I know someone who has been in negotiations with the VA over his World War II disability payments. This guy was a Marine and was too close to a blast, and it affected him just about all over his body -- loose teeth, hearing loss, shrapnel wounds. You should see all the paperwork, the letters, the comments of the doctors doing physical exams. All of this is for a pittance, a difference of a few hundred dollars a year. Does the hearing loss qualify for a 10 percent disability or a 20 percent one? Does this particular wound meet the very precise definition for that type of wound spelled out in great detail in the official government guidelines?
This is the same government, mind you, that lets FEMA just hand money out like candy to any charlatan who comes along, no questions asked:
WASHINGTON - A FEMA official angered lawmakers Wednesday, after she cast doubt on a congressional study that concluded up to $1.4 billion of the individual aid doled out after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was spent for bogus reasons.
[. . . ]
Congress' Government Accountability Office used a statistical analysis to estimate the fraud may have totaled 16 percent of the individual assistance after the two hurricanes last year.
[. . .]
The GAO concluded that FEMA was hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and a sex change procedure. Prison inmates, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home address and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel all were able to get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye to the nation's disaster relief agency.
In its indefensible handling of immigration, the government makes people who play by the rules -- those who apply to become legal immigrants -- go through all kind of hoops, do the paperwork, learn the language, know our history, stand in line until its their turn. But it wants to give a pass to those who disregard the rules. Not only does it propose to forgive them their sins, but it is engaging in PR hucksterism to convince us they're the backbone of the nation and that any who question their legitimacy are racist nativists.
The way the government handles money falls into the same category. Those who do it right -- my acquaintance who served his country and came within a whisper of paying the ultimate price -- get put through the ringer over pennies. Those with a scam to sell find the bank is open and the guards are looking the other way.
If you want to know the real secret of the discontent felt by the great masses in bedrock America today, it is that sense of disconnect. There is a growing feeling -- at times, impossible to dispute -- that the government has become so big and unmanageable that anybody who wants to grow fat and lazy by conning it can get away with it. And the minute you play by the rules, you're screwed.
