The Year in Outrages (page 2 of 2)

• Politicians
• Politics
• Unbelievable

Unbearable

KEYSTONE KOPS AWARD
When Maryland hairdresser Elias Fishburne IV had a minor one-car accident in which no one was hurt, he was relieved. That is until, according to The Washington Post, a state trooper pulled up, ran a routine check of Fishburne's license and then, to his shock, handcuffed him, telling him he was a wanted fugitive from Atlanta named Jarvis Tucker. No one believed a terrified Fishburne when he said they had the wrong guy -- and no one performed the required background check to confirm his identity (in part, thanks to a computer system that had gone down).

Thinking it would speed up his case, Fishburne agreed to be extradited to Atlanta, without realizing that would only make police more sure he was a fugitive. After more than two weeks in jail, he endured a daylong bus ride to Atlanta with stops along the way to pick up other inmates. During the trip, he was shackled to a murderer and suffered an asthma attack that required hospitalization (and costly medical bills).

Finally, in Atlanta, a computer check caught the shocking mistake. Fishburne was released without so much as a bus ticket home, let alone an apology. When he later requested a sworn statement of his innocence from the Georgia authorities, they made him come back to Atlanta, at his own expense, to get it -- and then charged him $27 for the required fingerprinting. Talk about Southern hospitality.

BUMBLING BUREAUCRATS AWARD
You'd think that, of all people, the folks who get rich working for Uncle Sam would pay their taxes. But federal auditors found that one in ten companies that receive contracts from the U.S. General Services Administration owed back taxes -- a total of $1.4 billion. Some executives of scofflaw companies were spending their money on big mansions, luxury cars and Rolex watches. In one case, a deadbeat CEO withdrew $100,000 for gambling expenses. Other audits have found a total of nearly $6.3 billion in back taxes owed by federal contractors, $3 billion of it from companies who do work for the Pentagon.

While the law requires a check into companies' ethical records, it doesn't require a look at their tax status. And even if it did, that information isn't easily available to government workers.

It's not like this is a new problem: Contractors have been exposed for delinquencies for years. But the system never seems to change. Maybe the worst part is that being a cheat can actually help you land a lucrative contract. As one government-oversight official told a Senate panel, contractors that blow off tax obligations can lower their operating costs and thus "have an unfair advantage in price competition" when it comes to bidding. Here's a case where crime really does pay.

From Reader's Digest - December 2006

 

• Diplomatic Immunity Going Too Far
• Diplomatic immunity affords foreign diplomats in America a blank check for bad behavior. Unpaid bills, drunk driving, sex crimes and even slavery - what's the recourse?
• 
• Faking Disabilities to Collect Money
• We all pay the price when "disabled" scam artists collect big benefit bucks.
• 
• Non-Proft Execs Misue of Funds
• Nonprofit execs are getting big bucks and big perks, all on the donor’s dime.
• 

Some years ago when I worked in a bank, one of the managers entered the safe to prepare that day's cash for the tellers. When a client called asking for him, the clerk who answered the phone let the caller know that the manager was busy. "He can't come to the phone now," she said. "He's tied up in the vault."

-- Nana Hensley