Thursday, October 29, 2009

The $8,000 fraud for beginners

And it wasn't entrapment. It's as though the government really intended the $8,000 housing credit to be so easy to steal. Not since we saw Katrina "victims" shopping at high end stores for designer purses have we seen such chaos in a government program. According to testimony:
  • 19,000 filers for the $8,000 tax credit hadn't purchased a home
  • 74,000 filers (for $500 million in credits) weren't first time buyers
  • The refundable tax credit was even for those who don't pay any taxes
  • Required very little documentation
  • 53 of the criminal filers were IRS employees [following in Geithner's footsteps?]
  • Congress plans to extend this abusive, wasteful, chaotic plan. . .because?
  • It costs $1 billion a month, $15 billion so far this year
  • It drives capital into homes instead of other investments which could help restore the economy
  • It hasn't boosted sales--most of the buyers (the honest ones) would have bought a home anyway
  • It delays housing prices returning to "normal"
See today's Wall Street Journal for confirmation.

Oh, and that IRS employee story? Broken by Fox Business channel.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Murray sez:
Doesn't matter what you or Fox says, our legislators have labeled the program a tremendous success. Of course you have the first understand just what the real intent was in order to measure that success! Hmmm!