BloggeRhythms

Stephen Dinan writes on washingtontimes.com that, “The government paid out $124.7 billion in potentially bogus payments last year, the government’s chief watchdog said Monday, blaming a controversial tax credit for the poor as well as increased bad payments in Medicare and Medicaid.”

 

When the Social Security Administration admitted last week that its rolls are filled with names of more than 6 million folks who are listed as 112 years of age or older, the Government Accountability Office said “Social Security has trouble maintaining the Death Master File, and other agencies have difficulties in getting the information to update their own files and halt payments to those no longer alive to collect benefits.”

 

Most interesting, however, was a particular case showing how being improperly listed on the Death Master File can cause nightmares. Judy C. Rivers, a woman who has twice been erroneously listed, was denied for jobs, rejected for apartments and forced to live in her car.

 

While it took Ms Rivers four years to clear up enough of the problems that she was able to be approved for a credit card again, Social Security’s inspector general said a 2008 investigation found more than 20,000 people were wrongly listed in the death file.

 

GAO investigators report that Social Security paid out a little more than $8 billion in improper payments last year with the supplemental security income program having a 9.2 percent error rate. The retirement benefits program had a much smaller error rate of four-tenths of a percent.

 

“The biggest problems, however, came at Medicare, whose basic fee-for-service program paid out $45.8 billion in improper payments, or nearly 13 percent of its outlays, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, which botched 27.2 percent of its payments, for a total of $17.7 billion.”

 

The reported losses are staggering, and no private business of any kind could survive after committing even an iota of similar financial mismanagement. However, this administration has no qualms about placing the health and welfare of citizens in the hands of some of the basest incompetents walking the earth, giving them financial control of the health care tax.  

 

Today’s update on Bill Clinton’s wife comes from Ian Hanchett in breitbart.com, who writes: “National Journal Senior Political Columnist and Editorial Director, Ron Fournier, said that Democrats are “scared to death” over the scandals regarding donations to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s emails on Monday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel. 

 

Echoing the point often made here, “Earlier, Fournier said that the Clinton Foundation’s acceptance of Chinese donations is “a big issue. There’s a lot of other ways the Chinese government, and the Saudis, and the [Qataris] — there are other ways that they can help the world if that’s what they want to do. They’re giving their money to the Clinton Foundation for a reason. They want something out of it. So I know, what I really want to see in these e-mails is any e-mail that mentions the Foundation and mentions one of the donors.”

 

And, much like yesterday’s entry here, Fournier also commented on James Carville, however, in a different context regarding Bill’s wife’s emails. 

 

Apparently, Fournier argued that “what Carville did is give up the goods. What he admitted was that this was not a matter of convenience, which is what the Secretary said. He admitted that the reason she did this was so she didn’t have to comply with the oversight of the House, and –and with the natural laws of transparency. He gave up the goods. He sold her out.”

 

So, here we have someone quite well connected to what goes on in DC, and particularly, the Democrat party. And if someone like Ron Fournier's projecting trouble ahead for Bill Clinton’s wife, you can safely bet that he’s most probably right about it.

 

That's it for today folks.

 

Adios