Hey, How's the Recovery Effort Going?

Sure, the post-Katrina aid effort was looking bleak for a while. But after all the excoriating media coverage, damning GAO reports, and general finger-pointing, humiliated officials rushed to diminish—or at least mask—the stench of noxious government waste. Right? GAO hips us to some fun facts in the ongoing fraud-fest:

The government continues to waste tens of millions of dollars in its Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, including giving rent checks to evacuees already living in free housing and student aid to ineligible foreigners, U.S. investigators said Wednesday.

The Government Accountability Office also found that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been able to recoup only $7 million of the more than $1 billion in improper payments identified by investigators months ago.

Full report here.