Just look at what $600,000 of taxpayer money will get you.
The Homeland Security Department spent $600,000 apiece to build houses in Arizona that would have gone for less than $100,000, according to a report in the Arizona Republic that’s raising questions in Congress. […]
The Republic said Homeland Security built 21 homes and bought 20 other mobile homes for $15 million. Comparable homes go for between $70,000 and $100,000, the paper said. The homes were build to be rented to border agents and officers.
Homeland Security officials repeatedly refused to answer the newspaper’s questions about the project, the Republic said.
Homeland Security officials repeatedly refused to answer the newspaper’s questions
Mostest Transparent Administration EVAH!!
(In the sense of “we can see right through you” )
Just when you think The Gooberment could not become more repugnant. It does….
“It is unwise to attribute to malice alone that which can be attributed to malice and stupidity.”
I’m going to make a wild guess that a lot of AZ DHS officials have recently completed renovations on their homes. Coincidentally, of course.
Drumwaster’s Retort to Hanlon’s Razor™ is almost as wise as mine.
Awwwww… *blush*
[…] Darleen Click noted that Free markets and greedy private citizens could never build a house like The State can. […]
I’m sure these $600k homes were built for under $100k too.
After you discount the union labor markups,
kickbackserr… donations to political parties as well as local and state politicians, and the little bit extra the contractors carved out for themselves.What I want to know is whether or not that $600k figure includes the added expense to the government bidding process.
OT: Jeff, something in the left sidebar is causing page loading to hang for several seconds. My status bar says “Waiting for thefire.org,” and once the FIRE sticker loads everything else loads right up. And when I tried going to TheFire.org it didn’t want to load, either.
Is anyone else having this trouble? I’m using OpenDNS these days instead of my ISP’s DNS.
McGehee – I am having this trouble as well. No changes to DNS.
No hanging for me but the left side overlaps the center by 3 characters.
Is anyone else having this trouble?
It was hanging for me (about 9 seconds) but is no longer.
It’s passed for me too. I wonder if someone was making a very lame attempt to DoS TheFire.org
If some of the supplies and labor weren’t diverted to other off-the-books projects (like a DHS official’s kitchen renovation), I would bet that DHS was intentionally overcharged, and then the supplier/laborer split that extra charges with their DHS contact. This scam was very common in the DC public school system (e.g. purchase 10 fax machines from a friend/relative’s business that are worth $100 each, but charged $400 each).
Libby: That’s terrible! Someone should make that illegal, so it never happens again. :)
It’s the “Chicago Way” except that the government employees are heavily armed and can spy on you at will.
Kinda like the Stasi.