Another lesson is learned from Katrina

For those who argue the federal government has not done enough for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, it now appears the government may have done too much. At least 70,000 households in Louisiana alone improperly received almost $310 million in federal assistance, according to a new report. Some of the improper payments resulted from the chaotic period following the hurricane and other improper payments were because of fraud.

But the estimate thus far may fall far below the actual amount of improper payments. When the paperwork was audited, investigators found over 162,000 homes that did not even exist before the storm had applied for and received more than $1 billion in improper or illegal payments.

In hundreds of neighborhoods, the government paid out relief money to more homes than actually existed in those areas. The feds blame many of the mistakes on the confusion but they also say fraud was widespread, too.

Ladietha Hall and 10 others, including her mother, filed fraudulent applications for damaged property. Hall had never lived in Louisiana but received $65,000 in disaster aid.

Nakia Grimes of Atlanta also filed for assistance over the Internet. Her home address in New Orleans was actually a post office box. But she still received over $6,000.

In a rush to meet the needs of those displaced residents, the federal government wrote checks and issued debit cards to virtually anyone who applied. Fraud was rampant and it's only now that the full story is emerging.

In one New Orleans neighborhood, the federal government gave grants to nearly 28,000 homeowners. Trouble is, there were only 18,950 actual homes in that neighborhood. That amounts to another $98 million in fraud.

The troubling aspect of this story to me is that those politicians and activists who blamed the Bush administration for their slow response have yet to say a word about the fraud and illegal payments to thousands upon thousands of Gulf Coast residents. If the federal government is indeed to blame for that response then surely the residents who lied should shoulder some of the blame as well. But I doubt you'll hear that side of the story on the campaign trail.

It's well past time we should close the book on Katrina. Hopefully, the federal government has learned a lesson on how to handle a disaster of this scope. And the American people have learned a lesson on greed and the ugly side of human nature.