Wednesday, January 05, 2011

At least creating a redundant commission will create jobs, right? (Publicus Proventus)


Wisconsin's Head Cheerleader Patsy Walker-- who by now has been in office 56 hours, so we should have 392+ new jobs already -- continues his mission to make sure that all his businessmen buddies get on the government payroll by creating a commission to root out government waste and fraud. The commission, which will include three people handpicked by Patsy, will be chaired by "a representative of the private employers designated by the Governor."

While Patsy's order included a list of areas that the Commission should look at for fraud, the list appears to misstate or misconstrue some "findings," such as the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau's report on "Wisconsin Shares." Patsy's order says that

According to a report by the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau, fraud in the Wisconsin Shares child care program cost the state $20 million in 2008 due to problems like illegal immigrants receiving compensation and false child care logs.

That oversimplifies the report, and doesn't note that only ONE PERCENT of the people in the program were illegal immigrants, and also doesn't note that Walker's commission is now the second one looking into this: Back in 2009, the State already formed a Task Force to look into the issue of fraud in the Wisconsin Shares program.

So if I may be so bold as to suggest an additional area of inquiry for Patsy's Fraud Commission, I would point them to looking at government waste caused by creating redundant, useless commissions designed to give businessmen buddies jobs.

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