Too-Speedy Bailout Spending May Squander Billions

Auditors understaffed for behemoth task, leaving field open to shifty contractors

By Ambreen Ali, Newser User

Posted Feb 9, 2009 4:24 AM CST

(Newser) – If new federal bailout funds are spent too quickly, billions could be wasted because the government administrative staff may be too overburdened to provide adequate oversight, warn budget experts. Billions of dollars in government money were squandered by private contractors who overcharged the Bush administration, according to a government report. "We're on track to lose billions, if not tens of billions, to waste, fraud and abuse," a watchdog told the Washington Post.

The government can move fast or move carefully in dispensing the funds, say experts. "You can't have both," warned a professor who studies emergency spending. "There is no way to get around having to make a choice." Some 29,000 federally contracted auditors will monitor the proposed bailout funds, to be doled out through many state and federal agencies.

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The House stimulus bill proposes doling out an unprecedented amount of funds in record time. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Defense contractors squandered billions in government money under the Bush administration. A Blackwater contractor is pictured in Iraq. (AP Photo/Gervasio Sanchez)

President Obama has vowed to provide unprecedented oversight of the stimulus package, but some say that's an impossible task. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

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We don't have the means to make sure we don't blow through billions of dollars and give it to the wrong people.
- Keith Ashdown, chief investigator, Taxpayers for Common Sense

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Too-Speedy Bailout Spending May Squander Billions