Maher revisits Hurricane Katrina and how this catastrophe alone highlights what is wrong with our government. Our country was offered $854 million in aid from allies and so-called enemies alike, much of which was declined or delayed by the US government. Only about $126 million was received, and only half of that was put to use. The Washington Post reports that only $40 million was used for disaster victims or reconstruction while most of the aid, including $400 million worth of oil, went uncollected. Valuable services and supplies were delayed, declined, or wasted.

In one exchange, State Department officials anguished over whether to tell Italy that its shipments of medicine, gauze and other medical supplies spoiled in the elements for weeks after Katrina’s landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and were destroyed. “Tell them we blew it,” one disgusted official wrote. But she hedged: “The flip side is just to dispose of it and not come clean. I could be persuaded.”

…And while television sets worldwide showed images of New Orleans residents begging to be rescued from rooftops as floodwaters rose, U.S. officials turned down countless offers of allied troops and search-and-rescue teams. The most common responses: “sent letter of thanks” and “will keep offer on hand,” the new documents show.

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download fileMaher asks if the decision to turn down aid was made for political or financial reasons. Either reason is completely unacceptable, but the latter is altogether more telling. The first program was a $66 million contract given to 10 faith-based charity groups which have so far assisted less than half the victims they promised to help. Sean Penn shares his own experience with the panel.

Here’s what the only real liberal running for president, Dennis Kucinich, said on the floor of the House during a hearing by the Committee on Government Reform:

“Contracts awarded have consistently been cost-plus and no-bid contracts, have lacked oversight and transparency, and have led to costly waste, fraud and abuse.

Despite the waste, fraud and abuse, which have been well documented by government oversight bodies, including this Committee, the federal government has refused to learn its lesson and change its contracting practices. The contracts handed out for Katrina relief and reconstruction were just as flawed as those for Homeland Security functions and Iraq reconstruction.

Halliburton, for example, which has been the target of investigations for robbing the American taxpayer blind in its Iraq contracts, was one of the first companies awarded no-bid contracts after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, to repair 3 different Navy facilities in Mississippi.”

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