Flood money: FEMA, Katrina, and fraud.

• Author: Cavanaugh, Tim
• Position: Federal Emergency Management Agency, Government Accountability Office - Brief article

"IN ISOLATED instances, debit cards were used for adult entertainment, to purchase weapons, and for purchases at a massage parlor that had been previously raided by local police for prostitution."

That's a sample of how the decidedly disorganized Federal Emergency Management Agency has been spending between $600 million and $1.4 billion of your taxes. After looking into how FEMA has been overseeing its responsibility to provide emergency relief to Hurricane Katrina survivors, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that I6 percent of the agency's relief payments may have been erroneous--paid out to people with dummy residences, false Social Security numbers, or combinations of the two. One undercover GAO inspector scored a cool $2,358 check with a bogus address.

"This is an assault on the American taxpayer," said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul...