New Allegations of Fraud and Waste in DC

New examples of government waste are coming to light every day. Be it stimulus dollars used to buy cocaine for monkeys or public workers defrauding Social Security, it seems that the more money the government takes from us, the more creative ways it finds to waste it.

Former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino joined Varney & Co. today to weigh in on this issue.

Perino says that these wasteful projects are terrible PR for the White House, but Americans see this behavior as the new normal. “They pushed the stimulus bill through in 21 days,” Perino told Varney. “It’s not a lot of time for a nearly trillion dollar stimulus bill to go through line by line. Unfortunately, Americans have come to expect this.”

Perino is also concerned about government workers taking advantage of Social Security and disability. “People who are nearing the end of their unemployment benefits… what they call the 99-ers, because they are on their 99 weeks and they’re starting to run out… [this fraud] would make them very angry, and rightfully so,” said Perino.

There’s a bill in the Senate to further bail out the states, but some worry that this measure would only open the door to more fraud and waste. Perino’s afraid that the bill will only cause more trouble in DC… even if it doesn’t pass. “You’re going to have the toss up between Democrats and Republicans where Democrats say that the Republicans are obstructionists and they don’t want to help people. Everyone plays a stereotype at that point."