billion plan to jumpstart the economy and put Americans back to work. Much of the money has gone to companies that have cheated the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes and a series of wasteful projects.Last summer a scathing U.S. Senate report revealed that tens of millions of stimulus dollars went to frivolous projects like international ant research, to study why monkeys react negatively to inequity and a “tunnel to nowhere” in Pennsylvania. The same probe discovered that recovery funds also bought state-of-the-art cell phones for low-income smokers trying to quit, fancy digital music players for high school students in one state and advertising to promote the stimulus.What’s another million so homeless folks can live in an upscale neighborhood? Besides the stimulus cash, Montgomery County’s new homeless digs are being financed by an additional $944,829 in county housing funds and $2.1 million in state low-income housing tax credits.

Tax Cheats That Owe Millions Get Obama Stimulus Cash

akajas — Tue, 24 May 2011 14:54:26 +0000

In the latest outrage involving President Obama’s disastrous stimulus, a federal probe has determined that thousands of companies that got cash under the fraud-infested program have cheated the government out of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.At least 3,700 recipients of stimulus money owe Uncle Sam more than $750 million in taxes, according to a report published this week by the investigative arm of Congress known as the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The recipients got a combined $24 billion in Recovery Act funds, according the probe, which also found that more than a dozen likely committed crimes.The offenders include individuals, businesses and other entities. Examples listed in the report include a security firm that owed more than $9 million in payroll taxes when it got $100,000 in stimulus funds, a healthcare nonprofit that received over $100,000 despite bailing on $4 million in payroll taxes and a construction firm that got around $1 million even though it owed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over $700,000.The taxpayer dollars were carelessly disbursed with little scrutiny as part of Obama’s $787 billion plan to jumpstart the economy and put Americans back to work. Instead, the stimulus has been rife with fraud and corruption that’s been well documented in various federal, news and congressional reports. Tens of billions of dollars have gone to wasteful projects, including $5 billion for a “weatherization” program to make low-income houses energy efficient, $20 million to buy road signs claiming the stimulus is “putting Americans back to work” and $3 million for a Florida turtle crossing.Last summer a scathing U.S. Senate report revealed that tens of millions of stimulus dollars went to frivolous projects like international ant research, to study why monkeys react negatively to inequity and a “tunnel to nowhere” in Pennsylvania. The same probe discovered that recovery funds also bought state-of-the-art cell phones for low-income smokers trying to quit, fancy digital music players for high school students in one state and advertising to promote the stimulus.In the meantime, unemployment remains at record highs and the economy has definitely not been revived as Obama promised when he sold Americans on his so-called recovery plan.

IRS pays $513 Mil In Bogus Credits Under Stimulus

akajas — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:27:22 +0000

Weeks after a government audit revealed that the Internal Revenue Service doled out $33 million in fraudulent electric-car tax credits, a separate probe says the agency paid out over half a billion dollars to “homebuyers” who didn’t qualify.It’s simply the latest of many blunders for the perpetually troubled government agency that’s awarded prison inmates tens of millions of dollars in bogus tax refunds in the past decade. Last year alone, more than a quarter of a million prisoners filed tax returns with the IRS and nearly 50,000 claimed more than $130 million in refunds without bothering to report wage information, according to the Treasury Inspector General.Last month the Treasury IG, the IRS’s watchdog, found that the Obama Administration’s aggressive push to reward consumers who buy costly “advanced-technology” vehicles resulted in rampant corruption because claims were automatically granted without scrutiny. In many cases the lucrative tax credit—worth up to $7,500—was awarded to gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles and even a bicycle. Some people got multiple tax cuts for the same vehicle and dozens of prisoners received nearly $50,000 in alternative vehicle credits even though they were behind bars.This month’s audit du jour says the IRS has dished out more than $513 million in credits to unscrupulous filers who claimed first-time homebuyer exemptions of up to $8,000 as part of Obama’s disastrous stimulus plan. A chunk of the money—about $326 million—went to nearly 50,000 people who already owned a home, the Treasury IG found. Nearly $8 million in credits went to more than 1,000 prison inmates and about $98 million to 13,400 taxpayers who never even bought homes.Even some IRS employees who didn’t qualify for the first-time homebuyer refund received it. In its report, the Treasury IG makes a rather simple suggestion that’s perhaps too common sense for the IRS; require taxpayers to provide documentation to support eligibility for all refundable tax credits. Here’s another good recommendation from the agency’s watchdog; that the IRS deny refundable credits when supporting documentation is not provided.