Quote Of The Day: What Clunker Fraud? Edition

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

Cash for Clunkers was set up very quickly, and there hasn’t been an accounting of the administrative costs of the program. There also hasn’t been publicly available information about how contractors were picked to process the thousands of transactions that the program generated… My concern is the waste, fraud and abuse that may have resulted from the vulnerabilities that can come with such a quick start.

Senator Chuck Grassley sticks it to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, in a letter requesting a full accounting of the cash for clunker program. The DOT was all over fraudulent commercial practices during C4C, but this is the first investigation into possible fraud or overruns on the administration side. Why Grassley waited until now to look into this doesn’t exactly compute, but it will still be interesting to see the results of the audit. After all, could it even be possible that the government spent $3b in a matter of weeks on a consumer incentive without fraud of some kind taking place?

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Jimmy7 Jimmy7 on Jan 06, 2010

    Grassley's had 8 years to call for an investigation of missing pallets of cash that disappeared in Iraq. Now he's worried about this? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1

  • Robert.Walter Robert.Walter on Jan 06, 2010

    Probably too busy setting up the next fraud to check into the last fraud.

  • John Horner John Horner on Jan 07, 2010

    Yeah, a car dealer's sales manager is the one to talk about keeping it clean and simple. Harumph. As far as Grassley's political posturing is concerned ... that is all it is. Have a look at Grassley's earmark requests and then ask yourself how many of those pet projects have been exhaustively audited for possible fraud. http://www.legistorm.com/earmarks/details/member/45/Sen_Chuck_Grassley/page/1/sort/amount/type/desc.html

  • Ernie Ernie on Jan 07, 2010

    Ed, it's usually customary to indicate (D) or (R) when mentioning someone in Congress. This is, to the best of understanding, to clarify HOW they're screwing you over (from the left or from the right) :D :D :D Honestly, as to "why now?" - it's clear, whatever side he's on: To distract us from something else . . . no one inside is going to point it out without having a vested agenda. Everything I needed to know about politics, I learned from James Stewart (and Eddie Murphy)

    • Steven02 Steven02 on Jan 07, 2010
      Ed, it’s usually customary to indicate (D) or (R) when mentioning someone in Congress. This is, to the best of understanding, to clarify HOW they’re screwing you over (from the left or from the right) :D :D :D I know it is a little early, but that might just be the quote of the year.
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