Do you recall the $8000 tax credit that we tax-payers funded for first-time home buyers that artificially improved the 2009 economic numbers, especially in housing starts? Well, according to a CNN report $28 million of those tax payer dollars were “improperly” spent. Now $28 million is not even a drop in the bucket when compared to our nearly $14 trillion dollar deficit, but it is symptomatic of the problem of every single government program in existence. It typifies the fraud, waste, and inefficiencies of the federal government. It is especially infuriating when such tax-payer money is spent on programs that the government has absolutely no constitutional basis in which to justify their involvement.To make matters even worse, $9 million out of that $28 million dollars of improperly allocated tax payer money went to help prison inmates with their first-time home buying credits. 241 of these inmates were incarcerated and serving life sentences. It would seem that originally there was no requirement for providing even basic documentation to the federal government that the $8000 dollar credit was ACTUALLY used to purchase a home.
The “problem” was corrected towards the end of the tax credit program when the government developed Form 5405 accordingly in January of this year. According to Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Mundaca the, “IRS has already begun to take additional steps to prevent fraud in the program.” The program ended in May of 2010.
Care to make any bets that the government will be on top of any “fraud” and “improperly allocated” money that will be spent with our wonderful new health care system?
