More Cash For More Cons!
The economic stimulation of Inmate-Americans hits 4,000 nationwide. Boston Herald:
One day after the Herald reported some surprised Bay State inmates - including murderers and rapists - were cashing in $250 stimulus checks, federal officials revealed the same behind-bars bonus was mailed to nearly 4,000 cons nationwide.
A federal watchdog is now probing how the cons were cut the checks. The same cash also may have been sent to fugitive felons, people kicked out of the country and even individuals now deceased.
It’s all part of the massive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - and what is becoming an accounting nightmare for red-faced feds.
“President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill has done more to help convicted criminals than it has to actually boost our economy and create jobs,” said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Sara Sendek.
I dunno. That’s not really a fair assessment. President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus bill gave the hack economy a real shot in the arm. Think of all the do-nothing layabouts who are still employed … let alone the government workers who actually performr useful services who undoubtedly would have been out the door ahead of them.
At $250 a head, the infusion of stimulus funds to the liberty-challenged works out to about $1 million. So don’t worry, that doesn’t even rate as pocket change in the “real money” terms Washington deal in, as earlier explained by the president of the United States. A bigger question is how much of your grandchildren’s debt burden that turns into with compound interest. Also, it’s important to note that the cons are in fact eligible for stimulation.
Among the 23 inmate recipients in Massachusetts mentioned in yesterday’s Herald are a prisoner convicted of first-degree murder, three prisoners jailed for second-degree murder and five convicted rapists, according to the state Department of Correction.
(Social Security Administration spokesman Stephen) Richardson said five Bay State prisoners received the payments legitimately because they were legally on Social Security in a three-month period before they went to jail.
Charged, on trial, convicted, maybe, but not locked up, so it’s OK.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:44 am on Wednesday, August 26, 2009
One Response to “More Cash For More Cons!”
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August 26th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I think it’s a mistake for the Republicans to focus on this relatively minor snafu. Government bureacracies stuff up routinely, so the real attention should be directed to that. Do we really want these people (with tenured Washington jobs) to handle our energy policy and the concomitant tax increases (cap-and-trade), highly restrictive regulation regarding our free markets (bail-outs), our health care and health insurance (no way to put it but nationalization on the rationed European model)?
Special consideration for convicted criminals (and groups that advocate religious terrorism) is anathema to the American people, and should be to our elected offficials. The fact that these incarcerated felons got stimulus checks isn’t really the problem. The real problem is that a government-run program couldn’t discriminate between who should get the stimulus checks, and who shouldn’t. Do we really want these same people handling heal…. well, anything?